Now that Junior is a teenager I have discovered that teen boys do one thing really, really well.

They can make food disappear in seconds.

Oh, sure, Junior and his friends have always been healthy eaters. But now that Junior is in high school, the amount of food consumed in our home is staggering. Sadly, it’s not like I wasn’t warned about this happening. I was. My husband used to tell tales of drinking entire cartons of milk after swim practice. And eating whole boxes of instant oatmeal for breakfast. And a honeydew melon at snack time.

But I totally dismissed that as exaggeration. Why wouldn’t I? I grew up with all sisters. It’s not like we were dainty little princesses or anything, but we didn’t eat like that. For pete’s sake, only horses eat like that.

I’m not kidding. I go to Costco. I buy milk. I put one gallon in the kitchen fridge and one gallon in the garage fridge (yes, I have two refrigerators, which is akin to having a neon sign that flashes “teenage boy lives here”). Anyway, four days later, I go out to get the other gallon and it’s gone. Gone. It’s like a milk-napping has taken place.

But, no. My son drank it. All of it. Every single ounce. Oh sure, I had a couple drops in my coffee every morning. But Junior drank 2 gallons of milk in four days. How the heck does that happen? I don’t even know if it’s good for him. It’s gotten so bad, that when I buy milk, I don’t check the expiration date. Why bother? It’s gone long before it goes sour.

And before you ask, yes, I have told him to drink water. And he does. Tons of it. He carries a big thermos of ice and water to school every day so he can stay hydrated at school and practice. I’m telling you, the way this kid drinks, he should slosh when he walks.

Speaking of Costco, I can go to Costco, come back, unload the car and within fifteen seconds every boy in the neighborhood is in my pantry, inhaling every granola bar, every cookie, every can of nuts and bag of chips I have purchased.

Seriously. How do these kids know when I go to Costco? Do they roam the neighborhood, looking for moms unloading minivans full of Costco-sized vats of chips and cookies? How do they know that a parent has just spent the equivalent of their college tuition and that they should now go to that house and devour all the goodies? Is there a secret boy network? A Facebook fan page? A Twitter alert?

And it’s not like it only happens at my house. They eat at every single home. Over summer, a gaggle of them would come to our place and Junior would say, “We had the best soup at so-and-so’s house.” And then all of them would make a sandwich and eat it. It was disgusting. If I ate that way, I’d look like the Titanic. But growing boys? They don’t gain an ounce.

Of course, it’s not just sandwiches or Costco goodies, either. I can go to the farmer’s market, purchase a bunch of fruit and it’s gone in minutes. Seriously. I barely have time to wash it, put it in the fruit bowl and it’s gone. If it weren’t for the fact that he still won’t eat squash, I would swear to you that an alien food inhaler had replaced my son with a nefarious plan to force us into food debt.

As for the fresh fruit from our yard, well, I think we had peaches this year. I saw them on the tree one day. The next day? The tree was empty.

There is an upside to all of this, though. I don’t have any more leftovers. Oh, there is the rare occasion when we have an odd leftover or two sitting in the fridge. But those are gone within hours of dinner. In fact, even right after a trip to the grocery store, my fridge is sparkling clean with nothing to eat but a few carrots and some salad dressing. And there is a boy with his head stuck inside it, saying, “Mom, why don’t we have anything to eat?”

Why indeed. And now if you will excuse me, I have to go to Costco. After all, I just bought milk three days ago.

If you have a teenager, you know love. Seriously, as the mom of a teen, I love the smart mouth, the stink, and the fact that he’s now taller than me and thinks that makes him in charge. But what I really love is that my house can now be declared an official hazardous waste site.

Yes, I am talking about Junior’s bedroom.

Seriously, this has to be one of the foulest places on the planet. I even looked it up on Wikipedia. To be declared a hazardous waste site, there are four requirements: flammability, reactivity, corrosivity and toxicity. Hello? Junior’s room totally meets all of them. Look, at great personal danger to myself, I have gone into that room just to make sure.

Take the flammability portion of the test. Every time I open the door I am assaulted by a curious smell that seems to be made up of farts, feet, Axe body spray, and dog. I can tell you that this is not a good combination. All attempts to mask the smell through use of deodorizer have sadly failed. Now, I’m no expert, but I believe that at least one of the odors making up this delightfully smelly combo are flammable, but I’m reluctant to test the limits of my insurance policy by lighting a match in there. So there you go. Let’s just cross flammability off the list.

