Adventures In Motherhood

Author’s Note: Some details have been changed to protect the guilty, the innocent, and the mother's creative craft. It had been eerily quiet for a solid two weeks. After six months of teen antics that had me hopping like a Secret Service agent, the sudden calm made me uneasy. With my teen’s busy schedule of skirting rules, asserting control, and riding hormone fluctuations that rivaled my own pre-HRT era, I knew better than to relax. In fact, it was so quiet it was literally sus. My spy antennae went on full alert, and I caught my teen yet again. The red flags were everywhere, and my husband was none the wiser, so I moved the beer key cache yet again, because motherhood calls for protective measures every time. It started on a Tuesday afternoon, when my teen asked me to transfer $20 from their checking account to their savings account, because, as a minor, they don’t have online access to their savings. Twenty dollars on a Tuesday was clue number one. Clue number two? They claimed ...

No sooner had we escaped our household zoo for a brief two-night getaway alone, than my daughter's text brought us back to reality. "Awkward," the message read with the following picture attached: Our tattered overnight bag from my college years abandoned on our front porch, stared back at me like an erect middle finger to the face. Sipping a glass of overpriced cabernet I flipped my phone for my husband to read as the server walked away with our order. "Probably safe on our stoop without an Amazon package label," I muttered. I inventoried the contents of the bag in my head... contact case, toothbrush, swimsuit, clothing... what else? I laughed, hoping Bruce would not take the news hard. Who could blame him for leaving the black zippered duffel on our front porch? We had to get the hell outta Dodge before Grandma, tough as nails, changed her mind!  Shaking his head in frustration, "It's only a two hour drive there and back. I'll go ho...