Wow, Thirteen

Recently, with the birthday of our oldest, our family suddenly was thrown into uncharted, supposedly dangerous, territory: life with a teenager.  

I have promised honesty and frankness in this blog.  But I will acknowledge that you are not likely to read much negative description of our children who are old enough to read the blog.  I do feel that kids often become what you expect them to become, in many ways.   I try to look at my children and see them as the amazing adults they will be some day.   And I'd like to tout some of their successes here and there, so they can focus on the positive.  

So I may confess to you that our 4-year-old and his friend urinated in a shoe box in his room, fully expecting the shoe box to hold the urine.  But I won't tell such stories about the older kids. 

So . . . with that disclaimer and confession . . . let me then tell you about some amazing new developments in our household teenager.   Today, without being asked, she cleaned, dried, and folded several batches of laundry.   When I returned from an errand, two bowls of ravioli were waiting for us on the kitchen table.   "Who's that for?" I asked kindly.  

"One bowl for me, and one bowl for you, Mom," she replied.  "But they're not very good."

I was truly grateful, but Anika had forgotten to read the instructions, which recommended adding the ravioli to boiling water and then cooking it for 12-14 minutes.  The ravioli were quite stiff.  When I asked her how long she had cooked the ravioli in the microwave, she said, "Oh, around a minute."   We fixed it with several more rounds in the microwave. 

Then tonight I found her in Jackie's room laying on the bed and talking with her.  

I'm loving the current changes in this kid.   I can only hope that she will continue to bloom into a really nice teenager.