Next we have reactivity. I don’t know about you, but the minute I step into a teenager’s dirty room, I have a reaction. A very strong reaction. It begins with yelling and ends with wild threats. Check another one off the list.

Then we have corrosivity. Frankly, I didn’t know this was a word. But according to Wikipedia it is and it means that there are acids or bases that are capable of corroding metal containers. Hello? Dirty clothes, anyone? If there is anything corrosive in that room, it’s Junior’s dirty clothes. They have to be corrosive right? Isn’t that the reason he never puts them in the hamper? Okay, even if it’s not the dirty clothes, it’s got to be the shoes. Please. Have you ever smelled a teenager’s sneakers? Yeah, it’s not pleasant.

And last of all, we have toxicity. Pretty much the entire space is toxic. In Junior’s room, there is a bunch of furniture, something that used to be carpeting, but is pretty much now just a bunch of stuff piled on top the carpet—and some of that stuff is frankly scary and squishy–so I never walk in barefoot.

No light penetrates the room. The shutters are always closed against the bright orb of happiness I like to call the sun and which the room’s inhabitant calls “the burning ball of daylight that might kill me so please let me sleep until this afternoon.” The bed consists of wood, a mattress and some sort of nest created entirely out of blankets and sheets. I do not believe the sheets have been changed since I went on strike in 2008 and refused to clean Junior’s room. They appear to be black. I believe they began life a lovely shade of gray. Yeah, it totally grosses me out to realize that. As if the nest weren’t bad enough, there appear to be 75 pillows on the bed, creating a filthy, fluffy pillow top.

In the corner appears to be a desk, but it’s hard to tell. It’s covered in books, papers, empty water bottles, iPod speakers, an old globe that still has the Soviet Union on it (which might explain his geography grade now that I think about it), an empty plastic bag that previously held crickets–which I hope is only empty because the lizard ate the crickets–and several empty gum wrappers.

The dresser holds a bunch of remote control cars and the lizard cage. Apparently, the drawers are completely incapable of closing, because they are all open with clothing hanging out of them. Those must be clothes he never wears, because the rest appear to be part of the squishy flooring.

Yes, I believe we can all agree to check toxicity off the list. But it’s okay. I survived my trip into the hazardous waste dump that is my son’s room. And now that it’s an official hazardous site, I think I can get a hazmat team in for cleanup and possibly a tax credit. Who says good things don’t come to those who have teenagers?

One pound of learning requires ten pounds of common sense to apply it.
Persian Proverb.

Okay, show of hands. Who knows what the word “now” means? And who thinks it means something different if you are not an adult?

Yeah, me too.

Look, if you’re a parent or even a remotely responsible adult, you probably understand the word “now” as meaning “right away.” In fact the dictionary defines it as “without delay or hesitation.” I like the dictionary’s definition, but frankly, it’s very clear that the writers of that dictionary didn’t have children. I know this because I have never yet met a child on the planet that understands that “now” means “without delay or hesitation.”

Seriously. Find me a parent who hasn’t issued a command of some sort and added the word “now” at the end. Now tell me, after that word is said, have you ever seen a child look up and say “Holy cow! Mom added now at the end! She must need me to do this without delay or hesitation!”

Sadly, it doesn’t work that way.

Trust me, I speak from experience. I’ve said “now” a billion—no, a trillion quadrillion zillion—times and never have I had Junior stop what he is doing and snap to attention. Sure, some of you may think of this as a massive parenting fail on my part. But I have a scapegoat and I’m not afraid to use it.

I blame all those stupid parenting books I devoured when Junior was young. I read a billion—or possibly a trillion quadrillion zillion–of them. I read some of them twice. One I read three times, but only because it came with a money back guarantee that I’d be free from teenage smart mouth disease if I followed its instructions. In case you were wondering, it didn’t work. And the money back guarantee? Yeah, that didn’t work either.

Anyway, I listened when the experts said to give kids extra time to transition from one activity to the next. So when Junior was a toddler, I practiced the art of counting to three. When I wanted Junior to do something, I’d say, “Do it now.” And when he didn’t, I’d cheerfully (and sometimes not-so-cheerfully) say, “1, 2…and…3.”

