Their Faces Each Lite Up By Their Phones

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The 3 teenager girls in high heels and fancy dresses sat in the back of my dark truck, their faces each lite up by their phones. It was 10:30 at night. I was driving them home from their first homecoming dance as 9th graders. My daughter sat in the front seat beside me. I unfortunately had to leave my dog home in bed with my wife after I got the call to come pick the girls, and after we hit the pause button on the laptop watching Weeds.

All day long there were teenage girls here at the house, it actually started Friday night for the first sleep over. No wait... it started around 3pm when I picked RG up and took her to get her hair recolored back to her original color, closer to blond (which didn't really work and cost too much - oh well).


Hum... I am embarrassed to say that I blew it, I dropped the ball, totally forgot that I was suppose to pick up another kid, not mine, at another school at take her home. Crap, my younger kid is in a play (two plays), I wasn't suppose to pick her up until 6:30, with a burrito in hand and take her to another play practice and then pick her up at 9:30 and bring her home - big day yes we all know. But I totally forgot about another kid, sorry!

So yesterday was filled with teenage girls, a very messy room that I asked more than once to be cleaned up, bed made, never happened. I let it go. I did make them clean up the kitchen and living room for mom (the wife) who was in one of those "everything is a mess" modes and we all know to take note and make sure it's clean before she comes home again to keep away from the wrath of menopause.

I told the teens to "get outside, it's a beautiful day" more than once, that didn't happen so I let that go too. They stayed inside all day long and did their girl stuff. I on the other hand go out into the yard and did some of my favorite things - getting dirty in the yard and work with my hands. I laid the outer ring of bricks around our fire pit. And then I took off to explore the base (decomissioned naval air base) with my camera and hit the gym for a hot tub!


When I came home the girls were ready, my wife helping out for while hours, bless her. And I had the unique pleasure of driving them both ways to their first homecoming dance.


~Mark

www.theartofbeingadad.com
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IT'S NOT ABOUT BEING LATE, it's about being your word

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She had already called several times, pushing the time to return back and back. I said, "be back before 8pm or there will be consequences, understand?" Yes, yes, yes... and go figure, she comes in 6 minutes after... of course with excuses. I took her iphone from her for a week - harsh!

Next night, my wife is out of town, I need to be out for the night, I need the same girl as above to be home by 5pm so her younger sister won't be home alone for long. Things change, I move the time to 5:30 and it's agreed upon. At 5:45 I call home, she's not there. I call again at 6pm and find her there. Dudette, what's up? You just got your phone taken away from you for a week for not being your word and out of integrity. I was bummed, I was going to ground her more, no sleep overs next weekend, but realized I would give her an option, the previous ground or write a paper and make a piece of art about being your word and keeping commitments - by next weekend. She picked the later.

I was away for the weekend. I was with 6 men, a young man (15), and a dog. We were working with the young man, male initiation stuff. I'll write about it later, really cool shit! Honored to be part of it all.


Sunday night, I am talking to my young woman (14) and I remember something... what was it? Oh, the paper and artwork. Where is it? Hum... forgot... when you finish them you can have your phone back again! Oh she hated that, hated me, but as she says, she can only stay mad at me for about 10 minutes. She sat down and wrote me a 9 page paper, first starting out about the topic and then quickly going into a cool intimate honest piece about her truth, about her story, and her feeling about it all. That's pretty good! She was afraid she would hurt my feelings and I was thrilled she got into it so much. It was a good connection for us.

IT'S NOT ABOUT BEING LATE.

www.theartofbeingadad.com
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