4 Going on 14

When did my children get to be teenagers?

I had been operating under the assumption that they were two and four, when they are, in fact, 12 and 14 with attitudes to match.  It seems that almost every word I speak is met with an exaggerated eye roll or a "tsk" of the tongue that almost every moody adolescent inserts in conversation as if it were a word itself.

So I wasn't surprised when Cael's attitude reared it's ugly head in the middle of an activity that should have been otherwise pleasant.  Yesterday, after serving up lunch to my boys and our neighbor and seeing that everyone, miraculously, ate all of the bites on their plates, Papa suggested that we take a quick drive down the road to enjoy a small ice cream treat.

Before I continue, I must take a moment to brag.  My kids are constantly defying the laws of the universe like the sound barrier and gravity (what goes up does not always come down-- check out my ceilings and you'll see what I mean) but the Discovery Channel or even NASA would have been impressed by the manner in which Graham took a small cup of twist ice cream and practically bathed in it-- melted cream dripping from his elbows and nose and eyelashes.  No more than 1/2 cup of ice cream morphed into at least a gallon of wet and sticky that I'll be lucky to have contained by his third birthday.


I'm still pulling ice cream-covered ducks and engorged fish out of him.  FEMA, where are you?

The other boys enjoyed their treat as well.  Cael inhaled the icy mess in record time and sat, huffing and sighing, as he watched the other boys eat after I refused to purchase a second cup for him.  Papa and I had ordered sandwiches and as we waited for them to be prepared, we pulled out our phones and snapped cute photos of the boys as they unsuccessfully chased every drip of vanilla and chocolate.

A particularly cute shot of Cael displaying a particularly uncharacteristic gentleness caught my eye on Papa's phone.  I emailed it to myself, but paused, mentioning to Papa that the photo quality on our phones was such that I probably couldn't have it printed, but wanted to do something with it just the same.

"What could I do with this photo?" I wondered aloud.

"Ugh.  Come on, Mom.  I know what you'll do with it."

"What, Cael?"

"Duh.  Stick it on Facebook."

I guess I can cross "ice cream" off my list of potential attitude antidotes.  

"Yesh, DUH Mama!"

Maybe I need to start searching for a cure for Graham as well. 

...Snow cones?