Helpful Recipe Ideas for Parents with Annoying Teenagers

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You can see leaf veins on these suckers so don’t tell me algebra homework is hard. 

(1)  When You Want to Kill That Kid Vegetable Soup.  This involves a great deal of chopping.  You take a large knife and slice through various root vegetables like carrots, turnips, onions, and extra celery since it makes a satisfying bone-crushing sound.  This way you don’t cut through actual parts of people you are supposed to love and care for but are instead raging against the shallot.  Murder those red potatoes, people.  They don’t bleed.  Chop away on the cutting board and when the kid comes in and to ask what’s for dinner, they will see the murderous and slightly crazed look on your face with a large knife in your hand and quietly slink back in their rooms until dinner is ready.

(2)  Talking Back Biscuits.  These are a light and fluffy way to start your morning when the kid says “YOU SAID YOU’D WAKE ME UP MOTHER” and “WHY DO I NOT HAVE ANY SOCKS THAT ARE CLEAN.” Like their socks are your problem.  Then you catch them saying “oh shit, I have a history test today and I didn’t study” so you add extra salt to the dough to match their mouth. When they eat them and say “gross, I don’t like so much salt” you can say “welcome to my world, kiddo” and “try some jam with that.”

(3)  Crappy Attitude Casserole.  With teenagers, they come home ecstatic and happy and talking about the school dance with glee or they look like someone pulled out all their wisdom teeth without anesthesia.  If you are unlucky enough to catch them on a bad day, make a dump casserole of all the leftover vegetables with rice and a can of creamed soup, cover with cheese, and bake for 30 min.  When they ask what’s in it you can say you just vomited all your problems into the dish and maybe they can chill out asking you what’s in the casserole because IT’S BEEN A ROUGH DAY OKAY? and you’ll match their sour attitude with the almost moldy broccoli you chopped up and threw in underneath the cheese.

(4)  Incessant Chatter Chowder.  When your daughter comes home and wants to tell you all about how this other kid got together and how the rumors are that the first kid actually hooked up with this girl at a party but then this other friend got involved and he’s a little weird, you know, and by this time you just turn on the hand mixer and begin to wave in their direction and mouth the words “I can’t hear you” because you’re just trying to make this lovely dinner for everyone that involves loud noises and creamed soup to drown out their obnoxious stories about teenagers almost kissing under bleachers.

(5)  Slow as Molasses Cookies.  These cookies are full of a gooey sweet substance that takes forever to pour out of the jar, just like when they have missed the bus and you need to drive them in but suddenly they sit on the floor “putting on their shoes” but they are laughing and somehow magically creating a snapchat story and you walk in front of them and wave at them like OMG WE HAVE TO GO I AM NOT YOUR PERSONAL DRIVER and they look at you like “what is your problem” and proceed to lace their sneakers like they win a prize if they can draw out this process until Christmas.  Sprinkle sugar on the top of the cookies just before you put them in the oven, just like when you say “I love you!” right when you drop them off after yelling at them in the car for twenty minutes.

(6)  Stinky Pasta.  This is a crowd-pleaser with a cream sauce out of limburger cheese and that is served over fettuccini noodles and sprinkled with basil, which basically smells like how a teenager’s room smells.  You tell them to shower but it’s like they are allergic to water or soap but instead cover up the stench with some cheap perfume from Bath and Body Works that doesn’t smell at all like strawberries despite the label.  They walk out of the house and you have to air the place out for an hour and you think “at least the basil in this pasta recipe actually smells good.”

(7)  Phone Addiction Applesauce.  Teenagers think applesauce is just for kids, but it smells lovely to cook apples with cinnamon and then puree them until they are soft and smooth, just like how their minds are mush after staring at their devices for a solid seven hours on a Saturday.  When you tell them “hey, kiddo, how about reading this classic novel to give your brain some activity” they say “I’ll tell you classic, how about Mario Brothers” and you end up eating all the applesauce and watching cartoons alone wondering why you even try.

(8)  Tired Tuesdays.  You cook no food and say “there’s always cereal” because your kids are exhausting and you are tired of their smells and their talking and their attitude problems and you just don’t understand how come they can’t grow up and get a job already.  Then one of your teenagers is sad because some boy dumped her and she says “Mommy?  Can you make me a grilled cheese?”  Her cute little pimply face reminds you of all those nights you stayed up with her until 3 am with a fever and rocked her and there’s so much love pouring out you in that one moment that you say “YES OF COURSE I’LL DO ANYTHING MAYBE YOU WANT FOUR TYPES OF CHEESE ON IT AND I’LL HEAT UP TOMATO SOUP WITH THAT?” The teenager smiles in that sly way that says “ha ha – I’ve still got it.”

