Some mornings, when I am getting dressed and putting up my hair for what feels like the millionth boring time, the smell of coffee wafts down the hallway. I am so grateful to Evening Swistle at those moments, for setting up the coffee pot the night before and putting it on auto-brew, even though at the time it felt as if it wouldn’t be so hard to make coffee in the morning.
I am even more grateful when Tipsy Evening Swistle was on duty the night before, because then sometimes also the sink and stovetop are clean, and several loads of laundry are done and folded and put away, and there is egg salad. Or whatever. I mean, it’s not always egg salad and a clean stovetop. Sometimes it’s brownies and clean counters, or diced red bell pepper and a clean cat water fountain.
Rob has been not so great to be around lately. Sometimes he’s fine, even very pleasant and funny, but other times he is scornful and dismissive of pretty much everything I say. Sometimes I can shake it off and/or keep responding pleasantly and can even get things back on an okay track, and sometimes I just give up and stop talking, feeling tired and discouraged and like I’m living with someone I would never otherwise be willing to live with, and now he is going to go out into the world and make other people hate to live with him. But he’s so ready to leave home, and this is the EXACT stage of life where the parents are idiots and the hometown is lame, and so I will hope that all of this is more a part of that stage and less a permanent part of HIM.
He was my dinner assistant last night, and he was on a real roll. I kept having to give up at conversations. After one long silence, I brought up a topic I thought he couldn’t possibly scoff at, and praised him for some recent behavior. I was wrong: he managed to scoff at it.
So it was the PERFECT antidote when that same evening Twitter solved my duck problem. To back up a little, we’ve had a weird bird noise in our yard since Friday night, and Paul finally investigated, and he came in saying it was a young duck. So then it was a flurry of panic about the poor duck separated from its family and dying in our yard. I turned where the desperate always turn: Twitter. And my faith was justified, because within literally minutes Becky had contacted a birder friend of hers, Deb, who, without seeing a picture of the bird in question, and acting only on my information that (1) it was a duck, and (2) it was brown, and (3) it was about the size of a football, and (4) it was making unpleasant quack/blarp sounds, she suggested it might be an American Woodcock. AND IT WAS. It WAS INDEED an American Woodcock!
That was a pretty significant thrill: not only to have something like that happen, where it almost feels as if something magical or psychic has occurred, but also not to have to worry anymore about rescuing the poor little duck! It is not a duck! It is an American Woodcock, and it is JUST FINE! The whole thing reminded me of the time we had torn the house apart but couldn’t find our kitten ANYWHERE, and I said so on Twitter, and someone responded with the suggestion to look in drawers (neither Heidi nor I can remember if it was her, so if it was instead YOU, speak up), and I opened a drawer and there was a sleeping kitten in it.
Also, if you are feeling sad, I recommend reading descriptions of birds. “Superbly camouflaged against the leaf litter.” “Distinctively plump shorebird.” “The underparts are buffy to almost orange.”
Tipsy Evening Swistle sounds delightfully helpful!
1. I would like a tipsy evening Swistle to come to my home.
2. Rob will not be like that forever. I promise. He needs to make you want him to leave. I am not a fan of boys in the 6 months or so before they leave for college. (On my 3rd right now.) Believe it or not, I found that they got even worse the closer we came to move out date. I was so GLAD they were leaving. Couldn’t take it anymore. I will warn that the first few times they come home they are also difficult. But by spring break I like them again. So, for about a year I actively dislike my children most days. I feel your pain.
3. Why are there no Woodcocks where I live? It says they should be around in the summer and yet, I’ve never seen one. They are adorable! And, a nice distraction from surly teens.
“He needs to make you want him to leave.” Oh my gosh, this is wonderful advice. And makes total sense. I hope I remember this in 10 years.
You were lucky that the phase lasted months. I seem to remember my sons were aholes (only to me, thank goodness) for most of high school and part of college. Now they are middle-aged and my best friends again since end of college.
Woodcock are habitat dependent birds. Look for them specifically in wet woods with standing water, bordering wet open overgrown fields. They breed primarily in southernish Canada, New England and the Great Lakes region, dropping down as far as central West Virginia. Look for them at dusk, they are incredibly well camouflaged and less active during the day. When they are active they have a humorous walk. Google it. Listen to their call online and try to memorize it. Look for listings with your local parks to find birdwatching opportunities. APRIL AND EARLY MAY ARE PHENOMENAL TIMES FOR SEEING BIRDS. There is a small window of time between migration and the amount of leaves on the trees.
My husband is a youth pastor and for years, parents of 11th-12th graders would tell us how they were SO READY for their teenagers to leave home, and we just couldn’t believe it–we would never feel that way about our darling, sweet daughter! She’s so precious!
Well, it’s two months before graduation, and let me tell you something: THOSE PARENTS WERE RIGHT. Some days she’s her old sweet self, and some days I wonder if it’s too early to move her into the dorm.
(I do love my kids, desperately and with all my heart. I just feel it necessary to remind myself of it from time to time.)
Sometimes I am bummed that I don’t have kids older than yours and therefore helpful advice to share. Teenagers are foreign and terrifying to me. BUT, so is my four-year-old, so.
Rob’s tune will eventually change. Of this I am sure.
