My 14-year-old son just saved a mouse that my husband and I went to great lengths to kill today.

Doesn’t that about just sum up parenting.

We (teenaged son and I) both clearly see the situation in opposite terms: I want the infestation of mice in my beautiful, dream home to go away. My son cannot bear to watch an innocent rodent in pain.

He just took a tiny mouse stuck on a sticky trap under the stove (traditional mouse traps were not working) and he proceeded to Youtube his way into figuring out how to dissolve gunky residue off a rodent’s feet with vegetable oil, and then secured it in a sock with crackers in a tissue box, and is now preparing it for re-entry into the mouse world tomorrow.

Do you ever find yourself fixated on the things that your kids (or dear ones) do that drive you completely and utterly crazy? … perhaps they even break your heart? … Only to realize that in spite of all their annoying/frustrating/heart attack-inducing deficiencies, they are still the most extraordinary/inspiring/breath-taking human beings you’ve ever known — much less produced.

I suspect that’s the way God feels about us. Thank goodness. Thank God.

It certainly takes a special personality to snatch a sticky-trapped, squealing little house mouse, against the loud protests of a terrified/mystified mother, and work for hours to help it, heal it, and set it free … albeit far away from his mom’s front door.

Maybe my son’s not exactly who I thought he was. I’m thinking that’s how the painful, parent-child-growing-up relationship often works:

Polarized personalities.

Opposite goals.

Baffled bewilderment.

Handwringing. Grief. Heartbreak.

Self-reflecting-soul-searching.

A new (re)lease on life.

Happy New Year, little mouse. Happy New Year, son. You forever perplex me.