2005-04-27 - 3:29 p.m.

Holey wall Batman!

Well, yesterday, John, the-painter-with-the-unpronounciable-Greek-name, removed all the ugly striped wallpaper off the living room and dining room.

Good news is, it looks so much better, even if it is not painted yet. Funny news is, there is a hole in the wall that apparently the previous owners just wallpapered instead of fixing it.

And here I was laughing at Lucia's bathroom, where the previous owners wallpapered the hole left by a medicine cabinet.

It must have been all the rage then, wallpapering holes.

But the point is, the whole thing is ready for painting (and plugging holes), and we are hoping that this will happen before they come to install the floor next week.

Oh, and both bathrooms have vents now. Let's hear it for modern technology.

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So it seems that I don't have much more to add today than the news on my kitchen and my bathrooms. Truth is, I do have a lot more to say, but I don't feel like posting it here today.

I will skirt around the issue by stating that raising teenagers is not for the faint of heart. (Duh!)

That being said, a friend of mine told me once that adolescence is an illness that affects the entire family until it is over.

Are we there yet?

And it has nothing to do with whether your child is the sweetest kid on earth or not. It will happen to you sooner or later, but it will happen to you.

That is, to those of you who have kids.

As a parent of a teen, you will have to have twenty eyes and two hundred ears. And mistrust everything that happens around you. Take it from me, if it can happen, it will.

Most important, avoid the trappings of denial.

Do you know what denial spells like?

Don't Even kNow I Am Lying.

Yes, the first person we lie to when we are in denial is ourselves. Reality is a lot more complicated, but in the end, it is better. Harsher yes, but the alternatives are even worse.

Denial can usually be found in the company of Enabling, and both of them go hand in hand, usually courting Disaster.

Both of these rogues -- Denial and Enabling -- must be identified and striked down swiftly and without mercy. Both of them are armed and dangerous. And, once they take over, their friend Disaster strikes.

Let's have it for Reality, even if it makes us unpopular.

And of course, in the end you try your best and once adolescence is over, you can only wonder whether you did a good job as a parent or not.

Only time will tell.

Are we there yet?

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