Dorm Craziness

This is the kind of thing that happens here, if not daily, then weekly.

I go out to the dorm lobby when I hear the squeals of young teenage girls and the hearty guffaws of my dorm boys to find one of the young ladies from the girls dorm having her ankles duct taped together. She was very obviously not struggling. Just "protesting" by squealing like a two-year-old. My boys just looked up at me, like they always do, and I told the girl, "You know, there are much more efficient ways to shave." Then I came back inside. This is what I've learned from 3 years of dorm parenting. They'll figure it out.

Later, when the squeals moved outside, and involved another female voice, I intervened, because two of the girls had been duct-taped together, but the silly one from the previous experience had jumped around so much the tape had got caught in her hapless victims hair, which is very thick and frizzy. I had to go out with my scissors and do a little snipping to get the tape out. I told my boys that was probably enough, and then watched the girls just eat up all the attention from the boys as I clipped through their shackles. The reactions of the victims actually annoyed me more than the misbehavior of my bullies, which is why I'm so glad I'm the boy's dorm mommy and not the girl's.

Teenagers. I didn't understand them when I was one, and I certainly don't now. I sure hope they get someone here next year who has a clue. But hey, our little vandals wrote in glass chalk on the window yesterday, this is what it said. "Boy's Dorm" and "We Love [my husband] and [me]. They spelled it wrong, but they felt confident enough to write it. According to my mother, this means we've failed, because if teenagers think of you as their friend, then they probably aren't being disciplined properly. I wish the next family here luck. It's hard to find a balance.

This picture is of Zaya after our resident golf "pro" autographed his tummy in ball-point. For the next couple days he would lift up his shirt and say, "Look, Mommy, it says Eddie!"