10-year-old boys, well I guess he is 10 ½ . You gotta love them. Right? I feel like I have written so many blogs about how amazing my kids are, but we know that is not how kids are all the time. Grant is killing me right now. I think he is just really transitioning into a pre-teen and it’s happening kind of fast in this house. Sometimes I think I’m raising a little Ryan Seacrest, which has its good points and bad points. Needless to say, he is killing me every day lately so I thought I would share the darker side of Grant for all those parents out there who feel this pain.

Top 10 ½ things Grant is doing right now that are killing me:

1. He stinks. I am watching this very carefully. I crawled in bed about a year ago to give him a little cuddling before he fell asleep. The minute I snuggled in, my eyes burned. I immediately told him to jump in the shower and from that point on, deodorant has been a daily routine. But even with the product in use, the minute I pick him up from Student Council and he pops in the front seat, it’s a smell of grass, sweat, pennies, dirt… I don’t even know what. I have to roll down the windows immediately. Grab a couple of his friends and you have to take you car in for detailing.
2. His teeth. They are all in this weird phase where they lost their baby teeth so they are all walking around these massive horse teeth. Not to mention when they walk in the door and dive into a Cheetos (Baked, mind you…) snack pack. He walks over to me as I’m on my computer to tell me about his day while shoveling these things in his mouth. His lips and teeth are covered in orange disgusting crap. When I look up I stop him immediately and say, “Nope. Finish what you are doing and go brush your teeth. They look disgusting.” An eye roll usually follows from him and the dumping of the entire bag into his mouth. He will then proceed to come downstairs after 30 seconds of “brushing” only for me to send him upstairs again. This will take about a total of 4 cycles until his teeth are a shade of green that I can live with. I’m also constantly dousing him with mouthwash. How do these kids even talk to each other with this kitten breath? These poor teachers.
3. Dabbing. I get it. It was cool. Cam Newton is amazing. But enough already. Not only did I have to live with a year of dabbing but also now the dab has turned into eighteen different dance moves before the actual “Dab”. We also dab when we sneeze, when a cool song comes on and really any life situation that has some break that calls for this move. He is also become critical of any other dab and told his little sister that her basic dab is not cool and she should stop doing it immediately. Kill. Me. Now.
4. Flip Cup. Can the boy from Ardrey Kell High School that created this fad be punished in any way? I’m all about kids doing something that is not electronics, but really? Hours of entertainment? I chaperoned a school field trip a couple of months ago and about lost my shit on my group of boys that were more interested in who could land the Gatorade bottle perfectly on the ground than hearing about how old guns were made. I get it. But by the end of the trip, every single bottle was confiscated. I also just found my son standing naked in his bedroom the other day flipping a water bottle on his dresser while the shower was on for 15 minutes. Is this a real skill? Are there scholarships for this? No. Give me the damn bottle.
5. Music. I have probably done this one myself. I’m a music lover and all day every day there is music on in my house. The problem with introducing your kids to this is that they latch on to your favorite song and then play it over and over and over until you want to never hear it again. There is nothing less cool than jamming out to “Fake Love”, by Drake and listening to your son and his friends not only jam out with you but know every word and have dance moves with dabbing involved in it. Nothing kills a song more than my son.
6. His hair. It’s official. I have become that parent I said I would never be. My Dad always rode my brother’s ass about getting a haircut and shaving his entire life. I always thought how silly it was because your hair is YOUR hair. Then I have a son and I find that I want that short military cut on him every time because he looks ridiculous. He wants to grow his hair out and have grow over his ears and down to his eyes and then flip his head so his hair falls just right. I just stare at him when he does this. My husband takes him for haircuts after many fights, only to have him walk in the door and I say, “Seriously?” To which they both roll their eyes at me, followed by a talking to by my husband that tells me to chill out about his hair. He has also been begging for me to let him dye it for about a year. I just agreed and dyed the top of his head red yesterday. He looks ridiculous and loves it. Whatever.
7. Face Time. I find myself saying, “Who the hell is he talking to?” every other day. I jump off the couch and run upstairs to find him FaceTiming another buddy and they are pretty much just watching each other flip water bottles. He then turns the screen around on me and some kid says “Hi” to me as I stand there in his doorway in PJs and no bra looking like an idiot. My favorite is when I catch him sitting in his bed talking to a girl and he has no shirt on. I stop this immediately and just about take the hinges off the doors. Yes, I am becoming that mom.
8. Sleep. I know the 8pm bedtime isn’t working as well as it once did. He is getting older and feels like a 6 year old by making him go to bed that early. We try each night but he takes some 30 minute shower (don’t even get me started… I don’t even want to go there…) and then comes downstairs to get a drink, get some book, give me a kiss, whatever. Then it’s 9:00. Waking him up in the morning is also my least favorite task in the world. It’s about a 30-minute morning struggle where he proceeds to ruin my morning because he makes us all late. We have blown air horns on him, poured water on him, you name it. We have now moved to where we no longer even get him up. We wake Sophia who is a ray of sunshine each morning. If he gets up and makes it to the car in time, he gets a ride. If he isn’t ready – he walks to school. Best part is that on Saturday mornings, I hear his ass up at the crack of dawn because he is allowed to play on his iPad on Saturday. Um…. I thought you were exhausted? I can’t even.
9. His need to be entertained. What am I a damn cruise director? Heaven forbid all of his buddies in the neighborhood are busy or out of town. You would think his legs were cut off from under him. There is absolutely nothing to do or nothing to play with. What really kills him is when I don’t allow him to have a friend over. GASP! You think I am the devil that I don’t want to watch other people’s kids all weekend. These days are usually filled with him following me around to tell me how bored he is or asking me, “What should I do?”. My favorite days are the days when no one I know is here or in town or wants to do anything. Days when I can just sit alone quietly. For him, this is equal to death.
10. His diet. If I allowed this boy to eat Fruit Loops, Doritos and Soda all day every day, he would do it. I pride myself on having the healthiest food on the block. This way, random kids aren’t walking in my house for snacks. They know it’s a banana or a yogurt. Actually most kids will have a snack at their house before coming here. Bonus. Honey Nut Cheerios are a stretch for me to buy at the grocery store. But like always, every time I leave town my husband goes to the store and buys them junk like Fruity Peebles that are probably ridden with cancer. Grant tells me I’m the “Cereal Nazi”. I come out looking like the crap Mom once again because I try to keep them alive. Last summer I was over him asking me for soda every day. So I bought him a 2-liter of Sprite and made him drink it all in one day. He had diarrhea for a week, but didn’t ask me for soda all summer. Let’s not even start on the table manners and how he shoves everything in his mouth like it’s his last meal. He then wipes his hands on his pants even though I put a napkin out for him. I no longer sit at the table with the kids. 

1/2. His butt. I’m a “runner”. Because I’m a runner, I tend to lose my butt. So I spend quite a bit of time in the gym doing squats to have something that resembles a tush. This kid will stand there naked and talk to me for hours. He turns around to walk away and his butt is like two gigantic grapefruits. It really is unreal. How can I be jealous of his rear? But I am. It is the butt that I strive to have every day, and he just walks around with it. I think he knows he tortures me with this ridiculous backside. He just shrugs it off when I tease him about it, like, “Yeah… I guess it’s just something I’m born with.”. I hate him.

I could probably go on for a couple more pages here. But because my boy is ahead of his time, he is probably on Facebook reading this with an account I don’t even know he has. He is about 2 months away from being smarter than me and I’m trying every single day to keep him alive but stop myself from killing him.

I’m nervous for 11.