Summer Daze

My Mom Is Ruining My Life (Logan Bond Novels) by Beverly J. Crawford

Also available for Nook and on Amazon UK!

It’s summer, and the kids are out of school.

Kids.  They’re a blessing, a trial, a drama, a mystery and a constant joy.   Mine are older now, but that doesn’t diminish any of these aspects.  In fact, it makes motherhood more interesting.  As the kids grow and change, your focus grows and changes with them.  The Good Lord knew what he was doing when he wired mothers.

My 20-year-old son is quiet and studious, but he’s also a lot like Jeremy, the teenage boy in the comic strip “Zits.”  In fact, most mornings when I read The Washington Post, I’m LOL at Jeremy’s antics.  Many times, I tear out a relevant “Zits” strip to show my son when he rises (usually around 2 p.m., since he didn’t find a job this summer).  He humors me with a perfunctory laugh, grabs some food and then goes back to whatever he’s doing up there in his man cave.  Since he put in the mini-fridge, he’s reduced the number of trips he has to make to the kitchen.  Economy of motion is what he’s all about.

My 14-year-old daughter is just the opposite.  If she’s not busy and surrounded by friends, she’s bored, and then she wants me to take her shopping.  Financially, it’s “six of one, a half dozen of the other”:  either spend money buying her clothes or spend money feeding the hordes of middle school kids hanging around the house.   I used to be pleased when her friends offered to help bring in the groceries after I returned from a trip to Costco.  Then I realized they had an ulterior motive as they proceeded to devour my bounty like a cloud of locusts.

With my daughter and her girlfriends, it’s all about doing their hair and nails, tanning, watching YouTube and talking.  With her friends who are boys (as opposed to “boyfriends”), all bets are off.  They tend to be – how shall I put this? – more rambunctious than the girls.  Any physical damage to the house or its contents, anything strange and/or out of place, can be attributed to them with near certainty.

My son and daughter sometimes join in these antics as guest participants, but the real culprits are the ones who use my house as their laboratory of mischief.  We simply call them, “The Boys.”  It’s hard to head off the mayhem because I never know where or how it will strike next, and it usually takes place when I’m not at home.

“Why is the dog dressed in a Santa suit in July?” I ask.

Daughter:  “The Boys, but I TOLD THEM NOT TO!”

“Why is there a hole in the basement drywall that wasn’t there this morning?”  I ask.

Daughter:  “The Boys, but I TOLD THEM NOT TO!”

“Why is my ball of yellow yarn fully unwound and booby-trapping an entire room?”

Daughter:  “The Boys, but I TOLD THEM NOT TO!”

You get the picture.  My all-time favorite was when I found a sticky patch of charred grass, 6 inches in diameter, in my previously pristine backyard.  Since I was fairly certain that no small alien spacecraft had landed there recently, I asked my daughter if she knew anything about the attractive blackened circle out back.

“Oh, yeah, Mom.  The Boys were roasting marshmallows with a lighter to make s’mores.  I TOLD THEM NOT TO, but they did it anyway!  But at least they didn’t do it in the house, right?  LOL!”

Ah, the crazy daze of summer.

Bev