Friday, November 4, 2011

Fill In the BlahBlahBla Blanks

75% of parenting is logic, knowledge, research and innate. The other 25% is dumb luck, playing the odds, process of elimination and flat out guess work.

When they are babies, you guess while they won't stop crying, and what is causing excess gas and sleeplessness. Toddlers present mysteries surrounding fears, rational and irrational, along with that fantastic game...'guess what it was and guess where I put it?'

By the time your precious bundles of joy hit middle school parental confidence is cresting high. The mere fact that they, and you, have survived that ambiguous 25% 'could go either way' factor for 12 or 13 years is a huge confidence boost! I for one believed that I had acquired the insight of the Mentalist and the instinct of Colombo.

... and Blahblahblah...
Then yesterday we had this conversation around the dinner table. I say conversation but really we were an audience to KJ's monologue that went something like this.....

"....and then Mrs. M was like "Katelin, pick up your work and move to that other station and blahblahblah." So then I did and Marcus unplugged my keyboard and plugged his in and ya, so every time I tried to do something he hit the back button on me or searched a new page and I was like stop and blahblahblah. And then at lunch Dillon took my Arizona and ran away and I was like get back here cause that's not even my drink and Suzy was like ya and blahblahblah.

I won't prolong the torture, that's enough to get the jist across. All those 'likes' and blahblahblahs are ACTUAL WORDS used as part of the conversation, not fillers I put in to get to the end faster.No, she really said them, like the rest of us are on the receiving end of some live reality twitter feed meant to guess the words that round out the story.

I haven't understood a conversation in our home in 3 months, not since Blahblahblah became the catch all phrase. I'm not going to complain though I might not have a clue what they are saying but the teenagers are still talking! I'm grateful for that!