Rant Ahead...Proceed with Caution!

Yesterday was one of those days that made me want to whup up on somebody...  


I got a call last week from the company who was supposed to deliver our new entertainment center.  She first gave me a time frame for Monday morning between eight and twelve, which was fine by me.  Then she called me back the next day and said it looked as if it was going to be more like three to five.  I told her that would probably be fine but that I had to pick up four kids at two different schools from two to three twenty-ish.  She then told me it would most likely be closer to five since we were last on the list.  


Charlie also arranged to be home before three so that we could move things out of the way first and just because I typically do not deal well with the incompetence I have found that most of these home delivery/service people tend to possess. Not all, mind you, but most that I have personally come in contact with. I almost lost my mind on the guy who came out to set up our Direct TV after we moved into this house and it's just really safer for all involved if someone else is here, if at all possible.  


Well, I was enjoying my first thirty minute break at home yesterday, the one after my class at the gym but before my first school pickup when the phone rang.  It was a guy from the delivery company, who by the way did not speak very good English, telling me he'd be there in about fifteen to twenty minutes, which would be two o'clock and five minutes before I had to leave for the school!  And, which I pointed out to him,  was a whole hour earlier than the start of the two hour time frame I was given.  


He, the best I could tell through his limited English, really did not give a flying flip and was not going to work with me at all.  And this was where I had to dig down deep in my soul and muster up every bit of strength I had to bite my tongue and swallow my words.  


'Cause I was straight up pissed.


I called Charlie up and informed him of the situation.  He told me he was already on his way home and wanted the number of the man with little English to see what he could do.  Which was pretty much nothing because Mr. "I don't give a flip" said he was only a helper and eluded that he pretty much just wanted to be done for the day and that they were headed back to the shop.  And nobody ever returned the message he left at the office. Until this morning when I got a call asking if tomorrow morning was good.  And there was really no apology.  


What.tha.****?!  


And to top all that off, it was time for two week progress reports at the middle school, which really did not go well.  Also, I knew it should be about time for his school pictures to be in.  I blogged last month how he didn't bring his form home but I knew it was picture day thanks to the school page on facebook.  So I gave him a check that morning for the same amount Dracen's package was at the elementary school because it was the same company, told him to fill out the form for that package, put the check in there, hand it to the photographer and to smile. 


He told me he did.  


So yesterday I asked him once again if his pictures were in since Dracen's were in a week ago and he said to me, "They gave me this paper with a proof on it where you can order them but everybody else got pictures so I don't know."  


It was a "LAST CHANCE to order pictures" form with a mug shot of a scowling boy who resembled my oldest son with the word "PROOF" stamped across his face. 


"What happened, Devin? Did you not fill out the form and give them the check!?"  I barked.  He assured me he did so I went online to check my bank statement and while Dracen's had cleared, his had not.  Somehow I felt that I'd been hoo-dooed  and I was not seeing the humor in it.  At all! I have the sneaking suspicion that my check ended up in the trash can or crinkled up on the bottom of a middle school locker.  


So much for having a school pic to document each year of K thru 12!


I am sure that someday, in the very distant future, we will look back on these days and laugh.


But right now I'm still feeling a little like this...

Good thing I have yoga today!


    

Where the Green Grass Grows...

Since his cell phone and iPad privileges have been temporarily suspended for the past couple of days for his behavior in Language Arts, we've been seeing a lot more of Devin.  It's like I have my other son back!  I watched from the sunroom windows yesterday afternoon as he and and his little brother wrestled on the trampoline, fully expecting a fight to break out any minute when someone was accidentally hurt. 


But it never happened. 


They just kept wrestling, laughing, and being boys until they finally came inside where Dracen tried to convince me he had frost bite.  And I tried to convince him that while I didn't doubt his feet were really cold, he did not have frost bite because it was 48 degrees outside. Which by the way, is entirely too cold for these parts this time of year.  And it is in the 20s this morning! Brr.


After supper last night we all played a game of Yahtzee.  That I won.  Woot! But just for the record, I would never actually say "Woot" out loud. And later, when Charlie and I were watching t.v. in the living room, we were ambushed by a couple of ninjas who both could benefit from a lesson in stealthiness, especially the little one. 


It reminded us of the good ol' days, back when it was a pretty common thing to see two boys whiz by you in full costume.


