Turning into my mother...

One of the best things my mother ever did for me happened when I was in the sixth grade.

I was drowning in depression. Gawky, unpopular, picked on by Jason A. to the point where he pushed me down when I was on crutches, and turned my sprained ankle into a broken ankle. My only friends were others who were as big misfits as I was. I hated school. I would spend study hall drawing complex geometric patterns with my four-color ink pen.

I was miserable.

To complicate matters, I was not well liked by my teacher, for reasons which I will never understand. I didn't do anything to get into trouble, but I was not trusted or liked.

Mrs. N never collected assignments directly. There was no, "Pass your papers to the front of the row," or direct handing in of assignments. Assignments were put in a stack of letter trays. Because of this, my sixth grade teacher regularly "lost" my assignments, or else they were pulled out of the pile by others in my class.

I nearly failed sixth grade.

After the first several assignments were labeled as "late" or missing, I couldn't see the point. I worked my ass off, and got nowhere, so I stopped trying in her classes.

A's and B's in the classes she did not teach, and D's in the ones she did.

One particular assignment that I remember very clearly was a narrative for a contest. We were to write an essay, in narrative form, about something significant that happened in our lives. I wrote an eight page story about what happened to my family in the Manson Tornado, double-spaced, punctuated carefully, words looked up in the dictionary, rewritten to where there were no mistakes at all, no cross-outs. Perfect.

I was told I was a liar. That stuff didn't happen. I was too young to remember, and someone else wrote this paper for me. I was stunned. My paper was not submitted to the contest because of this.

The sheer unfairness of this blind-sided me.

Later, when my report card came out, I was stunned to see that I was in danger of actually failing the sixth grade. My mother was extremely angry at me, understandably. How could I be failing when I spent so much time on my homework? Why wasn't I turning things in? She put the fear into me so badly, that I went back to class, stopped hanging out so much with my misfit friends (or anyone, for that matter), and kissed so much ass that I felt like a phony.

I squeaked by. There was no way in hell I was going to repeat that year of hell. No way.

Starting in seventh grade, I worked my ass off in every class, and got good grades again. I was on the honor roll from then on. I also never had a teacher quite like her again.

I worked hard because I wanted out of my hometown. I wanted to make something of myself. I wanted to make my mom proud, and I never wanted to be on the receiving end of a lecture like the one I had when I was failing sixth grade. You don't want that type of screaming. Trust me. ;)

So tonight, after going to my son's conference. I realized that I was going to have to make that same type of lecture. He's not failing, by any means, but he also is not applying himself, not turning in work, and is not paying attention like he should. He has the capacity to get A's, but is not working up to his potential.

I hated to do it. As his homeroom teacher said, "He's not a bad kid. He never causes trouble." In a way, it would almost be easier if he did cause trouble. He'd get the attention that he needs.

So, I came home, put aside my inner sixth grader, and made his ears ring. I focused on positives, set down rules, and expectations. I grounded him from video games during the school week, and from drawing during school hours (except during lunch - this was one of the problems he was having in classes). I will be inspecting all homework, the planner, and he will start studying for tests three days in advance. I am not letting this slip, or next year will be a fiasco.

I did not let myself feel awful during this. It is completely necessary. Something has to change. It is not enough to be smart. You also have to have the grades in order to make something of yourself. I don't want to let him throw away the opportunities he could have.

My mother must have felt the same way twenty-four years ago...

At least this time I wasn't at home, miserably sick...

My son had a dance at school tonight. So, I dropped him off at 6, then went shopping. I had a few specific things to look for. I ended up going through three stores without buying anything at all. And then I hit Target.

I bought myself a new stir-fry pan, a new skillet, and a couple of other kitchen related items. I desperately needed the new pans, due to the old ones having scratched up Teflon (not good!). I didn't spend a lot on them, but they should last for quite awhile. I am excited about cooking again!

When I went to pick up my son, the kids had gotten out of the dance early. A long line of cars were parked around the circle, with various cars, and SUVs pulling out as they picked up their kids. I was looking for my son, when a white minivan sped past, doing twice the speed limit, swerved to avoid an SUV that was pulling out, and slammed on the brakes and parked right in front of another SUV, blocking it in. Keep in mind that there were kids EVERYWHERE, excited kids, and it's DARK. I saw two kids get into the van, then they waited with the door open for another kid. The whole time, the SUV that was blocked in was waiting to go, and no one else near could pull out and leave either.

There was ample parking for this person to have parked correctly. There was no need to speed past the waiting line of cars. Their brakes never even flashed until they parked. It ticked me off. I mean, really, there was no point to this. So, your kids are too delicate to walk 100 feet to the car? Or wait two minutes for the line of cars to creep forward? It's not like it is freezing out or anything. It was arrogant.

And no, it was not a soccor mom at the wheel - it was a Dad. A big, huge dad. I have no idea what was so pressing that they had to get out of there so fast, but I caught up to them at the stop sign, when leaving school property. He saved zero time with his shenanigans...

Normal Day

Nothing too earth shattering to report here.

The twelve-year-old is working on dividing decimals. He was having a hard time of it earlier today, as he missed math class thanks to trombone lessons. I hate it that they pull the kids out of classes to have music lessons, but there just aren't enough hours in the day. They rotate which classes they miss, which helps, but I wish I could request that he not miss math. He's struggled with math for quite awhile, but now he's finally making progress, and is extremely proud that he is getting a B+ so far. I would hate to see that progress halted because of missing class.

We went to the library tonight, to return movie and books, and get more (I ended up with four sewing books, but not the couture technique book that I wanted). On the way home, my son asked if I knew any Chuck Norris jokes. "Well, yeah, but not many clean ones..." He did get a kick out of this one: "Chuck Norris' tears can cure cancer. Too bad he never cries." I know, overdone, but it was the only one I could think of. When he asked, all of the naughty ones popped into my head, and that's the only clean one I could remember.

After he finished laughing, he says, "Who is Chuck Norris, anyway?"