Freeze Frame

You know, a surprise is around every corner when you have teenagers. Whenever I start downloading pictures from the camera I often find myself picturing Forrest Gump and his box of chocolates because ya' just never know what you're gonna' get. I expect the Washington Monument, I get this.Or street shots from Washington, D.C. and I find this.

How about that baby giraffe at the zoo? Nope. Just this.

That beautiful view from the patio of our rental house in Florida?

Or a family picture from our shopping trip to Nashville?

And I'm really not sure where this came from.The mind of a fifteen year old is a vacation destination of its own.

Early Signs

Almost daily I think about some of Teen Angel's habits and marvel at how early some of those traits began. I swear she began rolling her eyes at me at six months and hasn't stopped since. I think we're just born with some stuff. Sure, we can be trained to do certain things, but the pieces of our personality are there from the start. It's just hard to see sometimes because being a parent blurs your vision and makes you delirious. If you look closely though, the clues are there. Recently, I went through my baby album and realized there were signs of things to come for my parents and eventually my husband, child and friends. Big, red, flashing signs. Like:

My tendancy to be skeptical. What you talkin' 'bout Willis?

Or to stick my nose where it doesn't belong.

A sophisticated palate.

A knack for sleeping in and hogging the covers

Or to make an a$$ of myself and dare you to say something about it

To steal all of the attention. (I eventually chewed the cherries off of this dress.)

Or to put something silly on my head and party like it's 1999. Should it have been any surprise that 40 years later I was doing this: