W I T S    E N D

How to drive the point through, that homework and tests are things to be taken seriously. How is it that some children are so responsible and conscientious and some……..could care less.

My son is a smart boy. He gets A’s in subjects he likes, B’s in the subjects he does not like….English and Reading.

He really could earn A’s in these subjects if he did a very simple thing.   About 20 minutes of homework.  A 20 minute 4 day a week investment could reap so many long term rewards 10, 20 years from now.

How to drive that point home though?

I’ve tried:

1. The long winded speeches on how his job is on getting good grades. By getting good grades,  he earns rewards. Xbox, games, blah, blah blah.
2. Punishment.
3. Monty Hall worthy deals.

I came up with number 4 of my tries:

I took my son for a drive the other day.  I asked him to point out a car he would  not want to drive and he showed me a very old, beat up car. I then asked him if he thinks the driver of that car got good grades in school. He responded “no”.  I then asked him a car he hopes he can have one day and if he though the driver of that car studied.  I did this with him over a few topics. I asked him this about a few other people and things we saw.

I asked him if he thought Bill Gates got good grades. And if President Obama got good grades. His favorite uncle, who is a doctor. Yes to all three.

Silence.

Maybe he is getting the importance of good grades now?

No, it backfired on me.

He told me good grades don’t always matter and that he’s getting the best possible grade in the subject that really matters for the job HE wants.  Center Fielder for the Red Sox.

Phys Ed: He’s got a 100% Average.

So I have this new understanding.

Sports plays such a huge roll in the lives of boys today, and I do think it’s pretty wonderful and healthy. However, what I (and I am sure many others) don’t realize is that these boys  are a little misguided. They see players like Derek Jeter or the Mannings or….WHOEVER and think success can be had by excelling in sports.   In the eyes of an 11 year old boy, how important can reading and science be if you’re going to be an MLB superstar? They think their odds are great. They don’t know they’ll more than likely need a plan B or plan C in life.

I’m curious what others think about this. Is this just a phase and eventually the importance of all topics will click in?

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Me: How was school today.

Son: Awful. I forgot my math sheet and reading log……

Me: Is that it?

Son: Something worse.

The dreaded “something worse”.  I let him get settled, gave him some space and waited for him to sit next to me.

Me: So what’s the something worse?

Son: Richie was goofing around in class and moved his chair, and it made a really loud sound while everyone was taking a test.

So now I’m thinking the teacher yelled at him for laughing and he was sent to the office. But I was wrong…it WAS worse.

Son: I was laughing at him and I let a loud one go.

Ugh.

Me: Okay, well that happens to EVERYONE at least once in their lives. It happened to me to and ::insert made up story::

Son: Yeah but everyone is telling the story and it’s a rumor now.

Me: What are people saying?

Son: That it smelled so bad, everyone ran out of the room.

Is it bad that I wanted to laugh?

Me: Hey, don’t get upset about it. I am sure by tomorrow no one will remember it. And even if someone says something to you, make a joke out of it. If people see it upsets you, then they will just keep making fun of it. If they see it’s no big deal to you, then it will become boring to them.

Good Lord. Fingers crossed for school tomorrow…….

PS. His little girlfriend just texted him tonight while he was at football practice. The text said “Just found out. Hahaha”.

I deleted the text. This stays between me and you…….

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Example:

1. The chairman of a committee who tongue lashed volunteers because string cut for necklaces were NOT all the same length as decreed by same such chairman.
2. The chairman who chose to watch a 7 year old cry, rather than let her finish up a marathon by giving her an additional 5 minutes.
3. The chairman who denied a child a trophy because his parents did not donate enough money.  They didn’t donate enough money because the husband is unemployed. As a result, this child was the only one who did not receive a $1.50 piece of crap trophy.

The three examples above are not about 3 separate chairmen. These examples are the result of one single solitary person’s choice to be a complete bitch.

I believe in……..Karma.

Okay, I have vented. I realize the majority of volunteers, give their time because it comes from the heart.  This gem of a woman….wtf knows.

Personally I think she needs to get laid.

