Parenting Teenagers… with Coffee and Dog Shit.
I grabbed a coffee and headed for the living room, blissfully unaware of the shit waiting for me there. This was my daily ritual of early morning solace: coffee and quiet on the couch, with a fuzzy blanket and the sunrise. When my kids were younger it was a mad dash, sloshing the coffee into the mug at 5 am and hoping no little feet would come shuffling down for at least enough time for one coffee, about seven minutes of delicious time owed to no one but me. The kids are older now, two sleep in and the oldest is out the door at 4:30 am, so the morning calm comes after he roars away. It isn’t just calm I seek anymore though- it’s my time to write, to start the day with the stories on my mind. When the kids were young, the coffee minutes were cut short by the scrumptious snuggles of curious little bodies, waking early for another new day. As much as I craved the silence I loved the incessant questions, the constant musings, the wiggling, the wondering as I just tried to sit for one more moment with my coffee. Coffee on the couch with toddlers is much like driving with coffee in a mug without a top. It’s right there, wanting you to sip it, but you can’t…. quite… enjoy it… Those old toddler days are long over now, and the couch in the mornings is mine alone and as much as I miss the mornings with my littles, I revel in this time to write and reflect and indulge in my own incessant musings. I have coffee and I am alone and I owe nothing to no one. I need these moments to prepare for all the unpredictability of the day ahead. With three teenagers and my career of running a recovery center helping people deep in the suffering of addiction, no two days are the same and every day is an adventure.
My oldest son is nineteen now and drives a big truck with his big truck license. Most days we get up at 4:00 in the morning together. I splash coffee into mugs and we visit as I pack him a lunch, pour a road coffee, hug him hard and send him down the road.
That’s when my time begins. Coffee number two, in the living room, on the couch, with the cats nearby and the dog sleeping in his dog bed. The dog. He’s an adorably fat 125 lb black lab who is fourteen now and can’t hear or see but is otherwise in good health and still walks every day, 1.75 miles with me, as best he can. Sometimes he slows down and takes a long time to “smell” something on the side of the road. Something that isn’t really there, but I pretend along with him, even though we both know he just needs a rest. I like giving him the time to be old, to be a dog, to do the best he can. We are all doing the best we can.
This morning was no different than any other morning. I hugged my boy and sent him out the door, his big truck roaring away. I always love to listen to it- the rumbling of the big truck most nineteen-year-olds could never handle or show up for work for twelve hours a day six days a week, no complaints. He knows this is not his forever, he’s looking to be a lineman, and has already gone to the Southeast Lineman Training Center for it. He was accepted to the Training Center and went to Georgia right out of high school to get his training and his license to work on power lines, and to drive the big trucks. For $20,000 it was the best start to life for a hands-on guy we could find and with a loan from the local bank he was on his way. We had the time of our lives, flying down to Georgia from Vermont, buying him a car, a southern car, and getting him all settled at school. Accomplishing these things, figuring out how, no matter what, to get my kids what they need when they need it, is exactly what I live for, even when it’s overwhelming or complicated or a financial commitment that scares me sleepless. I am seeing it work though. A year later here we are and this great kid has a job and pays the car and school loans and he is proud to do it too. The effort I put into this smart and determined kid comes out in his gratitude and work ethic every day and that is also how I know; I am doing the right things. Helping your kids really does help them. It doesn’t spoil them, when you do it right. It truly sets them up to do better, to have more, to live with fulfillment. That is really the ultimate goal, right? To send our kids out into the world, able to live successfully. Success, in our house, means- doing meaningful work, having supportive, positive relationships, and understanding what it takes to accomplish those things. I hope that my dedication to meaningful work, my commitment to my emotional and mental health and my holding out for the right relationship is setting the example that fulfillment is accomplished with intention and determination, not luck. I am real and honest with my kids about what it takes to make our life and why I am doing everything I am doing. Being clear gives them a foundation they can trust, a reality that is honest, and it makes a difference in their ability to trust themselves and grow as individuals. Every morning I send him out the door with his lunch and his coffee, I am thankful for the time with him, the early mornings, the small talk, the simple moments together. This little boy who used to wriggle around on the couch asking me question after question about how the moon rises, or why is there snow, or could I stroke his hair just like that? He is now a secure and serious young man, with a strong sense of right and wrong and worth and self. I may need to beg for a hug but I know without a doubt, he appreciates the mornings, and our life, just as much as I do. I believe that as he moves off and becomes a partner, a father, a person in charge of his own life, he is armed with the skills to love and, just as important, choose a partner capable of loving him right back very well.
This morning as the truck roared off into the distance, I grabbed my second coffee and headed for the living room. Steaming coffee in hand, I smelled shit. Steaming shit most likely. I stood in the doorway. What the fuck. Shit. There was something very bad somewhere in this living room. I was sleepy still, wondering- wait, was it just the smell of strong coffee? Great coffee sometimes can almost smell like skunk, or shit. I mean not really, shit is shit, but when you are sleepy and smelling what I was smelling at 4:30 in the morning in your living room you might question such things.
