The teenage years

This morning I had the opportunity to read past blogs about my children as toddlers and I found myself laughing, smiling, enjoying the stories as I recounted them.  I am so glad I wrote down those stories.  As I was reflecting on these stories I realized that something my blog is lacking is similar stories with teenagers.  Yes, I am in the thick of the teenage parenting years and there definitely are stories to share.  If I analyze the reason why I haven't shared these stories I believe I have been reticent to share them for this one reason...being a parent of a teenager is quite emotionally involved.  At the time of the incidents, I am so emotionally exhausted I don't want to share anything about them. The toddler - 12 years are much different.  They are physically demanding, but once you are over the physical exhaustion, you can laugh...or even laugh while you're in it.  The teenage years are emotionally demanding.  That emotional drain may take a week, a month or a year to get over and yes, instead of laughing, I do find myself in tears.  I find that the parenting teenage stories aren't really out there on the internet either...is this because we only want the good and glossy?  What looks pretty?  What ends happy? And while, yes, some days our time together ends playing steam roller on my bed trying to get them out of my room, sometimes they end angry too.  So my goal for 2017 is this:  I am going to share the parenting experience of the teenage years.  I am going to try to share them as they are.  And hopefully, I will try to draw it all together with something that I learned as a parent.  Hopefully something positive will come out for you, my children later, as parents.  I want you to know I was real.  I want you to know I was human.  I want you to know that there were nights when I felt like the worst parent ever and there were other night where I felt like I rocked it.  Through it all though, the good, the bad and the ugly realize that I, as your mom, feel so blessed to have been given such good children.  Here's to the teenage years.