Be It Ever So Messy, There's No Place Like Home: The "Adventures" of a 50-Something Southern California Mom - who used to be interesting... and her teenage daughter.
It's a weird schedule. She goes to school during the two hottest weeks of the summer (it hit 108 yesterday), and then she gets two weeks off, returning on 9/13 along with the rest of LAUSD.
I'm told it has something to do with the timing of AP tests. I'm sure I'll have a better understanding of it all after I've been part of the school community for a while.
In the meantime, she needed help with her homework last night.
Her English teacher had assigned several vocabulary words and phrases, and there was going to be a test today. Megan said she needed to understand the definitions as set forth in class.
They are beginning the school year with an emphasis on learning critical thinking. This is a good thing.
But I had to laugh when I saw that one of the principles they are teaching her is to "Challenge Authority."
As if any teenager isn't already doing that. Mine likes to practice right at the dinner table.
We're now in the market for some good heartburn meds.
I am on vacation. This post originally appeared at Los Angeles Moms Blog.
I remember my
daughter's first day of preschool as if it was yesterday. The moment I
tried to leave the classroom, she clung onto me and started to cry.
"Don't
worry. It's just separation anxiety," her teacher reassured me. And in a
very short time, those weepy, clingy episodes came to an end...
...until
now. Ten years have passed and the urge to cling is back.
Only
this time, I'm the one who can't let go.
My baby girl is embarking
on an eighth grade field trip this month to Washington, DC. She'll be
boarding a plane and traveling 2,685 miles without me. And she
can't wait.
We were told this excursion was going to happen back when she
selected her middle school, three years ago. I didn't think the time
would come so quickly. I've had something of a mental block about it;
never actually entering the dates in my calendar, as if I could prevent
it by simply refusing to acknowledge it.
I can tell you now that
this kind of tactic doesn't work. Last week, we found ourselves in the
school library with my daughter's teachers and 80 other anxious parents
to go over their itinerary and I was forced to admit that this was
actually going to happen.
We will soon be driving her to LAX at
4:00 AM (!!) for a six o'clock flight to Dulles Airport, where her
seatmates will likely be strangers. She will be bused to a hotel where
she will share a room with three other girls, and over the next week
will visit landmarks, museums and national monuments like the White
House, Lincoln Memorial and Smithsonian Institution.
I have to
admit that some of what I'm feeling is jealousy. Just as Ellen Page says
in those technology commercials, when I was a kid we just went to the
farm. I've never been to Washington and have wanted to visit every site
on the list. I should be happy that my kid gets to do this, and I am.
But I'm also worried.
I need to trust that she can handle herself,
but how can I, when she doesn't have the sense to wear a jacket when
the weather forecast predicts rain?
Of course, these budding
little adolescents will not be unsupervised. The teachers who are
chaperoning the group have been organizing these trips for 15 years. I
have met most of them and like them, and they've done all they can to
reassure all the nervous parents.
Deep down, I have faith that it
will all go well and that my daughter will grow from this experience.
That's
a good thing, because next year, she starts high school. And the big
class field trip there is a journey to China.
My response to that
headline was a resounding "D-UH."
My teenage daughter and I are
forty years apart, and nothing marks the differences between our
generations like today's technology.
When I was a young teen, it
was a rite of passage to get your own phone line. Now that I think about
it, my parents probably had ours installed out of self-defense, as my
sister and I tied up the family line the minute we got home from school
until were pried off of it for dinner.
And these were the days
before the invention of call waiting, caller ID, voicemail and all those
other innovations that have changed the way we communicate.
So I
don't feel any nostalgia for the "good old days." It was my idea to get
Megan her own phone when she was in 4th grade, because she was spending
four hours a day after school training in competitive gymnastics, and it
made ME feel better, knowing that we could directly connect if we
needed to.
The fact that the phone enabled her to communicate with
all of her friends was just icing on the cake.
It took about one billing cycle for me to realize we needed to add
unlimited texting to our plan. The surprise is that I was racking up
even more of a bill than she was.
As the Pew spokeswoman in the
CNN article said, "Texting is so functional and efficient." Who among us
hasn't had the need to get a message to someone while we're in the
audience of a presentation or meeting? Sending a quick text is silent
and unobtrusive... and can give you peace of mind.
