A short Conversation

A grade Student: Its forecast, I'll probably get 3 A's this summer.

A poor parent: Art, Religion and Sport  do not count.

B to the C to the D... Grade Student:............(silence with pouty face)

13 Lucky for some.......

I bring you belated yuletide tidings and confess this blog will get a litle more occasional as the teens are young adults deserving better than to be called teens.
And touch wood seem to be making a fine forrest for me to touch. I am afraid I am in danger of suffering Proud Dad Syndrome, perhaps its always been there, dormant.

Maybe one day I will remember and write that 13 is a lucky age for grandparents. We will see.

Mojo Risin'

There is a line that some parents say that goes "I hope my children do not grow up like me", for me I hope they grow up better.

There were times they needed me for reasons as obvious as the oxygen we breathe. And the time will come soon that they will leave the nest and it will be me that needs them. But I will stay silent and hope they visit me sometimes.

And I will remember the old times, in between  my tea-time coffee and bedtime coffee and readying the hot water bottle.  I will remember schoolnight looks of homework despair, weekend chats about things important and not so important, and the unconvincing explanations why the jacket smells of smoke, but its probably my nose is old and infested. But I will stay silent and hope they phone me once in a while.

I fear my silence is a sacrifice to the greater good, for I know that they will have lives to lead, I hope. So I imagine there is  real  silence, a lack of noise, exuberance,  energy, the silence will not only be mine.
Turning the telly on will be no substitute for a boy shut in the room and the annoying ungrateful murmurings of a 'bad'-'sick'-'dope' drum-base beat competing with a telly, my telly. A kettle boiling contentedly will not replace a daughter remonstrations of child labour slavery and that she cannot make a cup of tea because she has despairing homework to do.

I will deep down be happy in my silence, that touch wood, touch my brain and touch my heart, they will be good in the future. I hope they will have followed my good points, the better things I said, the timely jokes that caused a smile of weepy face, good advice on bully posturing that made tomorrow ok, an acceptance that all kids canot get straight 'A's, a cheering to the heavens when a kid gets an 'A', making a nice of cuppa tea to help with the homework that she should have made for me by all things a tea-drinking adult needs by reasons of age and wisdom.
On the otherhand, I hope they have also laid bare my bad and forgiven my odd bad call, or to be honest calls. The days when the wisdom seemed witless, my being human sometimes meant getting it wrong. And I hope silently they forgive me a little and forget a lot.

And when their time comes to be the best Mum and Dad, they will do it better than me and my grandkids, perhaps, do it better than they.

A long time ago, my father of modest means and modest manner, boasted of me to a friend, a colleague, a man walking down a street; I was the boy with a brain, his boy with a brain, about to enter the hallowed turf of a University, see, and he embarrassed me so.

Afterwards I asked why the bloody hell? or perhaps even in less appropriate words.

And he explained it.... I somehow proved he was not that dull boy that became a dull man, that his labourer's hands had suggested and that his friend, colleague, and man in the street had mocked, as labourers do over a tea, a tea break once too often, a pint, a pint too many.

I forgave, hiding the dust in my eyes, grown men don't cry, because I thought he was the best dad that could ever be.

Time to pass on the mojo torch to the next generation.

Mojo Fallin'

I am in danger of losing my Daddy mojo, my Iggy lust for life, my animo, my wait for a pop art 15 minutes of fame that is still not quite here and I confess I am in fear of it not coming. I am apparently neither over the moon or  over the rainbow and its autumn of my life..... I am getting on a bit.

I have an elbow that kickstarts a day with a crick that is reached by achieving warp factor one-ish, by movement measured in degress of  motion that saps the energy and challenges the mental bravery. Bending is becoming a sort of torture of  the soul. Once cricked, the elbow can flex kinda normally for a good 12 hours before  resettting itself to frozen during the night as if by some black magic voodoo doll curse. I am no doctor, but I suspect this is not good.

I have kids that beat me at things, it gets worst, its happening lots of time, my superiority in height was over months ago, my superiority in general knowledge is down to historical events over twenty years ago, my superiority in being clever is losing out to Master Clever and Miss Cleverest, my top comic genius is being is reduced to being the lowest form of wit.

I have diseases that my father had.
I have growths that have suddenely metamorphasised to launch acting careers and are auditioning for parts in a Hobbit movie.
I have a girth that proverbs about belt and braces was made for.
I  have glasses that either see far away or see near up, my eyes appear to see a very strict radius of focus that makes reading uncomfortable or at the other extreme bloody dangerous for passengers and pedestrians alike.

