Folder Wars

The boys have school folders, which Chris and I are supposed to review every night.  I know that because we have to initial them every night.  So that's how I know that Chris and I, as parents, are supposed to monitor the folders.  Also the school told us that.

But Chris thinks, "It's not my folder, I don't care if it's done."

I know he thinks this because it is the argument he used when I chastised him for not reviewing the folder.

It's compelling logic, but I feel there might be a flaw in there.

Anyhow, the folders.  They drive us bananas.  They are the worst things ever.

It's all a bunch of notes and papers and homework to be done and homework already done and schoolwork and blah blah blah.

And that is exactly how Owen feels about the whole mess.

Once, when Sam was in the first grade, I literally had to push him weeping out of the car because he had forgotten his homework and was going to get a task mark.

(I don't know, but it sounds bad, right?)

Sam cares deeply.

Owen lost his homework the other day, and I said he had to ask for a new packet and he said, "No, that's okay.  I'll just get a task mark."

(Owen has apparently figured out that task marks are simply the lack of a paw stamp and, not being a granola bar, meaningless.)

Last Sunday I was cleaning up (yes, it does happen around here occasionally) and I saw Owen's completed homework on the dining room floor.  I shouted for Owen to come get his homework and put it in his folder.  I mentally note, when he scoops it up, that he trollops back to the living room, which, oddly, is not where his folder is.   I know, because I can see it sitting, right there, on the dining room table.

A few minutes pass and Owen comes running in to the kitchen, laughing because he and Sam were having a sword fight and he was running way from Sam. He was holding his now quite mangled homework packet (no longer in packet form - loose leaf!) in his hands.

"Owen," I said calmly, "go put your . . . (this is the part where I managed not to say 'goddamned') homework in your . . . (ditto) folder."  Maybe it wasn't super-calmly.

He slinks off.  But, again, not anywhere in the direction of where I can still plainly see his folder.

I give it a minute and I walk to the playroom.

"Owen," I say, teeth the tiniest bit clenched, "come here."

At this point he looks at me, places his homework on the ground next to him, places a book on top of it, glances, places another book to make sure it is completely hidden, and gazes innocently into my eyes as he says, "What?"

I tried to yell at him, but he just stood there so gently, nodding his head in emphatic agreement, that I just kind of felt like an asshole.

I told him that if he didn't know where his folder was, he had to ask for help.  That if we asked him to do something, and he didn't know how, he couldn't just lie about it, he had to ask for help.

"I know, mom.  I know.  You're right.  Compwetwy.  I make myself crazy, too, mom."

And then later I found his homework stuffed in the couch cushions.

I'm going to need to check a few parenting books out of the library.  Last time I did that was for potty training.  I think I need a refresh.

Ring a bell?

Lilly came to me, sobbing, last night.

"Mom!  I lost my ring someone gave to me today!"

So I bent down, and put my hand on her shoulder, and looked in her eyes, and said, "Lilly, I don't know what events in your young life could possible have led you to believe you have the capacity to keep track of anything, let alone a teeny little ring, but that belief is entirely inaccurate."

She looked at me for a second.

"Can you find it or not?"

"No, I cannot."

"DAD!"

 

Lilly and the Completely Reasonable Response

Lilly was getting dried off from her bath this afternoon.  She was in my room, and I went to her room to get some cozy warm clothes.  Because it is frickin' cold outside.

(pay attention to that, as it is central to this story)

She must have heard me banging around because she called out, "MOM?  I already made a selection and laid it out on the chair!  It is the red dress!"

So I look over and, yeah, there is a short sleeved dress on the bed.

"Lilly, you can't wear your summer dresses any more.  We packed those away.  You have to wear long sleeves."

So I pick up a long sleeved dress and bring it to her.

And she collapses to the ground.

"Moooooooom. That dress is sooo squirgily," she wails, and gesticulates in a squirgily fashion.

"Would you like a shirt and some pants?"

"NEVER!  I will NEVER wear a shirt and pants!"

"Lilly.  I don't want to fight about this any more.  It is COLD.  You cannot wear summer clothes anymore.  End of discussion."

Whine, whine, whine, whine.

"Lilly, I'm done talking about this.  Go to your room if you can't stop whining about wearing weather-appropriate clothing."

So she goes stomping off to her room, crying and slamming the door to her room.

Because, Evil Mom, obviously.

And then she opens her door, so I can hear her sobbing, "Nobody wants me!  They are breaking my heart! Nobody wants me!"

And they say girls are dramatic.

Learned Helplessness

At work, you have to pay to park your car.

You have to pay to park your car, even though the place you park your car is nowhere near your actual office.

Still: Forced Daily Walk!

You have to swipe to get into the garage.  Which make sense.  Clearly, if we are all paying for the privilege to park here then we must protect these spots.

