Drive-bys: Suburban style

Living with three teenagers itself is full of hormonal rushes and dramatic angst. Add in licenses, boyfriends/girlfriends and about twelve of their teenage friends (perpetual guests) and you have yourself a very ripe stew, brewing with noise, music, cell phones tones and IM dings, mixed with anger, tears, frustration, highs and lows and two pre-alcoholic parents.
So it has come to this. We cant go home again! No, seriously, Vic and I have determined that we only add to the disorder, so we leave the brood to themselves and we keep a distant but nurturing eye on the whole mix.
It goes kind of like this: Vic and Sondra leave for a lovely evening out...dinner with friends, some music, a little dancing, a nice scotch or two. Good times, friendship, laughter...ahhhhh, we are whole people again.
Round about midnight (because we are old now) Vic and I turn our car toward home. As we round the corner onto our road, we gaze furtively up the hill to assess the first "is it safe to go home" test: Are ALL the lights on in the house. YES ALL.. including the attic, which I know no child of mine would ever venture into. But heck its a light switch in need of flipping so flip they do.
Seeing all the lights on, our eyes wander down to the long curving driveway. We used to rapidly count the cars, but now we do an average. If the vehicular path snakes past the electric panel post, we might be safe. But if the caravan of vehicles (Thank you Graduated Licensure ruling, now each child drives but one car) heads downward toward the dogwood tree, well that requires a Drive-By. At this point Vic sighs deeply and heads straight past the driveway, into Otter Cove to a midnight tour of the beaches. As we cruise, Vic calls home, gets a head count as to who is sleeping over and then establishes a deadline as to when all others must leave.
We then wait for our negotiated time of reentry.

If this all sounds crazy, the alternative is psychotic, we know-we have tried. Sometimes the best you do is survive! :)


PS Amy- love and kisses XXOOOOO