Back to school with a teen

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Back to school with a teen

Yet again events in the diary have jumped off the page and basically shouted “YOU ARE GETTING OLD”.    This week more than ever.   Even when I got a year older last month on my birthday I didn’t feel older in an instant than I do today.

This week Jonnie has a birthday and leaves his teens behind to turn twenty.   Even he doesn’t like the idea of not being a teen anymore.   He asked last night if he could stay nineteen for another year.   And then said “Or 17 because then I have can have a car again”.

Er nice try son.

This means that from Wednesday I will have two children in their twenties.   And just one teenager.    A teenager in sixth form, doing A levels.

How did this even happen?!

How will I refer to them collectively on here now?  I can’t say “kids”, they aren’t.   I can’t say “teens”.  Two of them aren’t.   Offspring?   That sounds ridiculous.   Progeny?  Do me a favour.

The back to school process for Ellie has been something I have had no input in at all.  Actually that is not true.   The only input I did was my credit card details onto clothing websites as Ellie stocks her wardrobe with her new uniform of smart jeans and tops.   That and throwing money at her in Rymans for various bits of stationery.

Essentially though that is it, all I have done.   There have been no trips to M&S for jumpers and skirts.  No rummaging through last year’s kit trying to find various bits or trying to decide if we can eek one more year out of the more expensive bits.  No queuing in Clarks to have feet measured and then taking out a second mortgage for three pairs of shoes and three pairs of trainers.  Or in fact also having to sell an organ to pay for all the stuff that Jonnie needed when he went to boarding school: duvet / towels / pillows as well as the monstrous kit list for both school and the smart “home clothes” he needed for events in the evening after school.

Done.   With just a flick of a credit card back to school is done.   And for less than £100.    That used to be the cost of one blazer.  And now it gets a basket load to fill an entire wardrobe from New Look.

There will be no photos to mark the return on Wednesday.  No sharing of this annual event on Facebook.   Just a “see you later” as I drop my last teen at school.

I couldn’t be more proud and have to keep telling myself that I don’t need Facebook to do that for me.

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  • “My beloved children”, for that is what they always be to you, regardless of their (and your) age. x

  • I no longer have teens in my house as my daughters will be 21 on Sunday! I can’t begin to tell you how old that makes me feel. It’s tricky to know what to call them after the teen years isn’t it? I’m being told off for referring to mine as ‘children’ and keep trying to come up with a suitable alternative.
    Happy 20th Birthday to Jonnie for this week.