My youngest daughter, Grace, is twelve. She's incredible...so very intelligent and creative. When she was five she started her first business. At eight, she began her second business. This one, very successful for a third grader. A month later she started donating a portion of her proceeds to charity.

Grace has taught herself how to be a 3-D animator. She was in GATE classes in grade school, takes honor's classes in middle school, and we just got her progress report today: all A's. So, yes, she's a smart-patarty.

So, my question is, how is it that she rarely seems to learn from her mistakes. Grace is just about as clumsy as she is smart. When she was in second grade, I told her a would give her five bucks the day she could show me she had no bruises on her body (yes, she fell that much). I held that five-dollar bill for a good two years...that's over 700 days of my clutzy girl in bruises (I feel fortunate that no teacher had ever called CPS on me and my wife).

I know clumsiness is something that she will live with all her life. But, I would think that there would be ways for her to reduce the clumsy that is Grace. She sits on our stools at the counter and always rocks, which inevitably leads to a stool falling and pounding our hardwood floor.

"No more leaning in the chair," I have said 214 times. And, she whole-heartedly agrees, nods and promises. Next thing I hear while I'm in my bedroom, is wood hitting wood, followed by Grace's, "Sorry."

I am always exhaulting that everyone makes mistakes, but the wise ones learn from them, and avod repeating them. Yet, Grace is constantly doing exactly what she knows has caused her to fall, step on the dog, drop a glass, even though she's vowed she wouldn't. Just this week, she was using her laptop, and put it down on the sofa without looking where she placed it. I saw that it wasn't in a safe spot.

"Grace! Grace!" I called as she walked away from the machine. I began to slide from the sofa. Before she realized it, it banged against the wood floor. The screen looked like an electric, horizontal zebra pattern, and it began honking like an injured miniature goose. She had broken her laptop.

It was all I could do to keep from saying, "I've told you a thousand times to watch what you are doing." Didn't need to. She was devastated.

But, I would think that a person who continued to make the same mistakes, mistakes that affecting her negatively, probably wasn't the sharpest tack in the box. The thing is depending on the box, there's a good chance Grace is the sharpest tack. 

I don't get it. Wouldn't her rerun of mistakes prove that her brain wasn't as engaged as one might think of a straight-A, honors student, who's run her own business for the last four years? Someone help me out here!

I guess it's partly our fault..Grace just has trouble living up to the name we gave her. 

image courtesy of ​http://www.freestockphotos.biz/stockphoto/9241

It's Saturday...and there's food in my refrigerator! This may not seem astonishing to many of you, but if you do weekly grocery shopping for the family every Sunday like I do, and you have a teenager, it makes perfect sense.

My wife, Mary, and I have two daughters, 12 and 16, and I am the grocery shopper in our home. It's been my job for years. I'm good at finding deals, using my club card, and maximizing coupons. I relish looking at my receipt and seeing "You Saved 41% Today". Besides, if I shop, I get to choose what we're going to eat for the week.

But, today I opened the fridge and still couldn't see the white of the back walls. Our fruit bowl still has bananas, oranges, a pineapple and one of those mini-watermelons. We still have half a gallon of milk, and in our pantry I saw an unopened bag of Wheat Thins Pita Chips. What am I going to do when I go shopping tomorrow?

A more important question might be, Why is there still food in my house? And, the answer is simple: because my teenager has been gone all week.

My 16-year old, Riley, has been traveling in the Caribbean via a cruise ship, with a close friend, her family as well as a third girl. It's the longest she's been away from home away without the rest of the family, a total of ten days. It's good practice for us; we're getting a taste of what life will be like once she heads off to college in a year and a half.

Her little sister, Grace, misses her, as do Mary and I, but we FaceTime with her, call and text almost daily. Grace is getting our (Mom and Dad's) our full attention (something she's never really had before). Riley is learning what life is like with roommates and a little more independence.

But, the most unexpected benefit of her being gone has been the free grub the ship offers. Riley is trying new foods (escargot) and enjoying experimenting with her palate. We knew that teens ate a lot, but we had no idea how much until after Riley had been gone a week. We actually have food leftover, and that means, that although we will miss our daughter once she moves away after high school graduation, our grocery budget will decrease significantly.

Yeah, I know, spending less on groceries doesn't quite balance out how much we'll miss our girl, but it doesn't hurt. And, after the youngest one is away as well, we might actually be able to afford a cruise ourselves.

image courtesy of ©MorgueFile.com/diannehope