The pretzel incident

I have a teenager that will be 18 in 8 days.  He is a very sweet boy, well mannered, polite and an all around good kid most of the time.  He is an incredible big brother and has an adorably sweet girlfriend who I hope will be my daughter in law one day.  When it comes to listening to mom, that is a whole other story.  Kyle has what I like to call selective hearing, he seems to hear only what he wants to and usually claims I never asked or told him to do something.  I am pretty sure that is a condition 99.9% of teenagers in the world have.

I am very proud of my son and all his accomplishments even though sometimes he thinks I am the meanest mom ever.  I am pretty sure I am not the meanest mom and Kyle has it pretty darn good and most kids would love to have it as good as Kyle.  No Kyle does not have a car or tons of fancy things, but he has never lacked for anything. He has always had lots of love, toys, a cell phone, video game systems,  nice clothes and shoes, played sports etc.. etc... 

Kyle lacks one skill, neatness.  I am a neat freak and being that he was raised by me and lived with me one would think he would be neat.  His dad was not a neat person so that must be a hereditary thing??  Kyle is a complete and utter slob.  His room is always a mess, you never know what is clean or dirty and it has that boy "funk" smell that almost makes you pass out when you open the door.  Thank goodness for Febreeze and our friends who work at P&G on the Febreeze account who have given us an endless supply for free.


As much as a neat freak as I am, I have learned to just shut his door and let it not get to me.  He cleans his room every so often and when he does it is a wonderful, lovely event.  Unfortunately it doesn't stay that way for very long.


We don't have tons of rules as Kyle is a very good kid, but we have asked him over and over not to take food or soda/Gatorade's into his room.  The way his last carpet looked when we moved and with us currently living in a rental, we had to put that rule in place.  The problem is Kyle sometimes thinks certain rules don't apply to him and that is when the selective hearing comes into play.

Case in point is what I like to call "the pretzel incident".  Kyle got grounded yesterday, but if you ask Kyle why he got grounded, you would get a different story and some would think I am a crazy, insane mother.  Regan's favorite snack is pretzels, we always have extra bags of pretzels in the pantry.  Kyle also loves pretzels which is fine, but Kyle also is a growing teenage boy who eats alot and sometimes the food in our house goes very quickly with one forgetting that 4 other people live in this house.


Yesterday Regan wanted pretzels, I went to get them and I couldn't find any.   I texted Kyle to ask where they were.  I thought surely they aren't in his room, he knows better.  I went upstairs to his room, put on my gas mask before I entered his room and went in search of the pretzels.  After a few minutes I found them shoved under his nightstand.  At that point I looked like a scene from the exorcist.  My eyeballs popped out and my head started spinning, steam came out of my ears... this was the last straw.  I texted him to tell him he was grounded and he needed to clean his room or I would add extra days.  I don't think that was to extreme since after I have told him over and over not to take food into his room.


I picked Kyle up from school and he he was not happy, he kept insisting how stupid it was he was grounded over having pretzels in his room and I couldn't seem to get it through his thick skull that he was missing the point, but he insists he wasn't.  I told him he was being dramatic and he replied back I was being dramatic. AHHHH, the joys of having a teenager.  He didn't want to talk to me anymore and went to his room where he called his girlfriend and told her what a wretched mother I was.  I am sure all his friends now know and are thinking what a wretched mother I am.  Who would ground there son over pretzels? .  Of course, he didn't share the whole story, they never do. 

To hear Kyle tell the story, it was like a scene out of mommy dearest.  
Instead of me standing over him with my face cream on and a dress with a wire hanger, I had a bag of pretzels I was beating him with, but they felt like rocks and it was HORRIBLE.  NO MORE PRETZELS.....NO MORE PRETZELS.......


Of course that did not happen, but you get the point.  I really think Kyle should be in drama class because he could win many Oscar's for best dramatic actor.


I am pretty sure 241-KIDS would not find this a valid complaint of child abuse, but he is free to call and tell them all about it :)

I sound like my mom when I say this, but I always tell Kyle that I can not wait until he has kids because payback is a bitch!  He says he will never be like me, but ohhhhh boy, I can not wait until he has kids well, take that back.,I can wait and I hope he waits for quite awhile.