Teenagers

Well, I haven't been as pleased with my teenager lately as I would like to be. Perhaps we haven't been as hard on him lately? He seems to think he's able to make his own rules - knowing full well what our expecations are. Last night for instance I was upstairs putting Ian to bed when I heard Josh on the phone - yes, he was actually TALKING on the phone, not texting!!!! (it was 9:40pm - Ian and I had just gotten home from our date). He is supposed to be in bed with the lights out at 10pm so with him on the phone and still not showered I knew he was running behind. SO, I told him he needed to be getting off the phone and heading to the shower. Well, at 9:59pm I had to tell him again!! Then, he finally got in the shower a little after 10pm which means he probably wasn't lights out until 10:30pm or so. Now, I know he's a Junior in high school and I also know I was up late on school nights but this boy just won't get up if he isn't in bed at a decent hour!! To be honest he takes after me in that respect but I'm the MOM!! {smile} Plus, he knows the rules and he chooses to break them. So, now we are thinking about having him bring his phone downstairs at 9:30pm so he'll be in bed on time.

Then, there's the whole money issue. We've told Josh for years that in order for him to have a car, he will buy Brian's car for the cost of Brian's replacement car's first car payment so, roughly, around $400. Well, here we are only a couple of months away from the time he'll be able to get his license and the boy has NO MONEY!! We've been trying to get the boy to get a job for months and he's put in a couple of applications only because we made him and he's had one application for a couple of weeks now that he continues to not ask his teacher for his number as a reference for. ARGH! The last few mornings on the way to school I've done nothing but nag the boy and I hate it! It's not like he has a ton of homework filling up his afternoons so he could really use a job to fill up some time and pay for all of his "extra-curricular" activities.

Oh, one more thing. We've told him for a while that he is unable to "date" until he finishes a series that he and Brian started going through years ago in Ohio that establishes him as "man" with Christian values and integrity - sort of a rite of passage thing. Well, he and Brian have started back at it but we just found out last weekend that Josh is "in a relationship" (as his myspace says). When we questioned Josh about it he said - you didn't say I couldn't have a girlfriend, just that I couldn't go on dates!!!! Tell me if I'm wrong but did I miss something? Teenagers!