But what made less sense to me was that you also have to swipe your badge to get OUT of the lot.  Guys, once I'm in, that's it.  I've parked.  I've used the space.  Bygones.  What are you going to do if I lose my parking pass during the day?  Let me rot in the garage forever?  I'm now in garage-jail?

And then I realized that they were using those swipes to track employees.

Oh.

More understandable, but also more creepy.

Anyhow, the past few days the gates have been broken at my garage, so they've just left them open.

Oddly, anarchy did not ensue.  Who would have known?

On the contrary - each of the past two days I've had to sit patiently behind a person who not only stopped at the open gate, but dug around, found their pass, and waved it at the sensor.  

Who would win?

Jessica makes a good point, which is, if I am going to stop writing, I should at least try to make sure my last, lingering, post doesn't make me look like an idiot.

So in the interest of pushing that particular post down in the in-box of this blog, I will recount a few conversations I had recently with Owen.

School started.  I'm always a little worried about my kids and their social lives.  Kids with friends are bullied less often, and in a less sustained, systematic way.  The friends don't have to be cool.  Just having friends is protective.  So I'd like my kids to have friends.

"How's school, Owen?  Are any of your friends from last year there?  Do you like the kids? Are they nice to you? Did you make any new friends?"

"Mom," he says, placing a hang on my shoulder, "it does take a while to devewope a frwendship."

So I let it go for a few weeks.

Then, we were talking last night, and I asked again.

"Have you made any friends at school yet, Owen?"

"No."

"Anybody you want to be friends with?"

"Not reawwy."

"Is anybody mean to you?"

"Wewl.  Sometime they do ask ask me questions during recess."

"What kinds of things do you do during recess, Owen?"

"Plway."

"Ok.  Well, you're saying kids ask you mean questions while you are playing?"

"Yes."

"Like what?"

"Like, 'what are you doing?' and 'are you having fun?' and 'do you want to plway wif me?'"

Oh, the cruelty of children.

And then he said, "Mom?  I was hoping I could ask you a question."

"Of course, Owen."

"Because, wewl, you told me earlier I had to stop asking questions."

That's true.  It did happen.  He asked a bunch of horrible questions I don't care about.  It's exhausting, and sometimes, when I'm trying to make dinner and pack lunches and set the table and do the laundry, I don't have any brain space left to determine the winner of whatever crazy contest Owen can dream up.  But we are now engaged in a deep, meaningful, conversation.

"Who would win between the King of Ice and the Sword of Fire?"







P.S. You're thinking about it, aren't you?  Who WOULD win?  The King of Ice probably has arms, which could be helpful in a fight, but the Sword of Fire is made probably made of fire, so . . .

True stories of the ER

I'm so stoic, you know?  It's my thing.  I suffer in silence.

Or at least not super loud?

Like, a medium level?

This could be a very long story where I tell you that my ear has been bothering me for a few weeks, and that I went swimming and then I couldn't hear and then I got dizzier, and more nauseous and in more pain and was convinced I had an ear infection, and then more dizzy, and then more nauseous, until Chris and I found ourselves in the ER at 3:00 in the morning.  

But the important part of the story is this:

"Oh.  Looks like your ear is completely impacted with wax."

"So, you're telling me that I am in the ER in the middle of the night for ear wax?"

"Pretty much."

"You're saying I woke my hard-working brother in law in the middle of the night to come be with my sleeping children . . . for ear wax."

"Yes."

"I sought emergency help from highly trained trauma doctors for ear wax."

"Yes, but that is okay, because I wasn't doing anything else."

"Good.  Neither was I."

I'm going to need a body double. And my own house bus.

You guys!

Nobody told me that being a lazy blogger was costing me my chance to be rich and famous!

Did nobody see Sookie's comment on my last blog post?  Trying to recruit me to star in a television series?

Look, I write this thing.  I can't be expected to READ it, too.

. . .

Some further investigation reveals she might not be exactly offering stardom and a lucrative contract, as much as an invitation to the chance to apply to appear, for free, on a television show about weird pregnancies.

I beg your pardon.

I have never been anything but normal.  Or, if not normal, exactly, I have never been far enough outside of the range of normal to be of interest to anybody.

She wanted to hear about my experience with pica in pregnancy, which, I mean, did she not read my blog post about it?*

Because the blog post is pretty much it.  I wanted to eat laundry detergent.  A lot.  But I didn't.  The end. They couldn't even make a fifteen minute segment about that.

I am also quite sure I don't want to appear on TV.  I hear the camera adds ten pounds.  You know what else adds ten pounds?  Vacations.  And I've been on four of them this summer.



*Of course she has!  It's a front page Google search result for Pica + Pregnancy, holla!  See, I don't need Sookie and her suspiciously trendy name to bring me fame!