Thus, Junior learned that “now” meant “after Mommy counts to 3 really slowly.”

Now flash forward to Junior as a teenager. I no longer count to three (well I do, but only in my head because when your child becomes a teenager that’s the only way to keep your brain from exploding). Anyway, because I counted to three in the past, my son still acts like “now” means “after I count to 3.”

Which it so doesn’t. Not to me anyway.

And the result of all this is that when I call my son and say, “Come home for dinner now” what I’m really saying is, “Come home for dinner this instant or I will ground you until you are 50 or until you move out of your room, whichever comes first.”

Sadly, that’s not what Junior hears. Thanks to my scapegoat—um, I mean, all those stupid parenting books–what Junior hears is, “Oh, hello, young man. Do me the favor of coming home whenever you please and be sure to take the long way and stop at your friends’ homes to discuss some stupid new movie, play a quick round of ‘Call of Duty,’ or do some bicycle jumps at the end of the street because your father and I find such joy in waiting for you at the dinner table while the dogs circle us, waiting for the slightest signs of weakness so they can pounce on the table and eat our food.”

So you can see that this is something of an issue in our house.

Of course, once I realized my massive parenting fail, I tried to retrain Junior. Yeah, that turned out to be a really bad idea. Seriously, have you ever tried to retrain a teenager? It doesn’t work. Ever. Frankly, if they don’t understand the word “now” by the time they hit puberty, you’re done. Teenagers are like old dogs; very rarely do they learn new tricks, unless the new tricks involve sneaking something forbidden past their parents.

And all this means is that I have a child who can solve Algebra problems, but doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “now.” And that probably means that I’m just another parent of a teenager. Lucky me.

The other day I realized that I repeat everything I say. Everything. And I usually repeat it about fifty times before I realize that I’m saying the same thing over and over and over again. But I think—and this is just a guess—that it’s because children are born with a filtering device in their ears. This allows them to only hear stuff like “there’s candy in the pantry” or “let’s buy Junior a skateboard for his birthday.”

They cannot, however, hear you ask them to feed the dog or make their beds or brush their teeth. So you stand there repeating yourself. And after about twenty times, your precious child turns to you and says, “um, did you say something, Mom?”

It’s enough to drive a parent crazy.

Of course, my parents went through the same thing. Every night, around 6 PM, my mother would ask one of us to set the table. And we never heard her. Never. It was like she didn’t exist. So she’d repeat herself until one of us miraculously regained the gift of hearing and got up to set the table. And that was only after she threatened to ground us. On weekends, my dad would stand in the middle of the family room and tell us to go outside and pull weeds approximately seven thousand times before getting completely disgusted and unplugging the TV. And only then would we acknowledge my father’s presence in the room and move our butts off the couch and outside.

Now I find myself doing the same thing. I wander through the house, saying things like “Junior, brush your teeth” about ten times before Junior walks into the bathroom and picks up his toothbrush. And at that point, I still have to say, “Junior brush your teeth” at least once more before he actually puts toothpaste on the brush and cleans his teeth.

If that’s not bad enough, I’ve become used to repeating myself. I find myself automatically saying to Junior, “please stop that. Please stop that. Please stop that.” And even if he did stop whatever he was doing by the second time I’ve said it, I just keep repeating it until I run out of breath.

I don’t think there is a cure for this. I’ll probably spend the rest of my life repeating myself. I’ll be an old lady, torturing my neighbors at the retirement home, yelling at them, “Did you feed the dog?” about twenty times until Harry hobbles out and puts me back in the house.

It’s not a pretty future, is it?

Of course, when you don’t want your child to hear what you are saying, they listen the first time. Please. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve got some juicy gossip to pass on and you check out the child. He’s sitting on the couch, completely engrossed in a repeat of the “Fairly Odd Parents.” So you test him. You ask him to let the dog out. He doesn’t even bat an eyelash. You say it again, just to be sure that he isn’t listening.

So you spill the gossip. And the very next minute, your child is out the door to tell everyone what you just said. Verbatim. After only hearing it once.

Have I mentioned that it’s enough to drive a parent crazy?

Speaking of crazy, the other day I realized that I repeat everything I say. Everything. And I usually repeat it about fifty times before I realize that I’m saying the same thing over and over and over again.

Or have I said that already?

There comes a time in everyone’s life where they must do something impossible. Something so difficult that they avoid doing it until the very last minute. Yes, I am talking about buying your mother a gift—whether it’s for her birthday, Mother’s Day or some other holiday that makes a last-minute trip to the mall for a coffee mug necessary.

This is serious, people. There are mothers all over the country who right now are quaking at the thought of putting another World’s Greatest Mom mug in their cupboards. Mother’s who awaken at night screaming in terror from the nightmares caused by all the bathrobes they’ve received over the years. Or the delicious pancake breakfasts that burned down their kitchens (oh, wait, that might just be my mom).

Anyway, I am here to help. I have compiled a very handy list of what not to get your mom for any holiday or occasion. And before you ask, these gifts all exist and no, I’m not buying any of them for my mom.

• Sushi Bath Soap Gift Set. This set of several sushi-shaped soaps comes in a little wooden box for that authentic sushi feel. And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that your mom loves sushi. You’re thinking that when mom gets to pick the restaurant, it’s always Japanese, right? So wouldn’t sushi-shaped soap be perfect for mom? No. No, it wouldn’t. Take it from me; nothing says “ick” like washing your face with California Roll.

• Squirrel in Underwear Dramatic Oil Painting. Really. I wish I could make this stuff up. I’d be the funniest person on the planet, not to mention the weirdest. But this little gift is exactly what it sounds like: an oil painting of a squirrel in his tighty-whiteys, set against a background of green grass. Now I realize that this is exactly the kind of art you believe should be hanging in your mom’s foyer—but she doesn’t agree. Trust me. That’s why you find so many of the poker playing dog paintings at garage sales.

• The Wine Rack. Yes, a wine rack does sound like a great gift. But this is no ordinary rack—it’s a wine rack for your mom’s rack. Yes, it’s a giant, inflatable bra that fills with alcohol. I know this is every man’s dream. But trust me when I tell you this is not a mother’s dream, no matter how you try to justify it.Yes, there are times when Mom needs a little sip of some “mom juice” so she can stay sane after a long day at the park with a toddler engaged in the terrible twos. Look, I’ve been that mom on the playground whose child is having a full-on, nuclear-level meltdown. And I’ve wished for a way to dull the noise. But never have I wished I could just whip out a straw, stick it in my bra and suck down some Chardonnay. It’s wrong. Plus, if you drink too much from one side, you end up lopsided and nobody wants to see that.

• Talking Toilet Paper Roll Holder. Um, okay. I’m thinking this one should be self-explanatory, but apparently not. Look, your mom doesn’t just sit around in the bathroom wishing someone would talk to her. She’s hiding in the bathroom so she can have peace and quiet. So when she unrolls the toilet paper and a voice says, “Hi, how’re you doing” you are going to scare the you-know-what out of her. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

• Better Marriage Blanket. This blanket absorbs certain, er, odors. You know, the odors I’m talking about. They’re the odors your mother always blames on the dog, whether you have a dog or not. But this revolutionary blanket takes those odors and somehow manages to make them disappear—yes, even smellies your dad makes will be gone in a poof of…well, they’ll be gone. Now I know this sounds like an awesome gift. After all, what woman doesn’t want to be completely shielded from odorous emissions forever? But it’s not the perfect gift. Because what this gift says is, “Mom, we know you pass gas.” Not a good thing to say to Mom. Save this for Dad. He’ll love it.

Of course, there are many, many more bad gifts out there. So my advice to you is to buy her flowers. They’re pretty. They smell good. And they won’t speak to her during her private time.

Excuse me, but I have a problem. I was not warned that my adorable son would become a teenager. Seriously. Why wasn’t I told that at some point my kid would become a teen and suddenly nothing in my world would make sense? I mean, when you’re doing the whole “start a family” thing, you’d think someone would mention that cute little babies grow into teenagers.

I have major issues with this. First of all, there’s the whole growing taller overnight deal. I don’t like that. It’s costing me a fortune. One morning a teen’s pants are the perfect length. He puts them on the next day and boom! He looks like he’s waiting for the next Great Flood. Now my teen wears shorts—which you would think helps a bit in the growing taller overnight thing. Yeah, no. It doesn’t. Apparently if a teen’s knees are visible, his shorts are too short and the world will come to an end.

