10/21/06---Happy Birthday to me!!!

Yikes!  When did I get to be 45 yrs old?  Its been an interesting week, not without the usual drama (of course) here in the Bowdren household.  Kim & I went out last night and helped my good friend Pat celebrate her (cough, cough) 60th birthday at a surprise party thrown for her by her son & daughter.  She was totally shocked, which of course makes it all that much more fun.   Monday will be my brother Chip's birthday (he'll be a very young 52--cough--OLDTIMER!) and he gave me a call to wish me a happy birthday on his way to the FSU football game.

So the other night, Kim and I went to a seminar given at the kids school regarding finding different ways to afford sending your kids to college....whether its financial aid or finding different grants and scholarships...it was pretty informative.  We get home, and Kim goes to read her email and sort of gives me a solemn sounding request to come and look at something on her computer.  I'm expecting a letter that one of the kids has flunked a test at school, or is missing some homework assignment....and then I read:

"This letter is to inform you that one of the Dean's at the school caught Kellie making out with a boy in a school hallway today."

Excuse me while I let loose a parental scream.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

As my brother would say....."Now, you're OFFICIALLY the parent of a teenager."

Oh yes, it was an interesting night.  So we call Kellie out to the living room and ask her how her day went and if anything happened out of the ordinary.  And she did what any self respecting teenager would do in a situation like this:

She lied, she lied, she lied.

And you could just see that mind working a mile a minute.

"What in God's name am I going to say?  How do I get out of this one?"

And all along, Kim and I sat there....with a printed out copy of the letter in our hands.
Gotcha.  And naturally, being a good Dad....I promptly overreacted.  Hey, I'm a guy and its my little girl, what did you expect?  So a little while later Kim came into our bedroom and asked me if I was upset because she had been caught kissing a boy or because she had lied to us.

"Well," I said, "aren't you using a little semantics there?  She wasn't caught 'kissing' a boy.  She was caught 'making out' with a boy.  In my mind, those are two different things."

But my wife, God love her, she's got way more sense than me.  I'm the emotional parent, she's the analytical one.  The next day I called her at work and spoke with her about what happened and how I wanted to talk with Kellie about it that night.  Man, the world has changed so much where now you have to sit down with your daughter at age 14 and discuss things like reputations, and making out, and kissing.....it would seem like its way too young to do that....but kids aren't like they used to be......trust me.

So the three of us sat down for dinner that night (Andy had an SAT prep course and wasn't there) and had a pretty frank discussion.  I told her about the importance of having a good reputation and how, in general (and I find this to be especially true)......

Men are pigs.

And especially men when they are 14 yrs old.  I told her that while she's kissing them, thinking how nice and romantic this moment is.....most 14 yr old boys are thinking:

Will she let me go any further?

Being 45 doesn't mean that I can't remember what it was like when I was 14--trust me.
And although she seemed a touch mortified that she had to have a discussion like this with her Dad, she handled it pretty well.  Hopefully she'll remember the conversation the next time the situation confronts her....and that very thought makes me think one thing:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Parenthood.  It ain't for everyone.

Later,
Jeff