My teenage son

Today while I was finishing up working at the market, I got a call from Buster. He wanted to know if he could hang out with friends after school. I asked him what time I could expect him home for dinner. he said 6:30-7PM. I told him I would start dinner at 6:30 and that we would eat at 7PM and not to be late.

Although we had another sunny day, the Monday traffic was light. My goal was to make enough money for some groceries. I thought Buster my like Calamari for dinner so I went to City Fish to buy some.
I know the guy John who owns the business and he hooked me up with a GREAT deal (he's a big fan of my work), Two and a half pounds of calamari for $6 I"d say that's a deal. I did the rest of my shopping with the money I had just made and headed home. Calamari and Brussels sprouts for dinner, with a salad.

If Buster isn't home by dinner time, I eat without him. 7:00 came and went with no Buster. By 7:30 I was getting worried. He called at 8PM to tell me he was going to be late. I explained to him that you don't call someone an hour after you were supposed to be somewhere to tell them you were going to be late. I was pissed. He said that he had talked to me at 6:15 and didn't I remember? What was this shit!

By the time he got home it was 9PM. I was not happy. But this is a very tricky situation, come down to hard and it will backfire on you, not hard enough and you'll get walked all over.

Buster and I have an excellent loving, honest and open relationship. I cut him a lot of slack, but he knows exactly what is important to me. He said that he called me and thought I was using a funny voice, he said he would be home late and that I said OK.

I took the time to explain to him that when he calls me to tell me that he's going to be late, after we had agreed on a time that he had already picked, I would most certainly not be using a funny voice or taking it lightly.

He started to cry. I was confused, I don't see my son cry very often. I asked him what was going on. He said that after our last phone discussion he knew he had mistaken someone else's voice for mine on the phone and he knew I wasn't happy.

I told him how much I loved him and how important he was to me. I told him how much I worry when he isn't home when he says he will be. He knew that and was disappointed in himself. I asked him what else was bothering him, and he confided in me that he had been thinking about my mom and that he missed her. I told him that I miss her too.

I hugged him and told him again how much I loved him. Tears rolled down his cheeks and I was glad that he had punished himself worse that I could have.

I love my boy. It's not easy being a parent. . . . it's not easy being a kid. We're all just figuring it out as we go.

Either that. . . . or he's a much better actor than I was at that age. It's hard to tell which is reality.