Speaking of clothes, I would like to know what teenagers do with socks. When Junior was a kid, he put his socks in the hamper, I washed them and then he wore them again. It was the sock’s cycle of life. Now that he’s a teen, I never know where his socks are. They aren’t in the hamper—and by hamper, I mean the floor of his bedroom.

So what do I do when I can’t find his socks? I go out and buy more, of course. Two weeks ago, I bought him 24 pairs of socks. 24 pairs. That’s 48 socks. Do you know how many I can find? Three. Not three pairs. Three socks. What the heck is he doing with them? And even worse, what the heck is he wearing with his shoes? Because if those are unwashed socks, I can tell you that is not good. He’s a teenager. His feet must reek.

But I don’t know that because on any given day he is wearing 50 different kinds of cologne, which has caused my sense of smell to pack up and leave town. Seriously. He has shower gel that smells. He has shampoo that has a different smell. And then there’s deodorant and body spray and the sample packs of men’s cologne I get with my Sephora orders. That’s a lot of different smells and way too many for my nose to process at once.

But I do value one thing. Junior showers regularly. According to some of my friends, that is not something many teen boys do on a regular basis. And the thought of that is infinitely more disgusting than the various aromas wafting after Junior every day.

Speaking of days, hello? Are teens ever awake? Well, okay, yes they are. They are awake when the rest of the house is asleep. It’s like they’re vampires, only without the sharp teeth and broody angst of the Twilight gang. Oh, wait. Yes, there is some broody angst. Not much from Junior though. Thank goodness.

And let’s talk about eating. Food is everything to them, which is weird since they are pickier than your average toddler. Look, when he was little Junior ate everything. Now? He eats cottage cheese, pizza, and sushi, with an occasional orange thrown into the mix for variety. Sadly for Junior, the rule in our house is you eat what I burn for dinner, which usually isn’t cottage cheese, pizza or sushi.

Naturally, because he only eats three things, there is never anything to eat in our house. Junior can stare forlornly into the fridge for hours in the vain hope that the icky fruits and veggies will magically transform into leftover pizza. They never do.

Of course, no teen would be complete without the whole opposite sex thing. Except I am not supposed to talk about it. Not with you. Not with my husband. Not even with Junior. In fact, now that we’re discussing talking, I’m not supposed to talk to Junior at all. Ever. Not in public. Not in private. Not when there is the slightest chance that someone might hear me speak to him. Heaven forbid that somebody actually discover that we are (gasp) related.

Shockingly, he enjoys it when I write about him in this column. And I still get hugs and “I love you’s,” albeit when nobody is looking. I cherish them. And I have no idea what that says about my son, but I will tell you this: teenagers are weird. Consider yourself warned.

My son is a tightwad.

He comes by this honestly. Hubby is a tightwad—only he prefers the term “thrifty.” But he’s a tightwad, just like his son. Hubby hasn’t willingly parted with a dollar since 1984, when he bought my engagement ring. And there’s some argument about whether that purchase was willing.

Now my personal belief is that a penny saved is a penny better spent on shoes. I have never met a dollar I couldn’t spend on something. Clearly, my son didn’t get this tightwad thing from me. But even though I think saving is a waste of perfectly good spending money, I still managed to be quite proud of Junior and his thriftiness. When Junior was 6 (he’s now 14) I even managed to take advantage of it.

I hate to go to the bank. So sometimes, I would just borrow a stack of dollar bills from Junior’s stash and leave him an IOU. Pretty soon, Junior had more IOU’s than actual cash and Hubby said I had to make good on my debts. Imagine my surprise when I discovered I owed my son $82.00.

Yikes. How on earth had a six-year old managed to save that much money? He only makes two dollars a week. Apparently, Junior had saved every dollar he’d ever earned. At first, we were very happy for him. Then we realized how Junior had managed to save so much.

He didn’t have to pay for anything.

It’s easy to be thrifty when you can just take your allowance and stuff it in a gold Hot Wheels case every week. When you don’t have to pay the mortgage, PG&E and mommy’s shoe debt, you can be a pretty thrifty guy.

