15

My son turned 15 yesterday. And I AM seeing him become more adult in how he (sometimes) behaves, but sheesh, I'm tired of having to tip-toe around him. Here is how our weekend went.

Saturday, our youngest decided, because she has daddy wrapped around her little finger and she GETS to decide things like this, that we would take them all to Chipotle for lunch. I figured, while we were there, we might as well stop at Best Buy, which was next door, and pick up the boy* his birthday present, which I sorta had to twist my husbands arm on: an X-box 360. Now, we back track a bit and the boy had originally told me (sometime around Christmas) that he was good with the Arcade (the lower, $200 model). But, of course, we get into the store and OH, NO...MUST have the 60G version and a new game AND X-box Live . Now, part of what made this palatable was that we had Best Buy Reward dollars AND a gift card. When you add a $60 game to the lower end version, we were still looking at a $200 gift which isn't something we like to do. He was also under the mistaken impression that the X-box would be hooked up to one of the two family room TVs. UH...NO. So, he got surly in the store, which was a one way ticket out of the store empty-handed.

We had to go to Sams Club and I decided to stay in the car and chat with the boy. Here is what I explained to him in an attempt to reach some kind of compromise. No matter what we seem to do, we continue to fall short, in his eyes. He wants a phone, we make him wait til 14 and NOT give him texting. We make him wait for that (6 months). He wants to take drivers ed and we don't get him signed up in time so now he is not in a class with his friends. He wants the higher end X-box and we weren't willing to pay the extra $100 for it. Now I can justify this in many different ways. He doesn't need to play movies on it, play music on it, etc...He just needs to be able to play games on it. We are also willing, although NOT AT THIS TIME, to get him X-box live. But he's 15 and doesn't feel he should have to wait.

So, talking to him, I thought I made headway and in the end he was willing to compromise with the Arcade. So we went back and purchased him the Arcade and the $60 game. He came home, hooked it up and proceeded to make it through all 12 levels of Call of Duty. He beat the game. So, he wanted us to run out and buy a wireless router so he can immediately hook into X-box Live. We said no.

More surliness ensued.

I love my son. More importantly, I'm starting to like him again. He's maturing and will on occasion actually listen to reason. Sometimes he will even go as far as to laugh at himself. I am longing for the day when he will recognize that my age and experience in this life count for something and accept that maybe, just maybe, he doesn't know it all. However, I suspect I may have to wait another 15 years for that admission.

*the boy=what we have called our oldest from day one