Help! I have a 10 year old in the house!

I wrote back in April that Jonathan turned 10. It's been seven and a half years since I had a 10 year old male in the house. But I'm beginning to remember why I stopped liking my oldest son about this point in his life (although I never stopped loving him).


Ten year old males start becoming obnoxious. They begin calling everyone names like "Butt Head" and "Idiot." And they love to use potty words like "poop" in every sentence and tell gross jokes and stories. And they are beginning to think they are smarter than everyone else and are quick to correct mistakes.


And it is worse when the ten year old is actually pretty smart.


Me: Jonathan, sit in the chair.
Jonathan: You can't sit in a chair. You can sit on a chair.


Me: Jonathan, put the chair back where it originally came from.
Jonathan: I can't. I don't know which store you bought it from and I can't drive either.


Me: Jonathan, please put these things down the stairs.
Thirty minutes later I do down the stairs and there are the things at the bottom.

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Jonathan and Faith both received Nintendo DS Lites for their birthdays, which are only 12 days a part. They either knew or figured out that they can play games together without hooking the games together. As parents we discovered the hard way about this capability. One night we heard them fighting from their beds which are in two different rooms. They were supposed to be asleep an hour prior. When we go up to investigate, we discovered they could communicate and play with one another through the DS. Faith was mad because Jonathan is more skilled and killed her player. Now we have to make sure the games are off when the lights go off.

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I'm constantly amazed by the power of heredity. If you were to see my father-in-law, my husband and Jonathan, you would be too. There is no doubt they are all related to one another. One of Scott's cousins is really into family genealogy. He sent Scott a picture of a distant male relative which could've been a picture of Scott or his dad.

But the power of the genes don't stop there. All three are incredibly picky eaters. For the most part, Scott and his father don't share the same distaste for certain items, other than mayo. However, Jonathan and Scott are almost identical in the things they don't like: however, Jonathan has a longer list. The other day, at a Mother's Day brunch, Jonathan wanted me to serve him a piece of cheese cake off the buffet. "Are you sure? Your dad doesn't like cheese cake." Scott, who was standing by, said, "He's not me." Jonathan gets back to the table and takes one bite and declares he doesn't like it. (I knew he wouldn't like the texture. Scott doesn't like cheese in general. What kinda Wisconsin born and raised boy are you?)

Scott's dad is a tease and a prankster. So I shouldn't be surprised that Jonathan is too. However, I am. It's not like Jonathan lives close to Grandpa, who teaches him tricks. So, again, I must assume it is the power of genetics. Way back in the creation this blog I wrote about some of the pranks Jonathan played on us, hiding his yellow blanket, hiding puzzle pieces and his medication. He always gets us because he's so patient in setting the trap AND he only tries to get us once every couple of years.

Last week Scott came down from putting the kids in bed and told me that they discovered a new "online" friend named Rachael. She was 11 and was playing a DS game with them. Scott told the kids not to give out any personal information and then went to his office to work. As I'm sitting at my laptop, I'm thinking, "I don't know of any Rachael in the neighborhood. And how can they be getting a signal to their DS when I can't even get our wireless router to signal my laptop when I'm upstairs?"

Later, Scott went to tell the kids to turn off the DS and came back down the stairs. "It turns out Jonathan made up Rachael on his DS and tricked Faith into believing it was a real friend."

When I told Jonathan's counselor about the prank, she said, "I have a feeling it will only be the first of many more to come."

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Howe Household Sublime Conversations

Okay, I have to get this down before I forget it.


Me: Josh, I asked you to clean the bathroom before the small group Bible Study.
Josh: I did.
Me: I asked you to clean the baseboards and wipe the walls down.

Josh: I did.
Me: I'm looking at dirty baseboards now.
Josh: What are you talking about?
Me: Come down and I'll show you.

He comes down the stairs and I show him what I'm talking about.

Josh (yelling at his siblings): Who keeps pooping on the wall?

Siblings are both yelling back denials. Josh is wetting toilet paper and wiping down the walls. I remind him in a calm voice that I am speaking to him respectfully and I would appreciate the same. And, oh by the way, cleaning the walls with wet toilet paper "isn't going to cut the mustard." And I hear Jonathan laughing in the background, repeating yet another idiom he's just learned.

Josh: I'm not cleaning it because I don't do this.
Me: We don't have chores in the house based upon who does and doesn't do things. I don't wear your clothes or eat your food, but I shop, clean and prepare them for  you.
Josh: I want to know who poops on the walls.
Me: They are both denying and it doesn't really matter, because you are still responsible for cleaning the walls anyway.
Josh: It matters so we can tell who ever it is to stop doing it.
Me (turning to all three children): Whoever is pooping on the walls, stop it.
Me (turning to Josh): Okay, I've taken care of it, now clean the bathroom.

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About halfway through the conversation, I'm laughing and hardly able to speak clearly because the conversation is sublimely ridiculous. Of course, all the kids are now laughing too. I did have to chose to make the conversation ridiculous instead of getting angry at Joshua's teenage behavior. He's been a piece of work lately. 

My mom said to me: You know what this is, don't you?"

Me: Yeah, he's a teenager.

My Mom, who had four of her own the last two being teenage twins: This is God's way of preparing you both for his leaving the nest.

Me: Yeah, I know. I already figured this out when he was ten. If he remained cute, cuddly and adorable like when he was a baby, I wouldn't want him to leave. Now, it is all I can do not to kick him out some days.

Scott: My boss, Kurt's oldest son is in his first year of college. He said as he and his wife are returning the son to college, the son is getting uglier and uglier as they get closer and closer to campus. Kurt said he almost pulled over and made him walk the rest of the way.

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And as the family counselor has reminded me, Josh is an incredibly good kid. Lord help those parents with difficult kids!!!! What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger, right?

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