stressedmomu2

It was there this morning.  I had it with me at all times, not that I really have to keep an eye on it.  Then suddenly, I turn my back for one teeny, tiny little second and *POOF* it’s gone.  I don’t understand it.  Anyone who has teenagers will understand the pressure to keep a straight face, a clear mind and not completely ‘flip out’ on a daily basis.  They will test you… oh, yes, they will test you.  They will test your education, bringing home their 10th grade biology and asking you for help.  They will test your memory, asking to borrow the car knowing full well they are grounded from it because they brought it back Saturday night on ‘E’.  They will test your heart strings, coming home heart broken because some guy didn’t ask them to the big dance.  They will test the boundaries of your checking account by asking for just $50 for the shoes they have to have.  But then they test your patience…

For example, I have a 14 year old daughter.  Now that in and of itself is no big deal, she’s a great kid, she’s a great student and for the most part, she is like every other 14 year old girl, just to be on the safe side, I will explain that one.  They are boy crazy.  They are clothes/shoes/purse/makeup crazy.  They are on the phone 24 hours a day seven days a week (the only time mine comes off of the phone is for food, going to the bathroom or sleep and if she could figure out a way around those, she would.)  Get two or three of them together, put them in a mall and you have yourself entertainment for the day.  No, seriously, it’s true!

My daughter wanted to talk to me about boy stuff and friend stuff and stuff in general.  Cool.  I am always up for this because I like to stay as involved in her life as I can, I figure this way she’s giving me information that I wouldn’t know otherwise.  So she starts talking about her friends, Karen, Chloe, Mia, Daphne, Camile, and then that word comes out, you know the one that they say over and over and over again.  I am sitting on her bed and I am trying to concentrate on her soap opera story from school about how ‘this girl likes this boy, but this boy likes this girl’ and all the drama brought on by said predicament, but I can’t get past the word.  I hear it constantly.  I can’t stop hearing it, because she doesn’t stop saying it.  And then, I start counting it.  One.  Two.  Three.  I couldn’t help myself.  It just happened. 

It was then that she stopped all together and stared at me.  ‘Mom, what are you laughing at?  I am being serious.  This is a really big deal and you’re laughing.’  It was at this point that I tell my daughter that she said the word ‘LIKE’ approximately 23 times in about 5 sentences and that’s not counting the ones that happened before I starting counting…. my patience had run out for the ‘LIKE’ word and ever since then I can’t find it anywhere.

I know it’s gone, I can feel the tension in my neck getting worse from all of the things that are getting on my last nerve and that too is threatening to hit the road pretty quick if patience doesn’t make an appearance!  Maybe whoever it is that stole my patience would be willing to make a trade, I mean seriously I don’t have much sanity left, I would gladly trade that for my patience or maybe I should say that my family would …..