There’s something thrilling about being the parent of a teen. You remember when this full-fledged person was just an idea, then a helpless infant, progressing on to an imperious little child full of ambitions frustrated at every turn.

Then, suddenly—and nothing makes 18 years feel more like “suddenly” than parenthood!—you sit across the breakfast table from a competent, capable, amazingly functional human being.

It boggles the mind.

And yet, even the most extraordinary teen remains not quite completely mature.

I give you one result of my teen replacing his own missing button on a favorite pair of trousers.

The child has gone to sea†, and the mother finds this mess on the living room floor!

The heap is not even at his own desk, or piled on the dining table perhaps. No, my kid decided this spot smack dab in front of a door was the ideal place to dump out a quart sized Ziploc bag full of loose buttons.

Ahem.

The kid will be in a hurry to attend his advanced math class upon his return from the seaside, so there’s no chance the mess will be tidied away in a timely fashion. I could clean it up myself, but let’s pretend its a parenting high horse and not my physical limitations or sheer housewifely laziness that renders that option unpalatable.

I suppose I will look back on this incident with nostalgia in a few years when my “baby” has moved out on his own. Here’s hoping the buttons are put away by then. In my house, that’s not such a sure thing…

♦

†Literally! He’s bobbing in the ocean as I type this. He went to the beach for kayaking with his dad before his online math class begins in the early evening.