How to get a 13 year old to snuggle with mom

No, you don’t have to dress in a funny blue dog suit. No, you just get the OTHER guy in the picture to remind the boy that he used to like doing that 🙂

Recently, I’d noted that SportsBoy had rather subtly backed away from a few little-boyish things. Like having me read to him every night which we were still doing until he got back from Sweden. Lately it’s been that I will read to him if he asks, but many nights he just goes to bed with a “good night mom!” yelled down from his room. He’ll forgo reading to watch something on TV with me instead. Like Glee. Oh – GLEE! Let me digress for just a skosh….

Did you watch the season finale last week? With the sectionals performances?? You didn’t? Well, get thee to a computer NOW & do a search on “Glee + And I’m Telling You” and listen to Mercedes sing that song possibly better than Jennifer Hudson and THEN, (and this is more important actually), search on “Glee+Rain On My Parade” and listen to Rachel’s solo performance at sectionals. I *double dog DARE* you NOT to get chills listening to either of those. I’m partial to Rachel’s though & I’ve watched it on the DVR about 6 times now.  OK, back to the topic at hand…..(you can thank me later for those recommendations)

Anyhoo – even sitting on the sofa together to watch TV, I noticed that we will end up foot to foot, but that he no longer leans in to me or even puts his head on my lap or comes close to any sort of snuggling. And he’s always been a snuggler. We snuggled at Padres games all the time 🙂 So yeah, I noticed that he wasn’t but hey, I expected it to happen. Shoot, I expected him to ditch having me read to him much earlier. It still happens about twice a week when he will request it with an “I’m ready mom!” vs the “good night”.  But the snuggling seemed to be done.

Until last night.

Sweet Prince (the other guy in the pic up there) returned from yet another damn trip to China (I’m glad he’s employed, but really Petco, can you back away from these once a month trips half way around the world??) He came by at dinnertime spent the evening with us and part way through I was on the sofa with SB as we watched Monday Night Football. SP approached with his “watch his” look on his face and sat next to me and wrapped me in his arms and said “MY mommy!”

And that, my friends, is how you get the 13 year old to remember that HE likes snuggling with mommy too. You also might get a black eye and bruised arms from the ensuing battle over you from either side, but hey! What’s a bruise here & there between snugglers?

Even after SP left, the little guy continued to snuggle up. He even let me read to him too. He’s still my baby boy 🙂