I've been known
to text my husband a short grocery list when I know he's on his way
from work. I text my sister just to say hi. My friends text me to ask if
I can get their kids for school pick up.
And before I got my
Blackberry, I was texting up a storm on Twitter.
My daughter's
middle school allows the students to carry their cell phones, as long as
they are turned off. Most of the kids just keep them on silent, which
explains all the texts I get from my daughter, with messages that range
from "I forgot my lunch" to "I'm staying late for geometry tutoring" to
"Can I go to Maggie's after school?"
And it goes both ways. There
are times when I'm running late for school pick up, and I can stop
breaking the speeding laws once I've sent my daughter a short text.
(Yes, I pull over before I do this! I don't text and drive.)
I'm
curious to know if Pew has statistics on texting by adult women of
teenage kids. I'd be willing to bet we're right up there with our
daughters.
I am on vacation. This post originally appeared at Los Angeles Moms blog.
The news is good:
Abby Sunderland has been found alive in the Indian Ocean. Thirty-foot
waves had pummeled her boat, which no longer has a mast, but the vessel
is still seaworthy. A trio of ships is heading out to rescue her.
Abby
is the 16-year-old local girl who set sail back in January, in hope of
becoming the youngest person to complete a solo sail around the world.
Her family lost contact with her in the middle of a satellite phone
call, and her actual location was unknown.
I cannot imagine the
anguish her parents must have felt while she was missing. Then again, I
cannot imagine allowing my kid to embark on such a journey in the first
place.
It's only been a couple of years since I've allowed my
daughter to enter a public restroom on her own. Until recently, she had
never walked up to the counter at Baskin-Robbins to order her own ice
cream cone. She has never walked to school on her own, nor has she ever
ridden a bike to a friend's house. These are things I did all the time
when I was a lot younger than she.
I guess you could say my husband and I are over-protective, but in we
are not more so than the other parents we know. The world seems a more
dangerous place than the one we grew up in. After a couple of
well-publicized instances of predators snatching kids out of their front
yards, or hiding in public rest rooms, we've got a generation of kids
who never walk alone. Maybe I overreacted to the news, but I did
everything I could to ensure that my daughter will not be immortalized
with a law that bears her name.
The Sunderlands obviously have a
different view of the world. According to Abby's website,
she has been sailing since she was six months old (presumably as a
passenger on her parents' boat). Her older brother Zac briefly did hold
the record as youngest solo world sailor, after successfully completing
the same journey just one year ago.
Abby Sunderland is alone at
sea, 2,000 miles from the nearest port, and her family is confident in
her ability to survive. "She's got all the skills she needs to take
care of what she has to
take care of, she has all the equipment as well," her brother Zac told
the Associated Press.
I have a hard time letting my daughter walk
the dog solo around the block. That's something I've got to change.
I
won't have a choice. In a little over a year, she'll be eligible for a
driver's permit. Her dad and I have to make sure she acquires the skills
and has access to a safe vehicle. We won't be able to hold her back.
I
just can't guarantee we'll stop worrying about her.
Tonight is my daughter's Middle School Grad Night. She and hundreds of other eighth graders will be partying it up at Magic Mountain.
When I attended the same Junior High (that's what we called it 40 years ago), we did not have a grad night, nor did we wear caps and gowns at our "culmination" (that's what we called the ceremony marking the transition to high school). Everything just seems bigger these days.
So I am dropping Megan off at school at 5:30 PM and will spend the rest of the evening mainlining caffeine, because she'll need a ride home when the bus returns -- some time after 1:00 AM.
She and her friends have been looking forward to this all year.
Megan had a burning question for me when I picked her up from school on Tuesday: She wanted to know if one of her friends could come home with us Saturday and spend the night. This girl lives in a neighborhood that's kind of far from our magnet school, and Megan has enjoyed several sleepovers at her beautiful home.
Of course, I said yes.
On Wednesday, Megan reminded me that she and another friend will be spending all day Saturday training for their summer position as junior camp counselors -- which means that both girls need to be out of the house by 7:00 AM. "Can she spend the night too?"
Well, that makes sense. I said yes.
