Shopping With Teenagers

Every so often, Hubby decides it would be nice to just pick a store and wander around. We might find something we need. We usually don’t, but you never know, it could happen. On Monday, he had such a whim and chose Target. Sigh.

First, I should mention we’d all been in this particular store before, but not often and not recently. Kjkugyhjvgstdfrdfrerdfrfrgtmnhtj  <-this is The Girl’s efforts to sabotage my ability to tell you this story. As if that were possible. She’s going to pass out from sheer exhaustion shortly. (It’s from running through the aisles like some sort of sugar-crazed lunatic.) No, seriously, don’t lick that.

Anyway … (now you understand why I don’t get writing done with the kids home, don’t you?) so we were walking around, discovering that I need to turn off the formatting symbols in Word or she’ll read EVERY DAMN ONE – so we were walking around, discovering more what they didn’t  have than what they did and found their no smoking aisle. The Boy immediately told his sister to leave. He clearly wasn’t thinking. She was.

“Are you trying to say I’m SMOKING?” (Flips hair and saunters away with what I assume was a 16year old version of a nightclub walk. Yes, I’m talking to you, girl sitting next to me in giggles.)

The Boy blushed and ignored her bum wiggles. The Girl was very keen that I use that phrase “bum wiggles.”

Moving on … DON’T LICK ME! Did I mention she’s 16?

Oh thank God, Hubby distracted her.

Moving on, we made it to the toy aisles, as they were. The Girl immediately found a 3D puzzle of The Empire State Building, which we decided you assembled then hung a sock monkey on. Then we found Minecraft Legos, which seems odd. They were both the most redundant toy there, and the most realistic Legos designed to date. (For those not familiar with the video game Minecraft, it's 1980s level graphics and all you do is build things from square blocks. Oh, and a few blocky monsters very slowly chase you. It's Legos for video gamers, assuming they don't want to play with the Legos games.)

And The Girl is back. She’s draping herself over me, demanding to be blogged like a French girl. Um … what exactly have you been reading? Oh, Titanic. Go away and sink it. She said okay, but when the police ask … “But my mom told me to do it!” Right, like she ever really listens - so I have nothing to worry about.

Further on I spy some little girls’ Disney Princess dresses. I pointed them out to the kids and asked The Boy if he thought his sister would still fit in them. Naturally The Girl gave me a horrified look, and said “No! I have hips and boobs now!” (This despite the fact she otherwise has barely grown since she was thirteen. Little girl. And I got a dirty look for that.)

“But if there was a dress for Vanellope Von Schweetz you’d try.” I smiled at her. Wreck it Ralph is one of her favorite movies and she loves that character.

“I would,” she squeaked.

I laughed, then as I am now as she relives her pain. Of course she rounded on me.

“Are you laughing at my pain?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s funny.”

And she is once again demanding if I’m entertained. Thumbs up or thumbs down? (Gladiator reference there. She’s in fine form tonight.) And The Girl and Hubby are now off on a tangent about thumbs up and thumbs down used to have reversed meaning back in ancient Rome and why and … whatever, it has nothing to do with our trip to Target.

Video Game Detox (Pending)

The Boy is thirteen and just starting eighth grade. He’s pretty typical for a teenage boy, more’s the pity. His life’s all about video games and putting off his few chores until ‘later.’ It’s a vague time reference that never seems to arrive unless his video games are threatened.

Now that school is on the horizon, I’m starting to wake him a bit earlier each morning because I’m sadistic. I mean because I’m a caring mother who doesn’t want him to fall asleep in class the way he falls asleep at the kitchen table at breakfast. Then lies down and falls asleep on the way up the stairs afterward. And in the bathroom.

  

So I’m reading parenting teenage boys books. It’s a big to hit my self-esteem. Pass the rum-filled chocolates, please. 

Occasionally something just jumps out at me. In Everything Bad Is Good For You, by Steven Johnson, the author references research done on the brains of young video gamers when he suggests the games stimulate a particular part of the brain in much the same way that crack cocaine affects the same area.

  

Hmm. Then I look at my thirteen-year-old happily driving off an overpass in Grand Theft Auto. Why he wants to drive off an overpass over and over again in different cars to see how each lands is beyond me. I think it serves to prove I’m not a thirteen-year-old boy.

So playing video games stimulates a child’s brain like drugs. It explains The Boy’s behavior. He loves his Methcraft.  I mean Minecrack. I mean Minecraft. I guess that means I need to detox him. This is not going to be pleasant.

  

Actually I think I’ll take a page from The Boy’s pagebook and finish my current reading list first. Maybe they have tips. Besides, I’ll need more rum-filled chocolates. Depending on what it says, and The Boy’s reaction, I might need to upgrade to rum-filled Coke.