You see, if we were at Wal-Mart and Junior asked nicely for a package of Harry Potter trading cards, chances were that unless Junior threw a major screaming fit in the craft section, he would get those cards. And it didn’t matter to him that it cost approximately one and half weeks of allowance, because he wasn’t paying for it.

So we decided it was time Junior found out how much things cost.

The next time we were at Wal Mart and Junior wanted Harry Potter trading cards, I told him he had to buy it with his own money. That stopped Junior cold. He looked at me as if I had suddenly morphed from Nice Mommy into “Evil Mommy Who Makes Kids Use their Precious and Hard Earned Allowances to Pay for Things Nice Mommy Would Just Buy with No Questions Asked. “

Which is, of course, exactly what had happened.

After the pleading and begging was over, Junior decided not to buy the cards. I was very proud of the lesson my son had learned until I heard him on the phone with his grandmother. Apparently, Junior had found another source of Harry Potter trading cards. Sure enough, in the mail two days later was a card from grandma with—you guessed it—TWO packages of Harry Potter trading cards.

At that point, I had a couple of options. One was to call grandma and tell her not to do that again. But I knew my mother would just laugh and tell me that it was a grandma’s job to indulge her grandchildren. The second option was to wait grandma out. Sooner or later, my mother would get tired of being Junior’s main source of trading cards. It took about two weeks. Suddenly, Junior wasn’t getting what he wanted from grandma. But, hey, my kid’s no dummy.

He started asking to call his other grandma.

Frankly, I figured lesson time was over. I lost hope for Junior being anything but a moocher. He would go through life with a Hot Wheels carrying case bulging with money, while he bilked women out of their life savings so he could build the world’s largest collection of Harry Potter trading cards.

So I was pleased last week when a now 14-year old Junior came to me with a wallet full of money. He had savings and he wanted to add it to his bank account. And imagine my surprise when my son took the money out of his wallet and it was mostly dollar bills. You know, just like the dollar bills I was giving him to buy water at school.

And now imagine my son’s surprise when he went to school the next day with a reusable water bottle and no dollar bills. Hey, he needs to learn a lesson. And mommy needs a new pair of shoes.

Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where Junior’s science fair project is.
Anonymous

Woo-hoo, it’s spring. Yes, I know most people are admiring fresh blooms, mowing lawns and listening to the birds sing. And me? Well, I’m a parent. So that means I am celebrating the official end of the Science Fair Project from Hell.

If you have a child in school, you are no doubt familiar with the dreaded science fair project. Parents all over the country tremble in fear whenever it’s mentioned. Oh, it always starts with good intentions. Sometime in November or so, the teachers start peppering students with contracts and forms and ideas for projects.

And your little Sally or Sam comes home from school excited and happy. After all, science fair projects are just great big bundles of fun! Yeah, no. They aren’t. In fact, they are actually an instrument of torture designed by teachers to get revenge on parents for not teaching their little darlings manners before sending them off to school. Although you know, I could be wrong. But just in case, I would like my son’s science teacher to know that I did try to teach him manners. I’ve even seen him use them once or twice.

Anyway, as I said, the kids come home bursting with ideas for the Best Science Fair Project Ever. Most involve the use of radioactive materials, a few James Bond-like gadgets, quality time at Lawrence-Livermore Labs or the topic title: “Broccoli, the Silent Killer.” I once spoke to a mom whose child seriously wanted to do a project called “How long will my smellies smell if I seal them in jars.” Yeah. Science fairs are THAT fun.

Of course, once Sally or Sam has finished arguing with the parents on a topic, the teacher has to approve it. Look, let’s be honest. Some parents just give up trying to convince their children to do something normal. And that is why the teachers listen in growing horror to little Sally or Sam as they propose sending an animal into space on a rocket borrowed from NASA and then say, “Yes, Mrs. Science Teacher, my parents think this is a great idea.”

And then the parents have to write an email explaining that basically Sally/Sam has stopped listening to them and they’re leaving it to the teacher to tell Sally/Sam that NASA has a policy against renting the space shuttle to 12 year olds. And the parents usually add a PS begging the teacher to suggest a more realistic project like freezing salt water or watching plants grow. You know, something a parent can handle.

