It's HEEERRRE!

Mother Nature is providential. She gives us twelve years to develop a love for our children before turning them into teenagers.
-- William Galvin




Carly will be a teenager in a week. However, the teen stuff has officially started. (We can say "stuff", we know what it really is...)

As a very wise woman, the woman Carly is named after in fact, used to say;
"ALIENS HAVE TAKEN OVER MY DAUGTHTER!"

I am entirely too young to be raising a teenager...especially a teen girl, at that. BUT, this is part of the plan that God had when he brought me into this family. So here we go....

As I age faster than normal and stress-out on a daily basis, here are some humorous (and some meaningful) quotes that might help me to laugh to keep from going crazy:

Adolescents are not monsters. They are just people trying to learn how to make it among the adults in the world, who are probably not so sure themselves.
-- Virginia Satir

Adolescence is perhaps nature's way of preparing parents to welcome the empty nest.
-- Karen Savage and Patricia Adams

Arguing with a teenager is like wrestling in the mud with a pig. Sooner or later you figure out that he/she is enjoying it.
-- Author Unknown

At fourteen you don't need sickness or death for tragedy.
-- Jessamyn West

Few things are more satisfying than seeing your children have teenagers of their own.
-- Doug Larson (That's for you sweet mentors of mine!)

I am every emotion times ten, I conform yet I'm rebellious, always obeying but somehow still an outlaw, always talking but never heard, I am a teenager.
-- Author Unknown

I have seen my kid struggle into the kitchen in the morning with outfits that need only one accessory: an empty gin bottle.
-- Erma Bombeck (LOL!)

Raising teenagers is like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree.
-- Author Unknown

The invention of the teenager was a mistake. Once you identify a period of life in which people get to stay out late but don't have to pay taxes - naturally, no one wants to live any other way.
-- Judith Martin

The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.
-- Quentin Crisp

Lord, help me...and guide Carly....and guide me to help you to guide her. Amen

Lead Me With Strong Hands

So Father, give me the strength
To be everything I am called to be
Oh, Father, show me the way
To lead them
Won't you lead me?

To lead them with strong hands
To stand up when they can't
Don't want to leave them hungry for love
Chasing dreams that I could give up

I'll show them I'm willing to fight
And give them the best of my life
So we can call this our home
Lead me, 'cause I can't do this alone
- SANCTUS REAL