Warning: Teen Now in Residence. Enter at Your Own Risk.

Our daughter has officially entered the dreaded teen years today, happy happy, joy joy. It is her 13th birthday. I am busily crossing myself as I type this. My husband, Dee is all ready to set up shop at the front door with a shotgun in hand. Anyone who touches his princess will have his wrath to deal with. Dating should be fun in a few years or 10. We figure after college would be fine. Maybe she will go for her master’s and doctorate and really drag it out for us.

Is there any kind of potion I can spread around the front door frame to keep out the teen angst and teen attitude? I am taken back to a story in the Bible about protecting the first-born son from death by smearing lamb’s blood around the door. Do you think it would work to keep away teen mouthiness and attitude? I am sure I could talk the store butcher into saving me a little if there is any chance it would work.

Teen attitude is a form of death and slow torture when you have to live in the same house with it. Teen attitude makes your hair fall out and causes sleepless nights and unwanted parental bursts of anger. Some teens should come with warning signs. Caution: Beware of mouthy outbursts, know it all attitudes and emotional upheaval. Be prepared for confrontations, difficulty hearing, following directions and adhering to rules and outbreaks of red blotches and bumps.

So far she rarely exhibits any sign of it except when she is overly tired, but that was the same when she was very small so knock on wood, it will never appear completely. I wonder if a string of garlic would help at all. They are easy to find around here.

I was a mellow teen who toed the line. I was too afraid of my father to do much wrong but the angst was there in spades. You could not pay me enough to be a teenager again. (I am crossing myself here again.)

She is a wonderful happy young lady and a loving human being. I am proud of her in many ways. I hope the teen years don’t spoil that. That brings up another question. Are teens another morphed form of creature? Do they become wild when the moon is full? I wonder if Jekyll and Hyde was really a teenager gone totally berserk and his magic potion was nothing more than an overdose of teen hormones.

I think we should add bars to all the windows this week… I can see her now, “MOMMMMM”, pause for a dramatic reaction and then the mandatory role of the eyes at Mom’s or Daddy's audacity. Oh no, she already does that. We are doomed…