{"id":11679,"date":"2016-01-25T09:58:17","date_gmt":"2016-01-25T15:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/?p=11679"},"modified":"2016-04-20T12:38:52","modified_gmt":"2016-04-20T18:38:52","slug":"our-first-teen-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/2016\/01\/our-first-teen-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Our First Teen Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our first teen party involving boys and girls took us by surprise one night in early 2015. Daniel asked if he could invite some friends over to play games in an hour. I assumed that Daniel was having another game night with the guys, which happens often enough. Daniel went to parties all the tim<\/span><\/span>e<\/span><\/span> with boys and girls, but never at our house. I had decided that our house was never going to be a magnet for teens. Among Daniel\u2019s friends, you will find homes with a media room, pool, trampolines, ping pong, and pool tables. We have lots of books and a piano. I thought that ours could be the “bakery house” and I began preparing chocolate chip bar cookies to serve in an hour.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Soon the doorbell rang and in walked a girl with long blonde hair with some pink or purple streaks through it. I was so surprised that I just nodded to her from the sink, speechless until I finally spurted out a little hello as she disappeared down the stairs. Mark and Timothy hurried to me in tandem, eyes wide, and nostrils a little flared. \u201cWho is THAT?\u201d one whispered, clearly amused and looking a little mischievous.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Collecting myself, trying to make it sound like it was no big deal, I said, \u201cThat\u2019s just <\/span><\/span>Gamuhmuh (mumbled)<\/span><\/span>\u2026 or somebody.\u201d <\/span><\/span>The truth was, <\/span><\/span>I didn\u2019t know <\/span><\/span>this girl that <\/span><\/span>just walked down to our basement with our 15-year-old son. I was unprepared to see girls coming in the house. No way was I ready to go downstairs to introduce myself, but I tried to listen for hints of what was going on. Now and then I heard the girl laugh. Everyone but this girl was a half an hour late to the party. I wondered if anyone else would show up. I was grateful that I had some cookies baking in the oven. This, at least, would be a way that I could naturally enter the conversation as I served cookies later. How could this girl\u00a0have such an unsettling influence on me?\u00a0Who was the adult here?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

More kids showed up at the door, some familiar, but others strangers to me. My confidence wavered <\/span><\/span>a little <\/span><\/span>as each rang the bell, <\/span><\/span>but I put on a confident face and smiled and waved from the kitchen as<\/span><\/span> their heads disappeared<\/span><\/span>\u00a0behind the banister as they walked downstairs<\/span><\/span>. When the sounds of male and female laughter continued to drift upstairs, I felt relieved that they were having fun. I began to think that it could be nice having Daniel\u2019s friends over at our house for a change. I prepared the cookies\u00a0on a plate and invited them to come upstairs.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I tried to remember all the things that make teenagers cringe about their parents. I decided to be the present, but silent type and try not to be one of them. It took me five minutes to fail with that plan in an uncomfortable attempt to joke around with one of the boys. Yes, I reminded myself, I would need to be the present, silent\u00a0type of parent for sure. As they ate their snacks in the kitchen, I sat in the next room trying to be invisible. We were watching a movie, but all I could focus on was the flirting going on in the kitchen. The memories of my teenage attempts at interaction at game parties came back to me with clarity: I had been just like these kids. My hair had been bigger, but I\u00a0was the same. And the empathy of the moment caused me some pain and a little amusement. It is hard to be a teenager.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There have been many parties, movie nights, and kids hanging out at our house since then. In the early days, I did bake, but I don’t always do that now. That first night, I learned from Daniel that they loved the baked goods; the girls liked my decorations; the house smelled good. It was a pleasant surprise to see that having a few girls over to the house made Daniel more aware of my efforts in homemaking and entertaining. I basked in the praise and the satisfaction that we can host a fun night for teens at the Ross home.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our first teen party involving boys and girls took us by surprise one night in early 2015. Daniel asked if he could invite some friends over to play games in an hour. I assumed that Daniel was having another game night with the guys, which happens often enough. Daniel went to parties all the time … Continue reading Our First Teen Party<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,31,20,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventurous-kids","category-angies-memoir-project","category-life-according-to-angela","category-motherhood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11679"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11702,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11679\/revisions\/11702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}