The phone call came with a request for pizza for four, hungry teenage boys and a twenty minute warning that they were coming in. I panicked as I looked around at what could pass for the aftermath of a blitzkrieg in my kitchen. There were no weapons of mass destruction in my home other than two boys and a dog, but you could have fooled me as I gazed at the dishes strewn across counter tops and jackets draped over chairs. There were also intermittent piles of size 14 shoes rising like bunkers in the middle of the family room floor. No, this was simply the aftermath of life in the midst of end of school chaos and spring football season. Cleaning the house was on my to do list this weekend, but the more I looked at the mess, the better bulldozing the entire kitchen and rebuilding sounded to me.
However, with incoming locusts hungry boys descending, I went into tornado mode to at least make the kitchen presentable and pick up two large pizzas. The best I could scrounge up on such short notice were some leftover paper plates from a baby shower (pink floral), but beggars can’t be choosers! Besides, these burly football players should be more secure in their manhood than to let their dinnerware determine their masculinity. The boys emptied the two pizza boxes and a liter of Sprite in about ten minutes flat. Impressive, no? I have learned to keep my hands away from the feeding zone until the frenzy is over, so I waited to safely re-enter the kitchen to clean up the remains of the impromptu lunch.
The boys thanked me for the food and we chatted for a while. Two of the older boys mentioned they were starting their senior year in the Fall. I asked them what advice they would give Adam about school, football and girls. Adam just shook his head slowly and apologized to them for his lame mom, but I ignored him as they thought for a minute before responding. Here is the gold that they shared: School? Listen to your teachers and do your homework . Football? Listen to your coaches and do your best . Girls? (This was my favorite response) Just when you think you have them figured out, they will change and you won’t have a clue! I had to laugh at that and challenged that the same could be said about the male species too. I smiled as I thought about how rational and grown up these boys sounded. Maybe there is hope and that the stories I have heard about boys having an epiphany of maturity around 17 isn’t an urban legend after all!! I can dream, right?
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Tags: football, hungry boys, messy house, pizza, senior year, teenagers, wisdom
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Heidi Britz. Heidi Britz said: When the locusts descend, the wisdom appears! How 2 rising hs seniors restored my faith that boys do grow up! http://tiny.cc/zgsp2 [...]
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