Life with Teenage Girl

After last year's boy fiasco, we (okay I) banned our daughter from going out with a boy until she is at least 16. (If I could, I'd make her wait until college. But good luck with that.) That, however, has not stopped her (and her many friends) from talking about boys.

Rather than describe what these conversations sound like (after all, many if not most of them are carried out via text, IM, and email), though, I thought I would provide this handy visual:



For those of you who think scenes like the "Telephone Hour" from Bye Bye Birdie only happen in movies, or the 1960s, think again, my friends. (Also, you clearly do not have a teenage daughter -- or a woodpecker*.)

After yakking at length with one friend (who called her to discuss their upcoming sleepover, and "other things"), our little reporter turned around and called another girlfriend (whom she had just seen at school a few hours before). I will not relate the subject of these conversations (I tried very hard to ignore what was being said even though you could hear her down the hall and two floors away). But I guarantee that boys were somehow involved.

I can only imagine the frequency and duration of calls when junior and her friends actually start dating in a few years. Shudder.

I wish scientists would hurry and come up with that Teenager Vaccine.

*Though I haven't seen him in a while, we have a woodpecker that looks just like the one in the video clip, who pecks on our telephone pole, when he's not pecking on the copper siding on our chimney or on one of our trees.