Surviving 14 or Grunting through grade 8

I have just been deleted as a contact on my son’s BlackBerry Messenger because I was making comments on his status. I am not sure what I have done wrong – isn’t that what you are supposed to do?

My 14 year old son has, in a very short while, become the tallest in the family. I remember I spent his first two years comparing him to his older sister (she didn’t climb the burglar bars or do a back flip off the top of the couch) before I accepted that he was different. But now I am back to comparing...

About two years ago, I became “untouchable” – any public displays of affection suddenly and without warning, stopped – no hugs, certainly no kisses and a display of indifference as to whether or not I was watching games (although I know that last one is all an act when he asks “Did you see me score the goal?”). Now I have to suffer being picked up, mauled or nearly bowled over, in a display of manliness. It reminds me of the Golden Labrador we had when he was two years old – it was a six month old puppy in a dog’s body.

Doors are being slammed and pointedly locked – this from someone who once streaked from our chalet at a resort in Mauritius, all the way down to the water. He seems to have lost the power of speech and only speaks in monosyllables or grunts. SMS is no better – ‘Y’ (why) and ‘K’ (okay). At the same time I now strangely seem to have lost my hearing, in my "old age". I am also not as clever as I used to be, and when I sing along to a song on the radio, it must be a remix from “my day”.

He does manage a full sentence - as in “What’s to eat?” – spoken in a very low growl. I swear he is eating us out of house and home. Which brings me to all the shopping over the last 6 months - we have replaced his entire wardrobe including school uniforms, sports kit and shoes. He is now making noises about nothing fitting him – if you are not careful, you could be bankrupted in the process. 

And talking about clothes – in the last week I have sewn buttons on shirts, shorts and blazer more times than I care to count – I have mental images of boys swinging each other around by their clothes, buttons popping off. Or maybe there is a Hulk-like conversion taking place?

So, if you are a mother to sons, I wish for you a secret trust fund, a large fridge, a wallop of patience and a thick skin. 

Chalk and Cheese

I find it fascinating how children who are birthed from the same parents, who grow up in the same house with the same circumstances turn out so differently. I guess when you throw two different adults together and make a baby; you take potluck with how they are likely to turn out.

Sailing and horse riding are sports with a certain genteelness that I certainly did not grow up with. My son is a fan of both and it matters little to him that no one in the family shares that passion. Similarly, he plays the clarinet. Although we all love music, none of us play an instrument. My daughter briefly played the recorder in grade one, as a requirement of the syllabus but dropped it with little further interest. She did not even try out for the school choir, dismissing it as being for children who needed to learn how to sing.

She sleeps like a log, since an early age has invited all she meets to come round and visit and leaves everything till the last minute because she “works best under pressure”. She's travelled like a dream since she was nine months old. My son on the other hand does not mind his own company (choosing solitary interests to occupy himself) sleeps like a flea and is more focused and conscientious about his work. If it wasn’t for the fact that he looks like me and shares other characteristics too, I would be inclined to believe my daughter’s assertion that he was swopped at birth.

I spent the first two and a half years of his life comparing him to his sister before I accepted that this little boy had his own agenda and was blazing his own trail. Now that adolescence has dawned I find myself comparing them again. My daughter breezed her way through but it seems like it may be pay-back time with my son. 

Both of them have enriched my life in so many ways, teaching me so much and often pushing me out of my comfort zone (like when I decided to take horse riding lessons). If sailing proves to be a lasting passion, I might have to take to the water soon.