Running with Scissors

Sara Peterson-Davis has worked as a newspaper researcher and reporter, as well as a communications director and consultant. She and her husband, Monty Davis, can be found in Liberty, Mo., keeping their two children from running with scissors. Contact Sara

It Happended One Night

by Sara Peterson-Davis

My husband and I woke up this morning and there was a teenager in our house.

We knew he’d be arriving but we didn’t think it would be this soon.

Our new teenager jumped out of bed and said good morning by pointing out that he was only a half an inch from being taller than me.

“I’m 13 today and I’m almost taller than you are,” he beamed standing in the blue pajama pants with the polar bears he’d pinched from his dad. He was waving his hand over the top of his head and bumping it into the very top of mine. It didn’t seem that long ago that his pajamas had feet in them.

“It won’t be long before I’m as tall as you,” he said, turning to his dad.

“Taller,” my husband laughed.

It is true. The little baby we brought home more than a dozen years ago in a onesy with a big yellow duck painted on the front has grown into a teenager with long arms, big feet and the slightest beginnings of hairy man legs – a detail he pointed out to me just the other day.

He’s grown into a teenager with a sharp sense of humor and a soft heart. A teenager who can recite whole scenes from some South Park episode until everyone else in the house is ready to scream, and then gets up in the middle of the night agonizing over a baby bird he found earlier in the day blown from its nest.

A teenager who pushes his father and me to the limits of sanity as he fights to be free of us, and then turns up a couple hours later with a hug and an apology.

A teenager who tries on three outfits and ends up standing in front of the dryer waiting for his favorite T-shirt and jeans to finish drying.

A teenager who lets it slip every once in a while that he thinks a girl is “hot,” only to freeze up when she returns the compliment.

A teenager who can’t find his shoes in the morning but knows the batting averages of all the top players on the New York Yankees.

A teenager who has traded in his action figures for guitars and Ipods.

I still see a lot of the little boy who used to live here. He stops by when his teenaged version is mad at his sister, when he’s cutting up with his friends or when things aren’t going quite right.

But every once in a while I get a glimpse of the man this teenager is likely to become. I see a kind man with a loving, creative spirit and an open heart.

I try to think of that man when we’re in the middle of parenting our sometimes defiant, often disorganized and totally exasperating teenager. If we stay relatively calm and remember that it’s hard work to grow up, I know we’ll be seeing more of that guy.

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