I have been thinking about my last year at home and how I was almost never home for dinner. I was dating my kids father and most nights I would eat with them. He would share his dinner with me. Or, if I worked into the evenings at McDonald's I would get something.

I got to wondering today because of a conversation between my husband and myself how did my Mom deal with me not coming home. One. I bet after years of not being home with us and for me to turn and not be home might have made her feel bad. As in I have a house now and I am living with my boyfriend and your not here to eat. ARRRGGG.

I got to thinking did she cook for me? Or did she learn my patten and stopped expecting that I would be eating at home. I don't recall coming home to leftovers being pushed on me or do I recall myself trying to get dinner. At the most, I would have to do dinner dishes which pissed me off and sometimes I would steal a pepsi from the fridge.

The reason I am writing about this because my son has been staying out longer than he is suppose to and my husband as the attitude just get the GED and he don't care about anything else. Says it's all on me after he gets him through the GED. He says it that way cause if my husband didn't get up my son wouldn;t go to school. The alarm will be blaring in his ears and nothing.

My husband says he thinks it will get worse and worse and Alex will just be gone a lot and will be surprised when he misses dinner that there may not be any here or left.

This was brought up because we are thinking if my son starts staying out past dinner and not eating dinner then how long will we continue to prepare dinner for 3 or 4. I say 3 or 4 cause if I am working then dinner isn't prepared for me on most nights. I am only bringing this up because he just hasn't been eating much and it worries me. Also, I am not going to continue to pick up food that I think he will eat if he isn't eating it.

So that got us talking about dinner. If night after night he blows dinner off and then I could see how it would really bother us. I buy my groceries with the amount of people we feed in mind. If we had a lot of waste. We wouldn't want to continue to throw food away. I suppose if my son made plans and we knew the day before that he was going to be somewhere else then that might be different than just not making an appearance for dinner. It just seems lately I have been really stressed over things my son is doing or isn't doing. I don't know if it's just me or what.

Last night, he wanted to have dinner out with a neighbor of his Dad's. It was past mid night and no Alex. I left the door unlocked and texted him to lock it when he gets home.

I woke up to the door being unlocked and jumped to assume that he wasn't home. I called the neighbor and left her somewhat a strange message on her phone. Then, I called Dad to see if he was there cause he mentioned maybe staying the night with Dad. When Dad says he wasn't there I really freaked out. Don't laugh at me. Okay go ahead I was very stupid. I never went downstairs to see if he was in his bed and that's where he was.

We felt stupid and pissed at ourselves for not hearing someone come in. I was a little upset with my son for not locking the door. We came up with the idea that no one is to come home and not make it clear that they are home. Just in case of a fire or whatever else situation that could happen.

Sorry that this is so long. I feel better after I write about it all. All this is making me think of what did my Mom do? Now, my son hasn't just not come home for dinner but it's been close. Anyone with teens that come and go on their own and if they are not home for dinner would you cook for them anyways? And if it was a regular habit would you continue to cook for them?

I really hope I never really have to figure all this out because I just really think my son unless he has a job or maybe a girlfriend should be home for dinner. If it was just all on me.. I would save him dinner but if it was getting thrown out then that might be different.