Years ago when I was a coach, a first-grade teacher told me she loved moving to first grade from the upper grades once her own kids were older.

She had an eloquent way of explaining it, and I don’t want to misquote her… but it had something to do with how primary kids still show you how they love you and need you and think you’re great.

Teenagers…well… not so much.

Living by myself with my two amazing teenagers is something.

Wow.

Thank goodness I go to school every day with 6,7 and 8 year olds who draw me pictures, want me to tell them stories, and to listen to all the parts of their day. My students more often than not think I have the right answer. They even laugh at my jokes and love my songs!

I’ll say it again, every day 19 kids laugh at my jokes, love my songs, and learn from the things I teach them.

And then I go home.

If you ever need to knock someone’s self-worth, self-confidence, self-esteem down several pegs, I recommend having them become a single-mom to a few teenage boys.

Most days I’m reminded in multiple ways from a few of my most favorite people, that I’m not funny, not cool, not smart, not right, and that in fact, I’m ruining their otherwise fine day in some way.

I’d love to pivot here and tell you about the good parts to. I’d love to tell you how when we had our recent power outage those very same teenage boys helped change smoke detector batteries, find flashlights and take the dog out in the dark-no-street-lights-no-porch-lights-no-house-lights night. But, this is no place to write about the nice times.

Instead, I’ll have you imagine that power outage, and how one of the only flashlights I could find was my old headlamp. So I wore it around the house, as I tried to make sure we were doing all the things we needed to do, and taking care of all the things we needed to take care of.

“Why are you acting so crazy about this?” One teenager kept asking me.

“It’s not that deep.” I was reminded.

And my favorite…

“Why do you have that on your head? You look like a f!@#ing angler fish.”