Teenage Drive Time

I carpool with four other families who live in our area on basketball practice nights. It is wonderful, instead of driving three nights a week we only have to drive once every other week. Heaven! Tonight was my turn, and maybe because it's so infrequent now, I really look forward to it.

I always arrive at the school early and peek in at the end of practice. Today Miranda yells from across the gym, "Hey Mom!" Acknowledgement! Every mother of a teenager knows what a treat this is! The girls were all revved up and stopped to say "Hey" (apparently NO ONE says Hi anymore) on their way to the locker room. They grabbed all their bags (an unbelievable ammount) and headed out to the car laughing and talking all the way.

There's a demand of "Ooh turn this up!" No matter what song is on the radio, it's someone's favorite. Then the girls started talking, the coach is a dork, the algebra teacher is a dork, the science teacher is a mean dork, etc. There seems to be a pattern. I finally got an opening and added that I had their algebra teacher when I was in school, which caused another fit of laughter. (I'm not sure why, but I'm not going to focus on that!)

There's such a feeling of happiness when they all get together, giggling and enjoying each other, each one trying to be funnier than the last, acting like teenagers are supposed to. I'm very grateful that they let me be a part of it once in a while!