Teenagers

Teenagers. Those dynamic and unpredictable creatures that our beloved children become before adulthood. Parenting has been one of the most challenging jobs I've ever done, and if I had to self-evaluate my performance, I'd be the first to admit that there's a hell of a lot of room for improvement.

Give me the stress of 100 tasks that need to be completed by 5:00 p.m. Friday any day. I'll have neat little stacks of organized reports arranged on your desk by Thursday at Noon, a friendly smile plastered on my face. But, put me in a room with my two teenage daughters and I fall apart.

I am constantly at war with with my conscience, trying to determine which are worthy wars to wage in the ever-constant battlefield that our home has become. Weary, I can only hold on and try to hold our family together until they spread their wings and fly into the world to experience life, hopefully remembering the lessons I have tried to teach. I pray that one day I don't look back to find that my worst failure in life was the most important. Being a mother.