Meet the Parents

So it happened today. Sigh. We met the parents. We drove Nick over to his girlfriend's house and Frank and I actually went in and spent time with her parents. It was a spur of the moment type of thing, but there we were, sitting and talking. For two hours!

I kind of feel like this is some initiation into adulthood. I admit, that at times I still refuse to believe that I am an adult who has a 16 year old son - I'm too young for that! But today, sitting there with these people and discussing the fact that we do not want our children having sex with one another - well, that sort of clinches the deal. We are adults now. It was sort of like seeing an R-rated movie for the first time; you feel a couple of inches taller and know that you will never be the same. That's how I feel right now. We've crossed the line to where we no longer talk about innocent things like recipes and movie reviews, we talk about stopping our children from jumping in to bed together. Oy.

I don't want to grow up!

They were very nice people and we will most likely be having dinner with them very soon. And don't get me wrong, we didn't spent the ENTIRE two hours discussing ways to discourage the kids from sex, but it was there. The men had a lot in common and seemed to have no trouble talking - which was odd to me because I am normally the chatty one in the group. The mom and I had to dig a little bit more to talk, but I just think that she is shy. Frank and I are so loud and booming in our voices and presense that we probably shocked these poor people. The good news is that the like our son. A lot. They see him as being a good influence on their daughter. huh, who knew! They enjoy having him around and love including him in all of their family activities. This, as most of you will understand, was such a blessing for me to hear after all of the negative crap I've taken from 'the circle' and their parents. These people seemed completely normal. They're Christians and they don't mince words. They admit to their child's negative behaviors (although I have yet to see a bad trait in that girl) and understand that these kids (Nick and their daughter) are normal and not doing anything that should be labelled as "not right with God". PRAISE THE LORD!

I'm feeling pretty peppy right now about the whole thing. I've grown up and been encouraged today. I'm not such a heinous parent after all. Can you believe it?