They are here. And in my opinion, it’s much, much, much too soon. The attitude, the huffiness, the impatience for anything parent related, the drama, shutting himself in his room over every little thing, the problems in school, the realization that while girls are still gross, there is still just something about them that makes you crazy.

Pre-teen hormones.

I’ve dreaded this day. It’s been building slowly over the last few months. I notice he huffs a lot more. He gets really frustrated when something doesn’t go his way. And you know, Jason and I were just saying that we’re in the “home stretch” with Ty. He’s 9, we’re half way there. Well, I know that you never really stop being a parent, but we’re half way to the day we can say he’s an adult. Hmmm, well, maybe not, I know some 40 year olds I wouldn’t say are “adult”, but you get my point right? Sometimes I think it’s too bad that the second half is the teenage years. I was wondering the other day if maybe the teenage years were like giving birth, after awhile your memory fades and you forget about how truly horrible and painful it was. But after talking to my mom the other day about my teen years, I realized that just isn’t the way it works. She still has pretty vivid memories of my terror tactics. And I’d like to add she’s enjoying watching us deal with even the little bit Ty is dishing out now. She’s enjoying it a little toooooo much! I’m really looking forward to spending a lot of time with Ty this summer, I think we both need it. We have always been really close, it was just the two of us for so long. At least he talks to me, I mean really talks to me, I love that. I hope that sticks.

Poor Ty though. Jason and I aren’t really into “traditional” tactics in dealing with the drama. An example, when we went to Austin, we stopped at a mall in Cedar Park to pick up the kids some clothes. We took Ty to look at the shoes, he really needed a new pair. Of course he picked out something we hated, orange striped things, ick. When I told him he needed to pick out something else he started huffing. So, it was time to go, we’ll get shoes later. Well, he decided to start huffing and crosses his arms and refuses to walk next to us through the mall. Weeee, decided to duck behind a rack of clothes and mess with him a little. He got about 30 feet away and turned to see where we were, instant panic, 9 year old little boy replaced Mr. Pre-teen Huffy Pants and he starts looking for us. We reveal ourselves laughing, which forces Mr. Pre-teen Huffy Pants to return and emphasize the huffs, the arms and the stomping off ahead of us by 10 fold. I thought it was pretty funny, so did Jason. Then he gets to the escalator because we parked on the second floor of the mall, he goes up and we stay down at the bottom shaking our heads and motioning to him asking where he’s going. Well, this just makes him even more mad because he knows we’re parked up there. We motion for him to come down again and once he gets on the escalator to come down, we hop on the one going up and wave with smiles. Yes, we’re evil. He rushes to get down and then hurries up behind us going up, but we stood shoulder to shoulder so he couldn’t pass. Oh the drama. We think we’re funny. He doesn’t.

So I was telling my mom this story and she says “So, everyone was acting like small children at the mall then huh?” She might have a point. Children raising children…..could result is some pretty interesting blog posts for say, oh, the next 9 years or so…..

I’ve posted this before but here is the sweet 9 year old boy….Mr. Huffy Pants eludes me.

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