Laugh Until Life Makes Sense

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I’m not a big fan of bumper stickers.  I find it odd that people want to display their political sentiments on a used Honda for the world to see.  I find it annoying to have to stare at hateful words about our President at the stoplight in front of the grocery store.  And I’m amazed so many people put stick-figure families on their mini-vans to display how many people and pets live in their households.  Yes, yes. Michael plays soccer.  You have a cat.  Riveting stuff.

My own daughter asked that her school name be displayed on the back of our Chevy Tahoe.  But do you think given my poor driving and bad texting habit I want to announce what school we’re affiliated with and have people stare into the car from afar to see if they know me? You don’t know me.  I’m likely to run into you from the rear by accident or be smirking unpleasantly at your family of stick people.

So it might surprise you that I slapped a bumper sticker on the back of my car.  Yes I did. The very woman who is constantly shaking her head at the stupid Jesus Fish / Darwin Fish debacle.  It’s on there, firmly planted square in the middle.

Laugh until life makes sense.

It’s one of my life mottos.  So when I saw this sticker a year ago, I immediately went home, created a (very often unseen) circle of clean with a paper towel and Windex, and stuck this saying on my back window.

Sometimes I check my rear-view mirror and see my daughter lip-syncing to Katy Perry, or notice that my son has used his squeezable yogurt to finger-paint on the back glass.  But quite often I simply catch the word – laugh. It’s written not only for the cars behind me, but for me to see when I need it most.  There are times I don’t feel like laughing. Times when I’m gripping the wheel in prayer that I’ll make it until lunch.  And yet somewhere in there, there’s a silver lining.

Given enough space and distance from pain, life can be funny.  What other attitude is really worth having? Who wants to hang out with people who scowl all day, eat fiber, and gripe about the lack of comfortable pants?  My oncologist said that people who laugh a lot really do live longer.  From one who’s made it through some rough health patches, I can use all the help I can get.

When my own life gets hard, I lose weight.  I end up putting the coffee creamer in the pantry and buy multiple cartons of eggs.  My dentist tells me that I might need a root canal and I realize my sobbing cry face looks like a hollowed out whale. So I go to the mall to invest in a quart of face cream but catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.  How did a homeless woman end up at Neiman’s? Don’t they have security in this place?  Oh, wait.  That’s me, wearing a sweatshirt from high school that says Coca-Cola Classic.

And just like that, on my way to the YMCA to choke out a run on the treadmill, I smile.  It bobbles up and down into a chuckle, which erupts into a real belly shaker, and a few cackles later I’m in full-on snort mode.   Did I really go to Neiman’s wearing sweat pants with a hole in the knee?  Am I seriously going to need a root canal?  Why in the world do I have all these freaking eggs?

This life we live doesn’t make sense.  There is so much killing and suicide and death and mental illness.  There’s chaos and disarray and a dusty, cursed earth.  And yet we are made for more than this.  We are not in this place forever.  The righteous will not be moved, and you can only do what you can do in a day’s time.  And when the really hard stuff hits,  you’ll be prepared.  After a night of no sleep, you’ll wake up to discover you’re out of coffee, your kid’s school uniform is dirty, it’s snack day at your kid’s preschool and all you have is raisins, and some wild animal has knocked over your trash can in the night, strewing trash all over your front lawn.  You  have to fight demons and hurt with friends and heal from grief and now this? Yeah, it happens.  And it’s a tiny bit funny.

Ecclesiastes says there is a time for everything.  A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.  3:4.  So mourn and sob and weep and sigh.  Take Advil and Zanax and buy more coffee.  But in the end, realize that you have enough eggs to make quiche for the tri-county area, and that’s just downright weird.

As for me and my Chevy Tahoe, we’re dwelling in this season of laughter as long as we both can, puffing and choking and driving toward the bitter end.

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Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/philliecasablanca/2578387623/

Quote “until life makes sense” credit:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Laugh-Until-Life-Makes-Sense/202930039805662?group_id=0