Sharing a room with a teenage son after years of not being around him when he’s sleeping. At rest, ( after an hour or so of surreptitious texting to his pals ) the normal froth of testosterone-induced agita is gone leaving the young man breathing slowly. Listening to your infant sleep is the stuff of a calmed parent. Listening to a 17 year old kid at rest is so rare as to have settled on me and got me thinking.
What a treat to listen to my kid sleep again. Weirdly comforting.
My nineteen year old son slept over a couple months ago. When I got up in the morning he was fast asleep on the couch. I grinned when he stretched and it was the exact same sleeping stretch as he did when he was a baby.
They grow up but some things never change 
Aww. You all are making me wish I had kids.
It’s conventional wisdom that people’s fondness for their kids fades after puberty, based on how the family videos and photo albums dry up after its onset, but I’m not buying it.
Huh, pictures of me dried up at puberty because I developed a sudden loathing of having my picture taken. Ages 12 to, uh, now are documented mainly through posed pictures around my birthday cake.
Heck, I still like mine at 16! He’s gotten nothing but more interesting. Somehow (we don’t know why) he’s gotten popular in high school so I am getting live vicariously the life of a popular high school guy. I admitted this to him and got the same half-smile-with-dimple-and-raised-eyebrows response I’ve seen him use since he was small.
Of course, when he was born I promised to try and make him a nice person and one I still liked as a teenager. So far it looks like I kept my promise.
LOL. The best part about winter here at our house is that with my husband on third shift, both kids crawl into my bed and spoon me for warmth. At 7 & 15, they are like little personal heaters and it is a wonderful thing. I adore my kids, though oddly I loathe people, go figure.
I will tell you the best thing is when one or the other isn’t home and the one that is home make a point of taking up for the other – case in point: Friday night, and old friend of mine (old skater friend, I should point out) came over & hung out with me and Lithubby. My daughter was out at a friend’s house and the boy was home. At some point, my friend discovered my daughter’s skateboard and began skating around my living room (the room is something like 30x32 and has concrete flooring), doing small ollies, etc. My son then proceeded to chase him about saying “hey, you can’t do that, that’s my sister’s!” I love that they love each other when they aren’t around each other!
My children are 17, 22 and 30. I loved the baby and childhood years. I enjoyed the challenges of surreptitiously guiding them through their teens. But there’s nothing so wonderful as relating to them now that they are grown. Who wouldn’t enjoy their energy, optimism and intelligence combined with our family’s quirky sense of humor? It’s like I got to help design people who I’d like and who’d like me.
Over the last year I got to see my 30-year old napping with her newborn. So I’d second (third? fourth?) the tender parental loving feeling you get seeing your child at rest.
They are cheap labor.
Mine are still so small, so I’m enjoying the challenges and rewards of having two very small, very needy, very opinionated people in my care. They are both so bright and pleasant, and the almost 3 year old has a wonderful sense of humor. I especially enjoy seeing them together; this morning the 7 month old was sitting on a blanket in the floor, and her brother sat down with her and said “do you want to play with me and watch Little Einsteins?” they were just hanging out, and it was great to see them loving each other. Yes, they’re a lot of work but they’re worth every minute of it.
I always used to joke that my son was at his best when he was asleep. He probably still is. 
Now that they are bumping young adulthood (they’re 17, 19, 21, and 22), i’m enjoying their personalities more and more (like as_u_wish said). I was talking briefly to my son the other afternoon, and I pointed to his T-shirt and said “there’s a hole”. He said “Yeah” as he was turning to go, and suddenly he added (singing) “In the bottom of the sea!”.
I always enjoyed sneaking in to watch my kids playing video games together. They loved the ones with long stories, not the hack-em-ups, so there was always a lot of conversation about where to go/what to do. It didn’t usually make any sense to me, but the enjoyment they were getting out of their joint interactions to advance in the games was always so fun to watch. (It also gave me good ammo against the argument that video gaming destroys social interaction, but that’s another can o’ worms.)
I wasn’t crazy about either of mine as teenagers, but they neither one gave me any problems and I knew if I could just hang in there, they’d come out the other side human again. I’ve come to greatly enjoy the adults they’ve become.
I remember doing this with my younger brother when we were teenagers. He hs incredibly fast hand-eye reflexes and so is a whiz at most video games, so he would fight through the game while I navigated through the story for him. It was lots of fun. (Seriously, he’s a phenom. He played the old Atari game Defender until it reset itself. When he was five. :eek: )
I might be ready to join the “How many people secretly despise their kids?” thread in a few months, but right now, it’s cool watching my 12-year-old son move toward becoming a teen – physical maturity, emotional maturity, etc. (And, yeah, some 'tude sometimes. Don’t care for that so much.)
I’ve had these moments of seeing his friends after not seeing them for a couple of weeks and think “Wow! So-and-so looks like a teenager all of a sudden.” I’m starting to have those moments with my son.
My girls are 16, 15 and 12. The best part for me is to be able to laugh and joke and tell stories with 3 someones who totally get my sense of humor and my jokes. They’ve grown to be beautiful and intelligent young women that I am proud to know–and they’re FUNNY! Nothing better than an afternoon spent hanging out with them.
And then the next day they’re at each other’s throats…in between bouts of whining that I never let them do ANYTHING!
I’m still keeping 'em though.
My five year old comes in early every single morning to cuddle with mommy. If I’m already up, he gets upset and I have to go back to bed.
My eight year old tells me CONSTANTLY that I am the best mommy in the whole, wide world. Especially in public.
Love my boys.
The pictures they draw. My youngest always draws me with flipped up hair, and the president/mayor/boss always has a top hat.
Their innocence. During the big blackout a few years ago, mr mouse had dug a hole for a fire in the backyard and gave them a stick with a hotdog to cook. They kept asking him when mama is getting home to fix the lights. Because, (duh) mom fixes everything.
They are much more tender than adult goats.
You just wait until he gets the hairy leg thingy. snif.