As I write this I am waiting for The Phone Call.  I know it is coming, that call every mother dreads and yet I’m somewhat excited.  I know it is something my daughter will remember all of her life, being picked up by the police.  How wicked of me to actually wish this on her, will she ever forgive me?  The minutes tick by and I decide it is better to lose myself in writing then to sit and wonder what is happening.  I’ll get that call soon enough informing me that it has happened. That my innocent, perfect and sometimes irritating daughter has finally been arrested.  You see, the "arrest" is part of her Sadie Hawkins Date Answer!  So impatiently, eagerly and a little fearfully, I’ll just sit here, typing while waiting.

I don’t know if dating has changed or if the experience is just different in Utah.  When we moved here we didn’t have any dating teens so I can’t say what it is like in our old state.  But here it is something of an exercise in the most outrageous creative energy I’ve ever seen from teens.

In my church there are a couple of very specific guidelines concerning dating.  We teach our youth to not date until they are sixteen.  Once they start dating they shouldn’t single out one person, the dates shouldn’t be overly long, they should date in a group and of course, there should be no activity that leads to those things reserved for marriage.  This is from the parent’s handbook the church puts out to help parents.  This is the ideal and the youth respond as youth do all over the world, either thinking this is a good thing or finding a way to work around the ideal.

I have nine living children.  Chani is 20, Ben is 18 and Chamrie is 16.  The rest aren’t in that dating stage yet and so far they all prefer to follow the suggested pattern.  In fact, they think the pattern is excellent because our family pattern is a bit tougher.  Still, they are creative in following our suggestions as well.

In our family we have added a little twist.  The first year they have to include a family member on their dates, it can be from our family or one of the dates, it can be a brother, sister or parent.  This has been the best arrangement from a mother’s perspective.  Why?  Do you think it is only to protect morality?  I did, at first.  But it turned into something even more wonderful!  For their first year my children usually end up dating with Neil and I.  Even if they are not interested in bringing a date they still get the Going Out experience.  We go out with them a couple of times a month and for those few hours we are 100% peers, not parents.  For that little bit of time we move out of the relationship they’ve had with us and into the one they will have as adults.  It is the best transition into adulthood we’ve come across...for us as well as them.

The exceptions to the family dating are the Big Events.  And that is what I want to tell you about.  Oh my goodness...dating was never like this in San Diego thirty years ago!

My children have always been home taught.  That doesn’t change when they hit high school age.  But homeschool doesn’t mean isolation.  They are surrounded by other youth on a constant basis.  Three to five days each week they attend seminary which is a religious class the church provides.

They also attend the Big Event Dances.  They happen about every two months and the entire year centers around these dances.  Even the youth not going get involved in one way or another.

The biggest part isn’t really the dance, it is the asking and the answering.  The asker comes up with the most creative way to make the answerer work to get the question.  After that the answerer retaliates in an even more devious manner.  It is better then watching an Olympic Event!

This process of asking and answering is incredible to watch.  It usually involves other people in the process.  Somebody to give out passwords, to walk into a classroom and hand deliver the beginning clue or gift, lots of people, the more the merrier.

When I was young it was enough to get that phone call or the shy little conversation as you passed between classes.  But not so for my children’s friends.  For them the fun begins weeks before the dance and that energy carries on over years of memories.

Chani asked a young man by buying a bag of Oreo cookies and a small jug of milk.  She took a piece of paper and wrote, “Will you go to the dance with...?”  She didn’t put her name.  She taped this paper to the top of the cookies.  She wrote on a paper, “Look in the milk.” and laminated the paper and cut out each word.  She took apart some Oreos and put a word inside of each one.  Then she took another paper and wrote, Got Milk? Chani.  She laminated that paper and rolled it up and slipped it into the milk and sealed it back up so it looked like it was unopened.  She had a friend drop it off at his house.

He answered with popcorn.  Chani received a giant bag of pre-popped popcorn.  She and her siblings sat in the middle of our living room going through the bag, looking for The Answer Paper.  As they carefully worked their way through the bag they ate.  Then Chani noticed that one of the popcorn had some mold on it.  No, not mold, a Y.  The answer was written on some of the popcorn.

In answer, he had his friends deliver a huge box to our living room.  They struggled up the stairs and deposited the package on the floor.  Chani bent over to open the box.  The air suddenly filled with balloons as her date jumped out of the box and handed her a rose and said Yes!

He answered with a doll and a rose.  That year the Tickle Me Elmo doll was being fought over in the stores, this one young man delivered one to my daughter with the note, I’d be tickled to go with you.  My daughter’s youngest sister quickly grabbed the doll and insisted it was for her.

She answered him by going the day before to his work.  He worked at the public library.  He had told her how much he hated filing children’s books because they weren’t in order.  They looked up lots of neat titles for children’s books.  Then she put little slips of paper in the pocket of each of these books.  She did about 15 books, hidden all over the children’s section.  A friend checked out the last book with the final clue (payback for the person who wasn’t home when she went clue hunting.)  The first clue that led him to the books was given by a policewoman friend.  When it came time to find the last clue, he found his friend had checked it out and went to the friend’s home.  The friend pretended to not be home!  When he did get the last clue he was told to go home and look on his pillow.  Chani had gotten a Beauty and the Beast Puzzle and after being put together and turned over he found a YES.

Chamrie asked the young man by going to his home and hiding clues all over the house.  She placed an invitation in sight saying, “Of all the fishies in the sea, I’d like you to go to Sadie’s with me.”  Then she hid clues all over the house with a different number of fish crackers at each clue, the clues sending him to the next site.  The numbers created a phone number.  The last clue told him to make the numbers into a phone number and call it at 8:35 in the morning.  That person told him to go look in his water heater closet where he found a little fish bowl full of fish crackers.  She had placed some paper inside of several fish.  On some of the papers were letters that made up her name.

Now she waits for his answer.  Waiting is excruciating for her.  She can’t think about anything else, prepared for the Payback at every turn.  She has arranged for a group of 3-6 girls and their dates to share the evening.  One of the girls asked Chamrie’s date’s best friend.  So the two of them agonize together.

One afternoon the date and his friend sneak over to chat with me while my daughter is away.  They ask my permission to have the girls arrested by their good friend who will plant some drugs.  Then they will be taken to the station and after a terrifying process find their kidnaped treasures waiting for them plus the acceptance.  They would have the officer bugged so they could hear the exchange and hopefully he can position his car so it can also be videotaped.  Could the boys please have a favorite or important item to kidnap?

They decided to take a lamp, the only light in Chamrie’s room.  From the other girl they took a huge stuffed bear.  They left ransom notes and a phone number.  Chamrie called the number and was told to wait two more days.  Because the two girls got their note and phone number at different times, Neil and I forbid Chamrie to say anything to her friend so she could enjoy the surprise.  That was the worst!  Forbidding her to talk about what had happened!  She was near insanity wanting to tell!

And then they had to wait.  And wonder.  And worry.  All the while they knew that their parents knew.  How wicked!

Finally the afternoon has arrived and Chamrie and her friend went off on a scavenger hunt to find their treasures.  That was the ruse to get them to the park where the awful event was going to happen.  Now it is my turn to wait.  And wait.  And wait some more.  Oh no!  What if something has gone seriously wrong?  That’s it, she is going to hate me for life.

The four youth eventually show up at the house.  They are laughing and eating popcorn.  The girls haven’t a clue as to the trap so carefully set for them.  They did the hunt and it led back to their car where their treasures were handcuffed and the acceptance note attached.  What happened to the officer?  He had a surprise SWAT practice and couldn’t come!  Whew!

Dating was never like this when I was young.