Yesterday morning, Megan asked if we could go shoe shopping after school. "I'll need them for all the walking we'll do in Britain," she pointed out. "And I'd like to have them for Magic Mountain," she added. As we drove to the mall, she let me know that with two girls spending the night, a third friend was hoping to come, too.
Our house is tiny. The bedroom that serves as my husband's office has a daybed and trundle, so we can sleep two people in there. We have a convertible couch in the living room, which could handle Megan and the two girls I'd already agreed to -- but barely. The minute a fourth person is added to the mix, it starts looking like this classic clip from the Marx Brothers:
On top of that, noises from the living room carry into the bedroom and my husband is a light sleeper. The more girls who are stumbling in at 1:30 AM, the more chance that there will be loud giggling that will wake him up -- and then I'll have to listen to him complain all day Saturday about what a crappy sleep he had.
I drew the line. I told her no.
Thus began the cajoling.
"I've had slumber parties and we've gotten four girls on the couch before," she noted.
Yes, but you were all smaller then, I countered. You won't all fit on the bed now.
"We don't have to fit on the bed. Maggie never sleeps on the bed, anyway. She likes to use the chair."
We do have these great big comfy chairs that are too large for the room -- and I have seen the girls sprawled on those instead of the couch when we've had sleepovers. And Maggie is one of my daughter's oldest, closest, dearest friends. I wouldn't want her to feel left out.
I relented.
At this point, I was mentally shuffling my appointment calendar. When it was one girl, it was no big deal. Three girls feels like a party and my little house is not in any shape for a party.
I've made many a mention here about my aversion to housework, which is made worse by the fact that I work at home. From the moment I get home from school drop-off until the time I have to pick her back up, I have about six hours to put in an eight-hour work day -- plus household management. IT DOESN'T ALL GET DONE and it's most often the cleaning that gets put off and put off and put off... until someone has the audacity to want to visit me. At that point, I drop everything else, strap on my iPod and do some heavy cleaning.
However, today is going to be a problem. I have a lunchtime meeting in another part of town -- which means I won't be able to dust and vacuum and mop and clean the bathroom before I have to get Megan from school. But with no one coming until 1:00 AM, I figured I could do it after school and into the evening. Problem solved, right?
Uh, no. Because last night, after dinner, Megan announced that as long as everyone was spending the night, she thought it would be a good idea for them to just come home with us after school.
Once again, I attempted to draw the line. I said no. And once again, my daughter thought she could get me to change my mind by offering a rational argument.
Unfortunately for both of us, when it comes to my neuroses and deep shame about my inability to keep the house looking neat and clean, rationality goes out the window. This is the point where my answer to all of her questions becomes, "Because I said so."
Then it got ugly. My husband decided I was being unreasonable and uttered the words that are guaranteed to make me go ballistic: "You sound just like your mother."
So now I'm REALLY pissed -- at her, at him, at feeling cornered into a situation I can't control. And I'm shouting at both of them.
And then, Megan holds her phone to her ear and says, "I have to call you back." She had been holding it behind her back during the entire discussion -- and her friend heard EVERYTHING. So now, I'm not only pissed off -- I am embarrassed beyond belief, because my issue was never with her friends and now that girl's mother is going to hear that I did not want her to come and that I was angry with my daughter for inviting her. And that is so NOT the case.
I love the girls she has chosen to spend time with. I WANT them to be comfortable in our home. But I want them to be comfortable in our home. And I want ME to be comfortable letting them in our home.
I could not believe that my daughter let her friend listen in to a conversation I thought was private. And when I explained that to her, she felt bad too.
"Are you still mad at me?" she asked tearfully.
No, I said.
"Then why are you so quiet?"
I was punching in a long message on my Blackberry, responding to her friend's mom, who had sent me a message on Facebook letting me know that she hadn't meant to inconvenience me. So I was trying to send her back a message assuring her that I WANTED her daughter (which was true) and explaining my neurotic house issues. I don't think I succeeded in communicating either of those ideas.
Hence this post.
The one good thing that came out of the argument is that before I made up with my daughter, she went through the house in a huff, picking up all the living room clutter that was HERS.
And you know what? That helped ME get over my housecleaning panic. I always spend the first hour just picking up her stuff and putting it in her room. Once she finished doing it herself, the place seemed infinitely more manageable.
So I guess I've got a head start now. You know how I'll be spending the rest of my day...
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