So I am now the mother of two teenagers.

I know, I know, I look way too young.

Oh…you weren’t going to say that? This is awkward…

Anyway – two teenagers. And to be more specific, two teenagers who are not even the tiniest bit afraid of me.

I try to be scary and tough. But I kind of suck at it.

I mime fire shooting out of my eyes in anger and they giggle. Don’t they know mimes are terrifying?

My son raises his finger in a “Wait a minute” motion for the 7000th time and I say “If you shake your finger at me again I am going to break it off” and he giggles.

Luckily they are extremely good children, despite their lack of mother fear. Also prone to giggling.

So last night I picked up my eldest child, who will be 16 (!) in a mere 2 months. And I asked her what she would like for dinner since she had not yet eaten.

And she said, “I’m not all that hungry, I think I’ll just have graham crackers.”

To which I replied, “You cannot have cookies for dinner.”

This kicked off a lengthy heated debate on whether graham crackers are cookies (yes, yes they are) or the crackers they claim to be in their very name (no, no they are not.)

Ultimately it is irrelevant since crackers are not a significantly better dinner choice than cookies. But she felt strongly that, due to their (falsely claimed) crackerness, graham crackers would make a fine meal.

To which I replied, “You would be making a bad choice.”

To which SHE replied, “So I am making a bad choice. Seriously, Mom, I could be doing DRUGS. All I want to do is sit and do a puzzle, eat graham crackers and milk, and watch Netflix.”

Fair point.

In the scheme of bad choices, non-cracker cookies for dinner is not SO bad.

Of course I felt the need to point out (in a you-are-sort-of-right-but-I-totally-can’t-let-you-win-because-I-am-supposed-to-be-the-one-in-charge sort of way) that I was pretty sure that the Plan B if she couldn’t have graham crackers for dinner was not to go right on out and get some drugs.

Plus she’d need me to drive (for the next few months anyway.)

“And I am not giving you a ride out to buy drugs, just so you know.”

I’m not gonna lie, she giggled.

And then she got her graham crackers and milk and headed off to watch Netflix.

I lost the battle. But in the scheme of bad choices, she’s right, she’s pretty darn great.

But seriously, they are totally cookies, right?