Another Birthday, and Cycles

Please join me in wishing a very happy and blessed 20th birthday to our son 5M, who, by virtue of his status almost exactly halfway between our oldest and youngest children, is the closest any of our children can come to claiming the designation as our 'Middle Child', even though his Borg Designation '5-of-8' might suggest something more like 'early in the second half'.  No matter.  He is a very earnest, and yet very fun-loving young man, and he has mainly been a joy to Jen and me, and our family.

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Also, with this birthday, we are down to only two teenagers in our family.  I was going through the math recently, and cumulatively, we have had three teenagers for roughly 9 of the past 11 years.  We have never had four (2F turned 20 a month before 5M turned 13; likewise 3M and 6F); we will never have three again (6F will turn 20 a month before 8M turns 13).  By the time 7M turns 20, we will have had at least two teenagers for all but a month of 20 consecutive years. . . (*tic*). . . (*tic*). . . (*tic*). . .

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The children in our family fall in this odd 10-year cycle, wherein each of our children (except 4M) has a 'decade buddy' among his/her siblings.  1F was born in 1982, 2F in '85, 3M in '88, 4M in '90, 5M in '92, 6F in '95, 7M in '98 and 8M in '02.  Thus, 2F/6F are a 'decade pair', born in the '5-years' '85/'95; 3M/7M are '88/'98.  1F/5M/8M are a '2-year' triad '82/'92/'02.

Alas, 4M has no 'decade buddy' for the '0-years'.  But Jen and I were married in 1980, and we moved into our current house in 2000, so his 'decade buddies' are just a tad more 'abstract' than his siblings', I suppose (and having three children after Jen's 40th birthday would have seemed just gratuitous on the part of the Universe, don't you think?).  He was born barely a week after our 10th anniversary, so when I took Jen out to dinner in honor of our Tin Anniversary (seriously? tin??), she was very great with child (and heck, she's pretty darn good, even without child. . . *ba-doomp!*).  Which just seemed fitting, somehow. . .

Back to the Drawing Board, I Guess. . .

Recently I was having a (*sarcasm alert!*) calm, rational discussion with one of my teenagers about his/her frustrations at some 'outrage' or other that Jen had perpetrated on her/his life, when the teen in question said, in an exasperated tone,

"You have no idea what it's like to live with her!"

Well, dang. . .  And here I thought that, in 31+ years of marriage, I had gotten to know her, just a little. . .

A friend of mine likes to say, "Grandchildren are your reward for not killing your teenagers."  I used to think that was funnier than I do now. . .

I never cease to be flabbergasted by the capacity of teens (some of them, anyway; perhaps mine, disproportionately) to recapitulate their behavior as newborns.  In some ways, they act like giant balls of 'I Want', whose conceptual universe ends at their own skin. . .

Lord, have mercy. . .