Hello, and welcome. My name is Mary Butterfield. I'm 45, I manage the front office of a dental practice here in Akron, and I have two teenagers, Darius (16) and Shannon (14), and a husband, Chris, who claims he understands them. He doesn't. Nobody does. But I'm trying.

It started on a Sunday in January. We were eating supper and I said something about Shannon maybe trying out for the spring musical, and she looked up from her mashed potatoes and said, "As if." Then she went back to her mashed potatoes. I sat there waiting for the rest of the sentence. As if what? As if she'd been asked? As if she cared? There was no rest of the sentence. That was the whole thing.

So I got a spiral notebook, the kind I keep the office supply orders in, and I started writing down every word I didn't understand. I'm a dental office manager. I keep records. The notebook filled up fast, and by the end of January I'd started typing it up here so that other parents could benefit from my research. My children have read this page. Shannon says it is "the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to anybody in Summit County." Darius says it's "actually kind of tight," and I've had to look that up, too.

How it works. For each word I give you what I thought it meant, what it actually means according to Darius and Shannon, and something said at our dinner table. Then the kids rule on whether a mother is allowed to say it. Most of the time the answer is no.

If you want to see these words in the wild, I also keep Field Notes, dated, of the conversations I've overheard in the car, at the table and through the basement door.

Da bomb, at the office (February). I told one of our teenage patients that our new bubble gum flavored fluoride was "da bomb." She looked at her mother, and her mother asked me, very carefully, whether there had been some kind of problem with the fluoride. I spent the next ten minutes explaining that nothing had exploded.

Booyah, at euchre (April). Third Friday of the month is euchre night in the church basement. I was holding the right and left bower and three other trump, and I made a march, all five tricks, and I stood up and yelled "BOOYAH!" Nobody at the table knew what it meant either. For one shining moment, in the basement of a Lutheran church, I was cool.

My bad, at work (May). I double-booked the doctor's two o'clock on a Wednesday. When I realized, I said, "My bad." The doctor laughed and now he says it. The hygienists say it. A patient said it to me last week when she was late. I believe I may have brought "my bad" to the dental profession of Summit County, and it may be my one contribution to 1999.

Talk to the hand, at home (June). A man called during supper to sell us aluminum siding. Our house has had aluminum siding since 1983. I listened for a moment, and then I said, "Sir, talk to the hand," and hung up. There was a silence at the table, and then Darius started clapping, and Shannon said, "Mom, that was actually tight." It was the proudest I have felt since they were born. (Not really. But it was up there.)

Phat, in a note (August). I put a note in Darius's lunch that said "Have a phat day!" He came home and said a girl in his class saw it and said, "Your mom is so cute." He has asked me never to be cute again.

Booyah, again (September). I tried it at the grocery store when I found the good parking spot by the door. A man loading his trunk said, "Is that the stew?" He's from Green Bay. We talked for twenty minutes. My kids say this doesn't count, but it was the best conversation I've had in a parking lot in years.

1. If you have to explain a word, you can't say it.
2. If you learned it from this page, you definitely can't say it.
3. Never in front of my friends. NEVER.
4. Never in front of Darius's friends either, but that one's for him.
5. If you say it at church, I'm going to pretend I'm with the family behind us.
6. Dad can't say anything. Dad just has to stop.
7. OK, you can say "sweet."

A note to other parents. I know I'm making fun of myself here, and a little of my kids, too. But here's the thing I've figured out since January. When Shannon says "as if," what she means is, "I heard you." When Darius says "my bad," he means he's sorry. When either of them says "Mom, chill," it means they're still talking to me, and at 14 and 16 that is something I wouldn't trade for anything. So I write it all down. Someday they'll have teenagers, and I'm going to print this page out and give it to them, and say, "Here. Good luck. Booyah."

Another page I like: Maria, who is ten, has written What Grown-Ups REALLY Mean, a dictionary of grown-up talk, A to Z, with her mom's dictionary of kid talk at the end. I recognized myself in about half of it, and I've stopped saying "We'll see." Mostly.