Mike just dropped Ian off at the ski area - he called me four times before he got home (I did not answer)so by the time he got home (and I had not answered) he was really upset.
He thinks Ian is ungrateful. He thinks Ian is spoiled. He thinks Ian is unappreciative. He thinks Ian is self-absorbed.
My mental/silent response to this was, DUH.
Of course he is, he's 13 and his job in life is to annoy us. That's it; he lays in bed at night devising ways to annoy us.
He's no different from any 13 year old except that a 13 year old girl will also roll her eyes and flip her hair. Ian merely ignores us and his hair isn't long enough to flip.
I reminded Mike of how Jordan was for about five years until he went to college. People in town would stop us and say "Your son Jordan is the sweetest most respectful young man I've ever met." People with daughters would accost me in the Post Office with not-so-subtle remarks about their daughter and what a great pair Jordan and their daughter would make.
I was confused after these conversations. I was convinced there was another dark-haired, tall kid named Jordan who drove a brown pickup. Because this couldn't be the Jordan that lived at our house. Not the Jordan who either grunted or answered in mono-syllabic words whenever Mike or I asked something complicated like, "Could you please pass the ketchup?" This was not the Jordan who got his truck stuck in our driveway (in our driveway) and called me from his cellphone asking if I would drive my car out of the garage and pull him out. This was not the Jordan who one night, at midnight, woke me up to ask if he could drive down to Denver and hang out with some friends - it was January and we were currently under an official blizzard watch, and when I said no he slammed my bedroom door and yelled how I was going to ruin his life. This was not the Jordan who one night at dinner, when I said something about how our pigs were about ready to go to the butcher, pigs we had for four months and who you could see from just about every window in our house, looked up from shoveling food in his mouth and said, "We have pigs?"
When he finally graduated from high school I would meet these same mothers in the post office and they'd lament the fact that soon their child would be leaving the house. One mother even started crying whereby I remarked that she should probably get a job (obviously I would not be a good counselor) I was not a good mother, in fact, I'm pretty sure I was a horrendous mother. I was glad Jordan was leaving the house. I tried to convince him that he needed to be moved into his dorm room one month before school started and the
school was just lying to him about the move-in dates.
Jordan is now about to graduate from college and he has become a personable, mature, interesting person and now I really do miss him. I reminded Mike of this and we both know that this too will pass. Ian will one day become a personable, mature, interesting person.
But until he does I guess the only thing to do is have a glass, or two of wine and say yes, everytime he asks to spend the night at someone else's house.
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