Family Update

Ben is doing fine. (Thank you for asking.) His dry sense of humor is alive and well. A couple of weeks ago he greeted Abe at the car with a slew of water balloons. It was a riot watching them run all over the front yard. Abe was soaked.

I smiled thinking about it until a few days later when Ben lobbed a water balloon at me while I was sitting at my laptop. I was apoplectic until I caught it. He had put it in the freezer until the ice was about a quarter inch thick and drained the rest of the water with a pin prick. Nicely done. Perfect size and weight for giving your mother a heart attack. I’m planning revenge as we speak.

Yesterday, Ben asked if it cost extra to send “kissy-puppy icons” with a text message on his cell phone.

Wait. What? “Kissy-puppy icons?!”

“Well…yeah. See?” He proffered his phone to show me an animated big-eyed puppy pursing its lips.

“Oh. My. Gosh. You are so in love.”

He just smiled. He spends pretty much every waking minute at his girlfriend’s house.

School’s something of a challenge, especially with an inflexible math teacher, but Ben’s dealing with that himself, asking the administration to make it right so he can learn. You go, boy.

We’ve had a couple of dustups about limits, but we’ve talked them through, which is new for our family. Still demanding raising a teen, but these are standard challenges.

Sheba’s taking the year off from school. She’s found an apartment in the same college town and her roomie is her former college roommate. She’s looking for a job, which isn’t easy in a town filled with students who will work for minimum wage. Let’s wish her luck.

Things are looking normal, which is such a gift these days. Normal—but never boring.