The dating thing

I don't know if you're aware of it or not, but there are two teenagers and one single woman living in our house.

Do you know what this means? It means we have new and rather interesting dynamic.

See, at this very moment, my son is taking a walk around the neighborhood with his girlfriend. My daughter is on the phone with her possibly-soon-to-be-boyfriend. And I'm heating up leftovers for dinner because I have a date tonight.

Should I try to describe how weird this all feels?

Let me see if I can put it into words for you. It's like we used to be this tiny little unit...me and my kids. My focus has been on them, and I was their world. We are a very close family. We've been coccooned, perhaps. Now, there's all these other people involved. I mean...not really yet, not in a serious sort of way. But I mean, there are still all these other people involved.

And now we're coordinating when Christopher can see his girlfriend around when I have a date, around when school stuff is happening, around church, around...you get the picture. (The extent of Catie's dating experience is the telephone and Facebook. We have pretty strict rules on this at her age.)

I'm clearly not new to this dating thing. Catie isn't either, really. She's had a few little "boyfriends". Maybe it's the addition of Christopher's girlfriend that makes it suddenly feel so odd. I'm not the center of his life anymore. He's branching out and expanding his world. It's great! All I'm saying is....it feels weird.