Then Devin "hid" under the bed as I read to Dracen at bedtime.  As if I didn't know he was under there. Will they ever learn to stop underestimating my super intuitive mom powers? After the battle of getting the Idea Man (Charlie's new nickname for Dracen) tucked cozily into his bed for the night, Devin actually sat with us in the living room until his bedtime.  I swear I may never give his stuff back!


Because it is really nice to have him back.  


I've been feeling lately like it's all just happening too fast...like time is getting by me and there's nothing I can do to stop it.  I catch myself thinking about how Devin will have his driver's license in just four years and how Dracen (my baby!) will be in middle school when that happens and I just want to shout to the heavens, "Slow Down! Pleeease! Just Slow Down!"  


But that is the one thing none of us have ever figured out how to do, isn't it? To slow down time. 


When we're younger we just can't seem to get it to go by fast enough as we continually anticipate and count down the days until we can get our license, graduate high school, finish college, land our dream job, get married, have kids, struggle as we try to figure out how to get through the cruelties and storms that life deals us and to just.be.happy.  


I used to be one of those people who always saw the grass as being so much greener on the other side of that fence but I know now that I wouldn't want any other grass than that which God has so graciously given me. 


Because it's my grass. 


And while I sometimes wish I could keep it just the way it is right now, before the changing seasons alter it once again, I know that I can't do that. Not even with my super intuitive mom powers. So instead I'm going to keep nurturing it, appreciating it and loving it for what it is right now because I know that it will change again tomorrow.  


But I also know that no matter what, it will always be the greenest grass I know.  

My Biggest Parenting Challenge

I was always the shy, quiet girl who went out of my way to avoid drawing attention to myself in school.  I was bewildered by the class clown type, even when I secretly found their antics hysterical,  because that personality was so very different from my own. I just could not fathom possessing that kind of carefree gumption.   


And really, I am still that way.  I go out of my way to avoid uncomfortable situations and confrontations.  I recently read an article in which someone referred to herself as "conversationally challenged" and the words leapt off the page at me. Because that?  Is so me.  


Conversationally challenged is exactly what I am.  I stumble over my words, if I can find them at all, and end up walking away or hanging up the phone shaking my head and feeling completely frustrated because I know I did not say what I felt, thought and intended to say.  

And I had one of those moments this afternoon when I got a call from a teacher (the third time I have heard from this teacher this year) informing me, yet again, that my son is still being unruly and  disruptive in her class. That she finds it disrespectful. And that she wants it to stop.


It felt like an attack on me and my parenting skills and I wanted to shout, "You and me both, girlfriend!  You and me, both!"  But of course I didn't.  Instead I asked her what exactly he was doing to which she replied "just constantly giggling, cutting up and talking amongst his friends." I apologized three times and told her we had talked and talked to him about this and thought we had the problem solved and that we will deal with it.  


Then I hung up the phone, threw a few four letter words around and sent Charlie a message pretty much stating that I was at my wit's end and did not know what else to do aside from going to the darn (only this wasn't the exact adjective I used) school and sitting right beside him in that class every day. And we agreed to crack down harder.   Take away ALL the privileges this time!  


I have to say that above all the challenges parenting has brought me thus far (even the constant bickering between them and the endless lobbying to wear shorts in the dead of winter) THIS is the hardest.  


The direct reflection I feel that my children are of myself.


Although they are each their own persons with their own wills and personalities, I feel personally responsible for each and every move they make and action they take even when I am not with them.  Especially when I am not with them.


And although I am a little ashamed to admit this, the bottom line is that when they act bad...I look bad.  Or at least it feels that way. And who likes to look bad?  Not me! 


I did not expect to feel this way before I became a parent.  Nobody wrote that down as advice at my baby shower, not a one of those "what to expect" parenting books devoted a chapter to it and my mother didn't warn me about it.  


I expected the sleepless nights, the messes, the occasional defiance, and even the worry. But the one challenge I never saw coming was this one...The unsuspecting way I could be right in the middle of an otherwise perfectly fine day and have someone jerk a knot in my tail, pee in my corn flakes, or eat my bowl of sunshine all up with one little phone call, note or email informing me that my kid...mine...was being anything less than perfect.   


And the fact that the quietest of quiet girls in the class grew up to be the mother of the class clown is just further proof that God?  Has a wicked sense of humor!  


**This post inspired by Mama Kat's writing prompt, "Your biggest parenting challenge and/or joy" and Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday's Letter C.