After the emails have flown and the project is approved, the actual experiment can begin. This is where the science fair project escalates from annoying to truly the project from hell. You see, little Sally or Sam will have specific ideas on carrying out that experiment. Usually these ideas involve the most complex way ever designed to measure how fast salt water freezes. In fact, Sally or Sam will insist on new freezers, fancy salt that costs approximately $5,000 per ounce and fresh water gathered at dawn from a rushing river and stored in non-reactive buckets.

And trust me, you don’t want to know how complicated the whole plant growing thing can get. I mean, it’s a science fair project, for pete’s sake. Sally and Sam don’t want to just throw some plants in a pot full of dirt. Where’s the fun in that?

During the actual freezing, measuring and growing, the parents will take many, many pictures. And those pictures will be lost, thus ensuring that the night before the project is to be turned in there will be a photo session in the kitchen requiring elaborate costume changes and extensive use of Photoshop so that nobody knows that Sally/Sam’s parents are idiot parents who lost every single picture of the science experiment.

And finally, the day of reckoning will come. Sally and Sam will drag their science fair boards to school. They will present them to the class, who will take notes on the presentations that say helpful things like, “science sucks” or “plants grow.”

And the parents will know it is truly spring. Because there aren’t any more plants being killed in the backyard and the new freezer is no longer full of salt water. And NASA isn’t sending people to your house to find out why you haven’t returned their space shuttle.

Laurie’s note: Yes, this is a repeat. But enjoy this “Manic Monday” complete with repeat performances of my writing

The other day, my 14-year old son asked me if he should shave the tiny, blond mustache that is barely visible on his upper lip. I said no. Actually, I yelled it. Now, I know that seems like an extreme reaction. But you have to understand that we have had bad shaving experiences in my house.

Take the time my son shaved his head. Yeah. His head. He was 8. And apparently it wasn’t a fashion statement. And no, it wasn’t a protest against me or the establishment or anything else. He just had nothing better to do with his time. So he shaved his head.

And it was probably all my fault.

You see, after a long afternoon in the pool, I sent him to the shower while I made dinner. Unfortunately, he couldn’t use his shower since we were putting tile in his bathroom. So he used mine. Now I took the razor out of the shower and told Junior not to use it.

My bad. See, to an 8-year old saying “don’t touch,” translates to “this is a really cool tool and you should use it to shave the back of your head the minute Mom leaves the room.” So Junior did exactly that. Actually, I think he started on his legs first. He’s a very hairy kid. So he shaved his legs and then started on the good part. The back of his head.

And then, to make matters worse, he actually got out of the shower, disposed of the hair, got his pajamas on and came to the dinner table. He sat down, he ate, he conversed. He was even suspiciously polite and charming—frankly, I should have been tipped off that something was amiss when he burped and then APOLOGIZED without me prompting him. But no. I actually thought maybe, just maybe all the lessons about manners were actually getting through to him.

Again, my bad.

It wasn’t until he did something really extraordinary—he took his plate and placed it on the counter AND asked to be excused—that I caught a glimpse of his freshly shaved head.

And screamed.

I’m sure you heard me. I’m certain that people in 40 miles away heard me. In fact, that scream may just be known from now on as the “Scream Heard ‘Round California.” Because it was loud. And shocked. And horrified. You see, my son did not shave a little part of his head. No, he took most of the hair on the back of his off. Clear to the top. And because I had just changed the blade that morning—he was bald. Bald as a baby’s butt.

Right after the scream pierced the air, Junior realized his mistake. He slapped a hand to his bald spot and said, “Do you like it?” He even had a hopeful little grin on his face.

How was I supposed to answer that? “Yes, dear, I think you look excellent with a large bald spot in the middle of your head.” Or maybe, “You can’t even see it, despite the fact that your scalp is completely white and your hair is nearly black.” But instead of answering, I marched him into the bathroom and showed him the back of his head.

And then it was Junior’s turn to scream.

Okay, I admit there was a bit of satisfaction in his horror. But in the meantime, it was nearly 7:00 and I knew I had to find someone out there who could fix my son’s head. So he went to get dressed. And that’s when I noticed his legs. They were also smooth as a baby’s butt.

But you know, we did manage to find a hairdresser. And she did manage to make his hair look okay—but really, really short. But the best part happened a few days later. That’s when the leg hair started growing back. And itching. And it taught Junior once and for all that when I say “don’t touch the razor.” I mean, “don’t touch the razor.”