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See, in our town, when your child hits middle school (6th grade), they allow you to spy on your child’s school career through interactive software. I am now capable of seeing that each homework assignment has been handed in, each test result, each project due date, each testing date……and so on.

I have visions of receiving an award at the end of the school year for “Parent Who Logged in Most” with an award winning 420 log-ins.  That’s the equivalent of logging in twice a day for the length of the school year (180 days) plus approximately twice each weekend. Yes, I am obsessing. Pass me some Xanax.

My intro “interaction” with one of his teachers:

I am quite disturbed over the grade my son received on his last quiz. If you knew my son, you would know that math is his strongest subject. He scored a perfect score on his state math test and so to see that he received a 65 is upsetting.  I looked at his test and signed it as per your request. I even took the test myself and I would like to point out that the section he answered incorrectly, is not clearly worded. When I worded the question more clearly, he was able to answer them correctly……………..

 

Ugh. In retrospect, I can see that she probably read that and

1. Laughed her ass off.
2. Flagged my son as having a lunatic for a parent.

I should have just kept my big mouth shut and just waited it out, because his grade has worked itself back up to a 94.

What I’d like to say to another of his teachers, but will patiently wait on so that I don’t make an ass of myself yet again:

I realize my son was one day late on handing in an assignment, however you are now 6 days late on posting test results and his homework results. If my child is penalized for not handing in an assignment in a timely manner….what is your penalization? I realize that you have quite a bit of work, however according to the school you teach in you are required by the principal to post results during your two free periods. So kindly quit hanging out in the teacher’s lounge (or whatever it is that you ARE doing), and POST YOUR STUDENTS RESULTS.  WTF HAVE YOU BEEN DOING FOR  6 DAYS OF FREE PERIODS??

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I was asking my son today who a certain boy was. I didn’t recognize the name on the baseball roster.  My son says to me: “You know who his dad is! He’s the dad that always looks like a hobo.”

First off,  just the word “hobo” is enough to make me laugh all on it’s own. Who uses this word? And where did my son even get it from?

Secondly,  I knew EXACTLY who my son was talking about. No further explanation needed. The dad does look like a hobo. Always in saggy, worn out jeans, never clean shaven. Longish grey hair, baseball cap. Skinny as a rail. Keeps to himself.

His son walks around with his head buried in a iphone/nintendo DSI, just like every other kid.  Dresses like every other kid right down to the annoying multi-colored Zigtech sneakers. There is nothing “hobo” about the son.

There is nothing “hobo” about the wife either.

Or the Mercedes she drives.

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It wasn’t. She asked him out and she was serious.

I’ve upped our texting plan to include unlimited messages, because by April 3rd, he had already surpassed his 200 text plan.

I met her, kinda.  She and her girlfriend were circling the field where my father and I stood, watching my son play baseball. We locked eyes and I smiled at her, but reports state that I “creeped her out” and I am now banned from looking in her direction.

I’ve also learned that the little dominatrix has told my son that if they are still dating come summer vacation, they will need to plan regular dates so that they can see each other.

Another thing I am not ready for?

We went to a Bat Mitzvah this past weekend. My husband, my son and me. I was floored. Speechless. The dancing between the 13 year olds was nothing like I have ever seen. It can’t even be called dancing at all. The girls grinding their behinds right into the laps of boys. The boys just standing there.  To the point of embarassment when one girl’s skirt had creeped up so high that not one single body part was left to the imagination.

I’m open minded, non judgemental……….but holy crap…..this is totally inappropriate. Scary.

But yet……

He still has these little boy ways about him. He still wants to sit close to me on the couch (read: jammed up against me), and while there are times I find it suffocating, I am going to enjoy it while it lasts. Because sooner rather than later he WILL pick hiding up in his room over watching TV with me.

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Finger in his nose, fingers in his mouth. “I will.” “I know.” “Wait.”  Over and over again.  If I had a dime for every time we’ve had fights over these things, I would …….I have no clue.

I had the hardest time trying to get him off the bottle when he was younger. A neighbor told me that she warned her son that when he turned three (or was it four? Seems so long ago.) that the bottle would taste very sour and that he needed to stop before then.