My kids now doing the screwing of screws, and the unscrewing of bottle caps that have been factory closed to be middle age proof, as a revenge for those days as a functioning adult I was called upon to flex the non crickety elbow to open the child proof tops.

My kids put tunes on my ipod as if the electronical digital world is beyond my IQ range or at least below my enthusiasm level

I am becoming more feeble that weeble that wobbles and does fall down.

I am entering the manopause.

Its time to keep calm and carry on eating the chocolate.

Taking the pledge

Perhaps its time for a thought for a day.......Abstinence  can be a good thing from a liver-kidney perspective, on the otherhand  when the lubrication is causing a fair degree of mirth then well... I am all for otherhands like  Hindu goddesses.

And so perhaps for another day another thought......being a nominated driver is a duty to be shared.

Two days make a weekend and thoughts collide in what is probably the vacuum of middle aged brain.

So as a parent I am somewhat in world of forced abstinence and 24/7 commitment to chauffering  as nominated by a shared DNA. Perhaps I exaggerate, but this thought merging-collision- fusion can be dangerous....I am getting critical in my old age. Grumpiness appears to inescapably linked to my middle age girth. Not a good thing.

I have time to think....... sitting in a car, when he is late on promises to be here sitting in a passenger seat, because of his friends are no doubt enjoying the pa..aaart-ee and he too. Biding my time waiting in Grumpiness and  somehow hoping one giant leap for teenage kind is not really a leap to Granpa-ness before my time.

And  my friends are probably drinking possibly a pint or two and laughing at jokes shared. I fear I am not the perfect serenity of parenthood that I should be - I am Teetotal by Teenager.

I will wait. He will be safe, my liver will be relieved a little and soon I can pay for driving lessons with the beer money saved. Every cloud has a .....

The Four Elements of Teenage

There are certain things in life which brings a universal balance and others which do not. Raging hormones, I fear are not balance-equilibrium- world  peace thing bringers. But teenage years go by;  we,  or really they, are hopefully getting there. I am getting philosophical here which is probably not a good sign in my parenting.

As a firm believer in  that I probably know more than my teenagers because I am by any definition older than they are. I am more fire and brimstone than fire extinguishers and stoney-rocky things that do not brim, but maybe I need to consider other concepts.......

I have been active in my studies of the teenagers and took a healthy interest in their development and now I am passive observer as they considered my interest as intrusion.

I am not really one for all this earth wind, water and fire, the "four elements" apparently, although I may be wrong and should have checked with Wiki.

However I am now in a position to break the mould with my ground-breaking paradigm from my ongoing study of teenager-parent- paper-scissors-stone trials of parenthood...I present to you the "Four Elements of Teenage". I say to you -  Blood, water, stoney-rock thing, and hard place.

My theory is based on undoubtable logic of the teenage maelstrom, unless you wish quibble over stones and rocks not being the same thing. I am adult I can change it to 'Five' for hair-splitters, or if one is an older adult thinning hair splitters.

So to explain...

As a parent I gotta be there for them as blood is thicker than water,  so I stand in silence remembrance as communication is like getting blood from a stone, which leaves me between a rock and hard place, wanting to help and being unwanted.

On the other hand, I think I may be reading too many  books about cliches to compensate for these in-penetratable silences.

The Human Alarm Clock

I am off to foreign climes, where the sun does shine, to earn the Yankee dollar and sit in meeting rooms where the sun does not shine. This calls upon me to get-up an ungodly hour to face the taxi drive to a nearest airport.

My son on the otherhand is not getting up at ungodly hour because he will already be up at an ungodly hour. He has announced his intention to party in some home somewhere and return sometime in the night that may be morning. Initially described as a home, under interrogation it becomes a house, but under further interrogation it is apparently a building, occasionally occupied by a club and therefore perfect for rock'n' roll or as hip-hop rave or something. We are grateful  for his announcement, albeit with so many caveats it probably needs a legal review. It would have been nice to have been asked, but this still should be seen as a positive that we were still in the circle of trust to at least be informed.

We can still worry, but at least we know what we are worrying about. I think.

He says he may be late.

I feel our ships in the night that becomes morning may cross, my breakfast will be his supper. No need for an alarm clock for me then.