I'm so not ready for this...

My blended family brought me something of which I was totally not ready...DATING! OK, in my head, I'm the mom of an 11 year old and a 9 year old daughter, neither of whom are ready to date. However, my blended family brought me a teenage step-son which by the way has started dating. I want to respond to this by screaming!

First, we had homecoming come up. We actually talked about asking the girl. You know, how to and how not to ask. For instance, I told him to make sure he asked in person (not a dumb note or FB message), look her in the eyes and make sure he was letting her know what he wanted. So in other words, don't ask if she was going to the dance, ask if she wanted to go to the dance as his date. Well, apparently my advise was horrible because he now had a date. Yes, I said that right...horrible. Now I have a dating kid!

Next it was off to the store to get homecoming clothes. Thank goodness I have a boy because in 45 minutes we had the outfit: one store, tried on one pair of pants and one shirt, socks and a t-shirt and we were checking out! All I could think is in a few years I'll have three girls in the dressing rooms with 10 dresses each, all whining because none of them are just right...10 stores later and I'll be yelling, "If you don't pick something today, you're out of luck!" Which of course will be a lie from a frustrated mom because I'll keep looking till they are happy. My future is flashing before me...I shutter and think, I'm not "supposed" to be doing this yet! Of course my step-son is overjoyed that I took him because there is no way he and dad would have done this so quickly. Oh and on a side note, the disadvantage to having the boy...we have no pictures.

Now since the dance, he and his girlfriend spent time at her house on Sunday. Today they were here for a while then went back to her house. She lives walking distance from our house which is nice for them and sort of nice for us and a nightmare all at the same time. It's nice because I'm not driving all over creation so my not-driving kid can have a girlfriend. It's a nightmare because they are easily able to spend time together...which makes me want to scream again because I am SO NOT READY FOR THIS!

So I call my husband to tell him about this afternoon and he asks how that went. I say fine and he says "She's a nice girl." My response to that is, "I was a nice girl." And of course that's all I need to say. In case you didn't know, I was a single teen mom...enough said! He says that I need to let him have a little freedom. He tells me he's not a little boy. I say "Um-hum" (in a little high pitched grunt). He can tell I'm freaking out, but I'm letting go a little. This may not be a kid that came from my womb, but that doesn't stop me from worrying.

I believe my kid will make wise choices. We have had very open dialog from everything from relationship and sex to drugs and alcohol. I believe he will chose somethings I don't like and surprise me by making good choices other times. I believe he wants to be an honorable man and knows how to treat a girl. I believe I cannot and will not protect him from everything. I also see that we are setting some presidents in our home so we have to figure out what our rules are. I know that I will be different with the girls than I am with the boys. But everything in my head is screaming..."I'm so not ready for this!" In the end though, I don't think anyone but me cares that I'm not ready...so we dive into parenting dating kids....uggg I wanna scream!