I looked around. Sometimes the cats drag in birds and mice and other “delicacies” through the cat door and proudly leave them, or pieces of them, in the middle of the living room floor. I didn’t see any bird wings or mouse pieces this morning though, so it wasn’t that. I looked at the dog, snoring peacefully in his bed. Where was this fucking shit. I took another step into the living room. It had to be in here. Now I was pissed. I just wanted to sit on the couch, with my coffee and my blanket and have my moment. No shit.
I looked at the dog again. That’s when I saw it. This big black lab, the size of a small bear, sleeping soundly, snoring loudly, in his deluxe dog bed, had apparently taken a shit in his sleep. Just let it roll right out of his ass into his bed while he dreamed on. It was tucked in the corner so it wasn’t altogether obvious at first, innocently polluting the entire space with its horrific dog shit smell. Dog shit isn’t quite as bad as cat but at 4:30 am if you are smelling shit when you should be drinking coffee, one shit is not better than another.
“Otis!” I exclaimed. He’s deaf so that did nothing. For some reason I thought I should yell it again, “Otis! What the hell?!” As if me saying his name would wake him up and he would lift his little grey whiskered face, look at me with his big brown eyes and say, “oh, excuse me, I dreamt I shit myself but I guess I actually did. Let me clean that up. Again, pardon me.”
Otis did not lift his head. In fact he gave a little dream kick and a whimper as I think he must have been chasing a truck or leaping down the road as he does sometimes on our walks. His ponderous body twitched and groaned and as he kicked, a small piece of the poo popped over the side of the dog bed and rolled onto the floor. I stood there. I looked at it. I looked at the dog. I smelled the smells and knew that there was no one to fix this, as usual, but me.
In my haste to eliminate the shit and get my coffee moment I grabbed the little nuggets- there were about six of them- with a large clump of paper towels and as I rushed through the house with the poo paper I panicked and threw it…. into the toilet. “Fuck that’s gonna clog” I thought but whatever, I will deal with that after coffee. It made no sense to do this, why didn’t I just put it in a trash bag and take it to the garbage outside?
Or why didn’t I just leave it outside the door in a garbage bag, until coffee time was over? I don’t know, I guess because it was 4:30 am and I knew I only had an hour before the business of my workday had to begin. The pressure of the timing of the morning froze my judgement and I threw that clump in the shitter, sprayed Resolve on the dog bed, washed my hands and sank thankfully on the couch for my coffee moment.
The toilet did indeed clog, and I forgot all about it, moving on to sending work texts and packing lunches and scrambling eggs. Apparently, it wasn’t obvious the toilet was plugged because after I flushed it the clump settled just out of sight into the pipe. The toilet looked normal when the next teenager came down to get ready for the day and flushed. Swears and cries erupted from the bathroom- the toilet overflowed, and the sleepy teen came barreling out, feet wet, wondering what the fuck happened to the toilet.
“Otis shit in his dog bed and I threw it in there.. I guess it clogged the toilet.” I tried to say it flatly, I thought it would assuage the situation. My daughter, age fourteen, looked at me. “What.” Her sleepy mind could not make sense of any of this, all she knew was her feet were wet with toilet water and that meant she now needed a shower, and it was seven am and so her hair would be wet for ninth grade and that was not. Okay.
As she stood staring at me with horror at the situation, explaining exactly how this was ruining her morning, my son, my sixteen-year-old who doesn’t get too worked up about things, sleepily wandered down and stepped into the bathroom and shut the door before I could warn him.
I heard the swears and cries once again. He opened the door. Now there were two sleepy teenagers with wet toilet water feet staring at me. I felt a lot of fear. This was bad.
I repeated myself. Obviously, this was the morning mantra. “Otis shit in his bed, I threw it in the toilet, and it clogged. I’m sorry. Shower upstairs, quick. I’ll fix the toilet as soon as I finish your eggs and lunches.” 6:30 am was when I started eggs and bagels and lunches. It was becoming obvious that one dream dog shit that was actually real was screwing up our entire morning.
Suddenly both kids turned into toddlers with their line of questioning: “why did you throw it in the toilet??” “Why did he shit IN HIS BED?” “Otis! Ughhhhh now my feet are toilet water!” “I am getting in the shower first!” “No, I am!” “No, I am! I need to dry my hair!”
Each kid had thrown a couple towels down on the floor to soak up the water. Now there were no clean towels, in part because all of my children are towel hoarders and leave them in heaps on their bedroom floors. Every single of the probably twenty towels we own were wet or hoarded somewhere in the house. I looked at the kids. They looked back. Teenagers can have very dark eyes. I tried to make some jokes to lighten the mood, but no one was having any of that. Parenting teens is a constant balance of humor, sarcasm, and catching the serious moments when they need you. This was not any of those, sometimes parenting teens is a time to say nothing at all. Flip the eggs and get out the door was the only recourse here. The kids showered, while I plunged the toilet and threw the sopping toilet water dog shit towels in the washer. The way this morning was going it would be most fitting if the water-logged towels would uncenter the washer and break it. At this point I really wouldn’t be surprised. The kids ate their eggs. The dog slept blissfully through it all, only waking to be shooed outside for one quick pee as we gathered our things and jumped in the car. As the washer spun, we still got out the door on time. Sometimes, with dogs and teenagers, that is exactly how I handle my shit.
#parenting #teens #coffee #dogshit #laundry #keepgoing #motherhood #winning
