We recently had a teenager officially join our family. I thought I had several more years to prepare myself for a teenager. I have always been that person who thought I would be the cool Mom. I was going to be that Mom who listened to the same music they did and drove a cool car and wore cool clothes and never said stupid stuff that embarrassed my kid.
Yeah. That'll happen.
I am now getting a clear picture of what living with a teenager is like and you know what? Me? I'M A DORK.
Lexy has been a regular visitor to our house ever since Drew was tiny. She was about 13 when we first met. When she was younger I was kind of cool because I wasn't quite as old as a Mom would be, but not quite close enough in age to be just like her friends. Instead I was like this older sister type that she didn't actually grow up with, but who bought her shit all the time. It helped that I bought copious amounts of Starbucks for the two of us. I also never enforced bedtime, encouraged late night cookie dough binging, fully sponsored all night chick flick marathons, made sure she played hooky from responsibility whenever possible, kept the fridge fully stocked with Pepsi and paid her WAY too much when she would babysit.
Flash forward to today. Lexy is 18, about to graduate high school and has moved in with us. I am now five years older than when we met, five years more jaded and five years more removed from anything resembling modern teenage culture. I am also bugging her about school, job, grades and going to college in the fall. I think I have officially entered that purgatory between cool older sister and nagging Mom. I still encourage late night cookie dough binges, but there is no playing hooky from responsibility. I can most definitely plant at least one foot in the "old camp." It doesn't help that I got a social security statement in the mail today.
Thanks Mr. Government Man. Your timing is impeccable as usual.
Anyway, this evening's family festivities have consisted of eating hotdogs and french fries while scaring ourselves silly watching Ghost Hunters. Then we sat around watching Pants Off/Dance Off and shouted incredibly rude comments about the contestants. I must interject that I may be old, but I am still the Queen of the insanely-rude-but-still-funny commentary.
In between my loud and quite snarky musings, Lexy played portions of rap songs and attempted to educate Eric and I on modern teenage culture. It's fabulous how incredibly out of touch we are. We feel like Martians. And not cool Martians. The uncool Martians that Marvin the Martian would zap with his death ray. You might even say that we are mullet-wearing butt rockers trying to hang with Jay-Z and Beyonce and throw out gang signs.
Here is some of what I have learned:
1. I could not possibly text message as much as teenagers do. Even if I texted every single person in my Outlook address book 10 times every day I still couldn't keep up with the volume of text messages flying back and forth.
2. I don't understand the fashion. I just can't get comfortable with showing my underwear. Even on days where the underwear are pretty AND clean. I still don't want to show them in public. Oh. And boys in pants that sit somewhere around their knees and their undies are all hanging out? I just want to pants them.
3. I can't understand half of what teenagers are saying. Some examples:
"Beezie" = this is sort of like being called a bitch, but worse.
"Crunk" = wasted. Crazy drunk.
"Hyphy" = this means going dumb or going stupid.
"Ghost riding" = getting out and dancing on your car while your car is still moving and no one is driving.
"Whip" = car
"spit your game" = hit on a girl
"Super soak that 'ho" = not just hitting on a girl, but giving her your best game
"what it do" = what's up
"yadidi mean" = do you know what I mean
"yada digga my jig" = do you like what I am doing, do you feel me
"yada digga my jigga my cut" = do you like my song, do you like my music
I am sure you can understand my complete and utter confusion. You can also understand how I came to the horrific discovery that FEELING like you are still 18 and actually BEING 18 are SO NOT THE SAME THING.
Sometimes when I am driving Lexy and her friends somewhere and they are so sweetly trying to include me in their conversation I feel like that part from Finding Nemo where the little turtle is trying to tell Marlin and Dory how to exit the East Australian current and Marlin says, "It's like he's trying to speak to me!"
I don't think Lexy thinks I am all that cool anymore. She very kindly tells me I am not a dork, but I know that I am only slightly less dorky than I would be if I was her Mom. I think that is only because I still buy lots of Starbucks for the two of us.
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