Shirtless, nbd



Walkin around after school w/ no shirt, nbd



Remember day before yesterday when I said I'd post something every day? Every single day? Oops. The day was full with work and the evening was full of worry. My 16-year-old son had dashed in from football practice at 6:30 p.m. (shirtless), long enough to say he needed to take a quick shower b/c his girlfriend and her mom were parked out front waiting to take him to dinner. Um, OK.

So, I thought he'd be home by, oh, I dunno, 7:30, maybe 8. 

As it got later, I checked his FB wall, just in time to see that one of his buddies had posted a shirtless pic of him (right). That did not make me feel any better. As a rule and a nod to his privacy, I never comment on his FB happenings, but this time I wrote "This is your mom. You need to put a shirt on."

I checked Twitter. No news there. No pictures, either. Good.

Then 9 p.m. passed. I considered showing up in flowered pajamas at the restaurant to round him up. He was past curfew and not answering my texts. My mind wandered, conjuring up lost phones, car wrecks, a restaurant shooting massacre. With each minute, I got more worried but mostly more annoyed.

He strolled in at 9:45 p.m.

Several excuses ensued, including "We were just watching football" and "My phone died" and "I don't even have that much homework." Turns out, the mom had just dropped them off where they met up with several other friends. I responded with a fair amount of drama. My 5-year-old daughter chose that moment to offer up a song about anger. Something cute about taking a deep breath and counting to 4. She kept telling me I was doing it wrong. "No, take the deep breath before you count."

In the middle of my lecture about responsibility and showing respect to one's parents, I remembered a great bit of advice (paraphrased) that my friend Kim, a mom of three wonderful adults, always gave to her kids: "Remember, you're a reflection of God and a reflection of your parents. Behave yourself." So, I threw that in for good measure, pointing my finger and my face skyward since he's a full foot taller than I am. He stomped away to change the cat litter, an afterschool chore neglected since the day before.

After a cooling-after period of about 15 minutes, he came up to my room where I was in bed, fuming (and pathetically watching a documentary called "Happy"). He pulled up a chair and asked if he could talk to me a minute. It was a very grown-up gesture on his part. I listened.

He said he was sorry for the disrespect. Apologized for not calling. ("I could've borrowed my friends' phones even if mine was dead to let you know I was going to be late.") I felt like I was talking to a big ol' grown-up man. There was just one more issue to discuss.

Me: "And why the heck is there a picture of you on Facebook without a shirt?"

Son: "My friend took that when I was coming out of practice. I know, I should be wearing a shirt."

Me: "And you didn't have a shirt on in front of your girlfriend's mom while she drove you home from practice??"

Son: "Yeah. Not sure why I did that."

Me: "OK, well, you need post on Facebook that 'my mom is right and it's inappropriate to go without a shirt'. And make sure you spell 'inappropriate' right."

So, he did. And then we hugged and called it a night. Just a regular ol' Wednesday in our house.