Bare

Our 13 year old son spends a lot of time in his teen cave with the door closed. His bedroom often looks like a tornado touched down in there. Truth be told, he does a lot of stuff which we parents don't appreciate, such as taking the ink refills out of ballpoint pens and shooting them at targets using rubber band catapults...or wolfing down crackers and shoving the wrappers in drawers...or making spears out of paper and masking tape...or downloading inappropriate apps onto his iPod Touch...the list goes on.

We wouldn't much mind if he were doing some reading or homework in there...but unfortunately he seems to have fallen off the homework wagon recently, with parent-teacher conferences looming. Sigh. Things have been a bit tense in the house at times because of that, but last night we reached a crescendo. We'd taken delivery of a new clothes dryer a week ago, and a few days later I found ink all over the inside of it. Why? You guessed it. Two ballpoint pen refills in the lint trap. I'd given my charming son the "do not ever remove the ink from a pen again if you know what's good for you" speech. Well, let's go back to last night. Said charming son was discovered in the basement, pilfering pens from the school supply drawer, and removing the ink refills from them. When asked the reason, he said he had nothing better to do. Uh oh. Enter Robo Dad.

I'd heard tell that my father-in-law had taken the door off the hinges of one of his kids' rooms during my husband's childhood because he had a similar "vein popping out of forehead" moment. Guess what Robo Dad did last night. Son was not happy at all. First he balled up in a corner and took a nap while the rest of us were eating dinner. Then he came out and ate leftovers and stared into his plate or at the floor the entire time. By 10pm he'd sort of turned into a human being again, but he complained that he wasn't comfortable in his bed. Why? He wanted to know which lights we were leaving on in the kitchen at night, and he wanted specific ones to be left on. Huh?

This kid's room is painted jungle green (his request, possibly in part to annoy his grandmother, LOL). It's pretty dark in there at night except for the LED of two alarm clocks and a small night light on the dresser in the far corner of the room. Instead of looking at a dark door, he instead would have been looking into the kitchen/living room areas which have moonlight coming in through the rear windows of the house. More light. Less privacy. Does he feel that he shuts out demons at night when he shuts the bedroom door? Is there safety in knowing that he's all alone under his blanket?

I guess it's uncomfortable on principle alone when routine is forcibly disrupted. I left the house before he got up this morning so I'll have to wait until tonight to see how he's doing. I've no idea how long it will be before the door returns. Stay tuned for the next episode of Robo Dad.