I figured I had nothing to lose so I tried the same approach. Miracles of miracles…..it worked. My son never touched another bottle after his 3rd (or was it 4th?) birthday. Easy enough. No trauma or dramas.

Now how to get him to stop the 11 year old bad habits?

Tonight I made a bet with him. Any time his finger goes near his nose (it even mortifies me to have to type about this habit) or in his mouth, or if I hear “Wait” or “I know”, a dime gets collected.

The rest of the deal is this:  If he is free of all these habits within a month, I will match every dime he gives me and the total will go into his savings account towards the Mac Airbook he wants. If he doesn’t break it by then, then he is out all of those dimes.

We are presently up to 2 hours and I have collected 50 cents. I’ll keep you posted.

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I just realized that the very delicious chocolate and banana milkshake my son made me  a short while ago, used icicles that were hanging over our back porch.

How did I discover this? When I went to get a glass of ice water, the ice dispenser was jammed. I reached in it to find……icicle chunks instead of ice.

Lovely.

And I question (silently) why there was blue food coloring splattered on the counter tops and floor.  I’m not sure I want to hear what that was about.

If I just clean it up, I can pretend it didn’t exist.

I cleaned it up.

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Mine.

Gotta say that the result of it is making me laugh. Like the other night when a tampon commercial came on. My son announced to his friends on Xbox that he’s stuck watching a commercial about those “things” a girl uses when she gets her period. Or the time he broke into uncontrollable laughter when my dad announced that the nipple on my nephew’s bottle was broken. And completely omit the word ball especially in the plural form.  That’s guaranteed hysterics.

When he came home from seeing THE movie, I asked him if he had any questions from it.

“Yes, but I want to ask Dad them”.

Whew.

The next morning, after my husband left for work, my son came to me with a burning question he had thought of during the night.

“How will I know if I had a wet dream? Does semen look different than pee?”

Yikes.

With the straightest of faces and without making of big deal of it, I explained that semen is very white.

And off he went.

He’s fishing for something though and I’m wondering what it is he wants to know. He saw the tampon commercial a few days ago. Today in the car he said to me that he’s glad he’s not a girl because he’d hate to have to get his period and deal with all those period things.

It’s slightly ironic to me that while he’s just becoming aware of  what a monthly cycle is all about……my own cycle has just started getting all strange and peri-menopausal.

Funny timing.

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I knew nothing about quarters, innings, periods (other than the kind I used as my alibi for getting out of phys ed.), strikes, fouls, goalies, cleats. You get my point.

And then I had a son.

While he humors me with watching “What Not to Wear” and helping me to cook, he is all about sports.  It was either sink or swim for me.

I am now proficient in baseball, lacrosse and basketball. I am the administrative director for the football program. I am a voting member of the Sports Booster Organization in town.  Because if you can’t beat ‘em….join ‘em.

But there was one sport I did my best to avoid having to get involved with.

Wrestling.

Because who wants to see their child sat on, twisted, bent, semi choked and red faced? And WHO on earth wants to sit in the bleachers for 3 hours or more for your kid’s chance at a 30 second match?

Guess who is now sitting in bleachers for 3 hours at a clip? Moi

I’ve learned:

• Wrestling singlets are hideous. I wish I could understand why these uniforms need to be so skimpy and ugly.
• I have a son that thinks “tapping out” is a fate worse than death.
• You’d better sit next to someone you really like, because 3 hours next to someone annoying is unbearable and it is rude to pick up and move.
• Just because your child’s arm looks as though it’s being dislocated…it doesn’t necessarily mean it hurts. At least that’s what my son says.
• The scent of hot dogs and sauerkraut in a hot school cafeteria adheres to your clothing and hair. Don’t make plans for anything but a shower after a match.
• Hold on to your belongings, or you will be crawling underneath some very dirty bleachers to retrieve the glove, scarf or money that falls between the cracks and slits.
• Say goodbye to your weekends, because essentially they are gone the entire season. Saturday and Sunday

Thankfully, there are just 4 more weeks left to the season. I keep hoping he will not like it and keep this a one year thing, but it’s not looking that way.

I just received a text from my husband saying my son took first place in a tournament. 

I stayed home for this one.  Used an oldie but goodie for an alibi….it’s that time of the month

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