Mother of a Man-Child

Any parent of a teenager is probably all to familiar with the habits of their offspring – enclosed in their bedroom, prostrate on the floor or bed, laptop computer locked permanently to Facebook, mobile phone beside them with the constant sound of incoming text messages, and the blaring of 200 decibels of their favourite music!

We have long ago given up insisting on an open door policy in our house – why I hear you ask?  Because it just makes the music even louder!  And then it’s even harder for my daughter to try to go to sleep!  My men-children don’t seem at all interested when I scream at them to turn it down, and when they do it’s by such a small amount I wonder why I bother.  Pity our poor neighbours – I can almost hear the dulcet tones of whichever rapper and his delightful language (yes the F-word seems to be common these days) from the top of our street as I arrive home.  And I know that Man-Child II once tested out his fathers original Pioneer speakers complete with multiple woofers and sub-woofers at such volume he tore holes in the padding.  Clearly we weren’t home!

As my readers may know, we are currently extending upstairs to make further room for our teenage sons.  Man-Child I and II will have their own zone upstairs, with a bedroom each, shared living room and bathroom.  As building progresses, the excitement is palpable.  I was chatting to the builder the other day, who wanted to discuss the insulation under the new flooring on the second level.  He enquired if we were interested in special sound-proofing insulation, having heard the boys music on a daily basis after school (poor bloke – he might have increased his fees if he’d known he had to suffer that hideous music!).  I had to chuckle to myself, as I recall jokingly suggesting special sound-proofing for upstairs in an earlier blog (along with concrete floors to hose down, and a laundry-cum-meal delivery shoot so the boys wouldn’t even have to come downstairs at all).

Well we have now had a special delivery of super-sonic, heavy-duty, rapper repellant, man-child proof insulation for upstairs.  What a brilliant invention.  And the best $800 I’ve ever spent.  That should make us all happy, except perhaps me, because now when I scream “DINNER” from the kitchen they won’t be able to hear me.  Oh well, I’ll just send them a text message!   LOL.