You need to tell Tipsy Swistle to talk to Tipsy Gigi. Because I can tell you, Tipsy Gigi is NOT nearly as productive as Tipsy Swistle!
Seriously, much to the irritation of morning Kate, tipsy Kate leaves the counters sticky and kids’ socks strewn about the floor.
Consistently, I click over here to read your posts feeling grumpy/depressed/sad, and by the time I’m done reading whatever awesomeness you’ve shared(and the best comment section on the internet!) I always feel SO much better. Just wanted to thank you!
My husband is a high school teacher who has been teaching 11th and 12th grade for about 10 years now, and I have spent about the same number of years teaching college (lots of freshman). From our sample set we can assure you, things with Rob will get better. Students come back to visit their old high school, willingly!, and they are apparently quite changed.
Even as freshman, it’s cool to see them grow in their new environments and as they age.
I can’t vouch for the exact age they will be agreeable to LIVE with again, but I can assure you that the roulette of roommate choice gives them all kinds of lessons in living with others who are not forced to put up with them through blood relation or the burden of law.
He (you!) have so much to look forward to.
This made me happy in numerous ways! Glad there was a good ending to the bird story!
I love that Cornell ornithology website. Once when I worked from home in front of a window, I spent almost the entire day trying to figure out what bird i was hearing. The site is a REALLY FUN rabbit hole. The bird was a Carolina Chickadee and I was searching only by location/geography and audio clips. So fun. Don’t tell my ex-boss, of course.
Tipsy Evening Swistle sounds like the perfect friend. ;)
All About Birds (www.allaboutbirds.org) is one of the best bird related websites out there. Tremendously helpful, informative and interesting. Look for listings with local parks for birdwatching opportunities. Birds have entirely changed who I am as a person. Be careful, it’s addicting.
I’m going to have to look up Woodcocks now, because I’m curious if I’ve ever seen one. I can’t remember if it was me that said to look in drawers BUT we found one of our kitten in a drawer years ago too!
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Woodcock/id
And everything you ever wanted to know about North American birds generally. Best website ever.
The scoffing teenager makes me think of an episode of The Middle where the oldest son is being so incredibly obnoxious that his mom can’t wait until he leaves for college. I think it’s a rite of passage that they have to be awful so we are able to let them go. I hope that’s the case.
I, like so many above, adore Tipsy Evening Swistle.
Made me think of The Middle too! “I don’t get it, Mike! I’m a nice person. You’re a nice person. How did we make such a jerk?” “Well you know how it is, the first pancake doesn’t always turn out.” Haha. I love that show and it does make me feel so much more normal in my parenting. ;)
I was delighted to see that you call upon your previous self to make things nicer for your later self. I like to make that work, too, when I remember.
I was thinking the same that others are thinking about your son making sure that you were ready to boot him out. I wonder if Mama woodcocks are ever so ready to boot their children out of the nest from all the obnoxious noise. “And stop using that tone of squawk with me, young duck!”
“Would you just cut it out, with the loud, nasal peent calls?! And if I catch you performing even one more of those dazzling aerial displays, you are totally grounded!”
I adore this comment.
Re: Rob. This too shall pass. And then you get to do it four more times. LOL
My sons, who until they were 15/16 were perfect angels and my buddies, all of a sudden decided they could not stand my lame ways. They would even pretend they didn’t know me when in public. Happy to report that it was just a phase. A loooong four or five years but nothing compared to their 43 years on earth. Also, it might surprise you that even when they are impossible at home, kids usually are nice to other people.
I’m finding my 4 year old quite difficult to live with. All manners have evaporated in favour of barking orders and screaming no. I thought it was supposed to get better after three? Anyway, here’s hoping I get a few more charming years before he morphs into a teen.
Unfortunately I think Tipsy Evening Alison is the antithesis of Tipsy Evening Swistle. Tipsy Evening Alison thinks the dishes can wait. Tipsy Evening Alison starts involved projects she has no intention of completing. I think I like Tipsy Evening Swistle better.
Word. Can Tipsy Swistle give a tutorial on evening productivity?
It all began when I realized that phenomenon where, if you’re sitting while you’re drinking, you can feel just fine—until you stand up, and suddenly realize you’re not entirely fine. I found that if I stayed standing up, I wrung the most enjoyment out of the drinks, because I kept FEELING them—whereas if I sat down, I just felt kind of drowsy, and often wasted the drinks entirely by dozing off. So now I have it set up almost like a payment system: if I have another drink, then I need to keep going on the laundry and I should also tackle that paper pile accumulating on the counter.
Tipsy evening Swistle does indeed sound lovely and I am curious to know if she can be hired! Or simply invited over for — you know, a lovely glass of wine!
Tipsy Swistle and the Case of the Loud Timberdoodle. Sounds like a Nancy Drew book title.
When my son was that age, we communicated mostly with notes…..the spoken word was just too volatile. But there is hope. He, his wife and daughter just came for a week-long visit and it was delightful. It was more than that….it was wonderful. We laughed and had so much fun. It was everything I dreamed of when I had children. So it does get better. Hang in there.
And try to remember that when they are at their most unloveable, is when they need your love the most. I clung to that during the teenage years.