Teen-aged

Our oldest is now fourteen. Not sure how that happened, or how it happened so quickly. However, fourteen he is.

I drove him and a friend around the other day, and his friend commented that he only says five words per day to his family. I'm sure he doesn't actually count the words, but his point was that he doesn't talk to them much and that he is annoyed with them. This sort of mentality is starting to sound familiar with our own son.

There is a lot going on in his life. We just moved to another town, which will involve a new set of friends and a new school. This is his first year of high school. He has recently taken an increased interest in girls (part of the reason moving was so tough for him). He believes he is getting more mature, and therefore he is often more annoyed with younger kids, especially siblings. I'm sure hormones are rushing through his body with all of the accompanying joys of adolescence...He could sleep in until noon every day if we let him, is always hungry, fights acne daily and is often a bit aloof lately.

Incidentally, I remember all of these feelings acutely from my own teenage years. I remember my parents hollering for me to wake up and feeling like my body was completely wiped out. I remember being puzzled as to why my parents felt bad that I'd rather spend time with friends than with them. And I remember feeling like the proper serving size for pizza was an entire large box per person.

I'm not sure how much of our fourteen-year-old's recent melancholy and melodrama is from the recent move and how much is adolescence in general. Whatever it is, I wish I knew the magic answers for raising teenagers. It has officially begun.