Quiet Here

I said I wasn't going to do a New Year's post, but you know, this isn't a bad time to think a bit about Gary and how he has settled in over the past seven months.

He is a sweet kid. When he moved in he was very excited about the possibility of moving in with his dad, though he would say he knew that it wasn't likely to happen. He also had an obsessive need to clean. He still cares more about cleanliness than your average teenage boy, but it has died down somewhat. That doesn't mean that he remembers to tell me when he cleaning supplies are gone instead of just taking mine. He also still goes through supplies at an inexplicable rate. His cleaning is sporadic, mostly timed to the visits of girls.

He has never showed the level of anxiety that most kids go through. I have never felt like he was clingy or monitoring me. I never felt like he was rejecting me, although some things like the not eating with us would have made me feel that way in the past. He doesn't initiate any physical contact, but when I hug him he hugs back hard, which is not something that he did early on.

I do have worrying thoughts about him and girls. He is a codie, which I understand. There is also the whole sex thing, which I struggle with. There is probably a whole post or three to be written about how to talk to teenagers about sex.

For the most part he is so easy to live with that it is easy for me to start believing that I am a super-parent. Remembering Frankie helps with that though. I have some skills, and they are a better match for some kids than for others.