When did I stop being cool?

My three younger kids and I have spent a lot of time together this summer. We go to the night swim at the city pool two days a week and I took every Wednesday afternoon off throughout the summer to either go to the pool or a movie when it’s raining. Plus I’ve worked from home every day this summer due to record breaking flooding in our city. So I see a lot of them.

But my teens are practically strangers. My oldest has spent most of the summer six hours away visiting his mother. My younger teen spent two weeks in Chicago with my mom. Now they are both on their way home from a week long trip to South Padre Island, Texas with their church youth group. I’ve almost forgotten what they look like. They’ve probably grown two inches while they were gone.

Of course even when they are in town we rarely see them. They are spending the night at friends house or going to the pool or doing whatever they can to not spend time with us. Last week all of us went to the pool. The second we dropped our towels the teen was off to hang out with his friends. I didn’t see him again until the pool closed. If it wasn’t for their cell phones and text messaging I would have barely spoke to them all summer.

*sigh*

I guess I need to get used to this. They are both in high school this year; in ninth grade and eleventh grade. In just two years my oldest will be a man. He’ll be old enough to vote and buy cigarettes (although I hope he doesn’t buy cigarettes…so far so good). He’ll be old enough to move out and leave us behind. This realization is starting to hit me like a brick wall. While my younger kids are begging me to put down my book and join them in the pool, my teens are doing whatever they can to ignore me. They don’t need me anymore. (Well, you know, other than for housing, food and money. But I have a feeling that even when they move out they will still come home for two of those three things.)