Snide Reply

Tag: parenting

  • Lifus Interruptus

    Theon trudged through the snow . . .

    The door to my bedroom flew open. Theon stopped trudging through the snow. I closed the book on my finger, holding my place.

    “Mom, what do we have to eat?” my son asked.

    “The same things we had the last time you asked. Go look,” I answered.

    “Meh,” he said, shutting the door.

    Theon trudged through the snow . . .

    “Mommy, can I watch TV in your room?” my daughter asked, opening the door then climbing into my bed.

    Theon again stopped trudging. I closed the book on my finger.

    “Where is your daddy,” I asked, it being 9:00 p.m., a half hour past her bedtime, and it being her daddy’s job to put her to bed.

    “He’s downstairs, playing cards on his computer.”

    “Husband,” I shouted. My daughter ran from the room, forgetting to close the door.

    Theon trudged through the snow . . .

    “I checked,” my son said, having returned from his foray in the kitchen, “we don’t have anything to eat.”

    Theon stopped trudging through the snow again as I closed my eyes and willed my son away. I decided to ignore him. My son, not Theon. Theon started trudging again. My son didn’t leave.

    “I’m bored,” he said.

    “Theon trudged through the snow,” I said.

    “Can we watch TV together?”

    “Theon trudged through the snow,” I said, louder.

    “We haven’t had mother-son bonding time in so long,” he pleaded.

    “THEON TRUDGED THROUGH THE SNOW!” I shouted. He persisted. My son, not Theon. Theon was losing the battle for my attention.

    “Pweeze, Mommy?” begged my bearded, 15-year-old son, puppy-dog eyes looking up at me, as he had flopped down on the bed beside me.

    Theon stopped trudging as I set the book down to watch TV with my son.

    While my son may have insisted that we hadn’t had mother-son bonding time “in so long,” the same scene plays out every night.

    I no longer live a life. I live lifus interruptus.

    When I lived alone, I never really thought about interruptions. Oh, the cat would have a hairball here and there and I’d occasionally get an unwelcome phone call. But the advent of the answering machine and, subsequently caller ID, freed me from unwanted distractions—except the hairballs, of course.

    My husband was the first to bring interruptions to my attention, as in I would make them and he would resent them. I didn’t think of my comments on his monologues, I mean, contributions to discussion as interruptions, but lively responses to his thought-provoking speech. He thought of them as interruptions. I tried to stop inserting lively responses. Eventually, I was able to allow him to completely finish expressing a thought, holding my lively responses in abeyance. Unfortunately, by the time he had completed his thought, I had forgotten my lively response, leaving me responseless. This led him to believe that I was uninterested in his thought. In fact, at some point in his thought, I had a thought of my own that connected to his. So that I could remember my own thought, I stopped listening to his and began repeating my own in my head, over and over again. At that point, I figured out that I had figured out how to interrupt him without interrupting him.

    My children will interrupt anything, at any time.

    Making a dinner that my son has been grumbling for for hours? He’ll interrupt three or four times to ask when the dinner will be ready. I remind him that it will be ready much more quickly if he’ll stop interrupting me to ask when it will be ready.

    Talking on the phone? My daughter will interrupt to provide further proof that she will grow up to become a molecular biologist as she points out a wound smaller than the point of a pin. My son has learned that phone calls are only to be interrupted if he is bleeding or on fire.

    Locked doors don’t deter my children; they have discovered that knitting needles are effective in unlocking our locks. I discovered their discovery while taking a bath.

    There are levels of interruption, as well. Recently, I realized everyone in the house was occupied. I snuck up to my office to write. I wrote 23 words. Only 23 words before my daughter interrupted me. I don’t even recall why, because immediately, my son interrupted her interruption to tell me he was bored or hungry. I don’t remember which.

    I have grown so accustomed to being interrupted that I have developed the habit of leaving off the last word of sentences. I refuse to believe that this is a memory issue caused by my age. No, I have gotten used to not being able to finish a sentence, so I never finish sentences any more. It may be that I won’t even be able to speak at all soon. Last night, I opened my mouth to speak just as my son said, “What are we having for dinner?”

    I have even begun interrupting myself. In writing this post, I have found it absolutely essential to take a bath, Google how to clean sticky dirt from a stair rail, attempt to clean a stair rail, start dinner, make a cup of tea, read some of a novel, and put away my daughter’s clean laundry. It normally takes me two hours to write a 1,000-word post. So far, I’m at 3 ½ hours. Not a good trend.

    The worst of the interrupting avalanche is in my bedroom. It’s not what you think. I haven’t been able to sleep through the night since my kids started sleeping through the night. In addition to getting up to use the bathroom, I am now awakened by the need to either remove the covers or replace the covers. Every night, usually three or four times, I am treated to the sensation of my internal temperature regulation mechanism (ITRM) being nudged up a few notches. Covers off. Soon after, the ITRM gets nudged back . . .too far down. Covers on. Repeat. Of course, I still need to replace covers due to spousal cover removal. It’s covers off, covers on all night, every night.

    On top of it all, I’ve developed insomnia. I look at this as a blessing though. At 2 a.m., I’m unlikely to be interrupted, no matter what I’m doing. Finally, Theon can trudge through the snow to wherever he was going.

    © Copyright 2011 by Janice Lindegard, except Theon trudged through the snow Copyright George R. R. Martin

  • Two Steaks, Twenty Dollars and My Mind

    When I moved to Naperville, I hated not knowing where I was. Oh, I knew where my house was in relation to the major highways, but I didn’t know the city the way I had known Oak Park. To be fair, Oak Park covers 4.7 square miles directly to the west of Chicago. Like Chicago, its streets are straight, running north/south or east/west. Naperville covers 35.5 square miles. There are a handful of straight streets, mostly in the older, downtown area. In the newer sections, and there are lots of newer sections, the streets have been designed to curve and wind gently through the rolling countryside, I suppose to make up for the fact that all of our houses look exactly alike. Actually, there isn’t much countryside left out here and any rolling is manmade.

    Naperville seems to specialize in streets that take you right back where you started. In my own neighborhood, there are numerous “courts,” or cul de sacs. You enter and exit from the same point. That’s actually pretty straightforward. More confusing are the “circles,” which are streets that have two points of origin. My husband, who routinely blew off our street when we lived in Oak Park, would appreciate it if we lived on a circle. Then he’d have two chances to get driving home right.

    For a while after we moved, knowing how to get Target was sufficient. Soon, though, I wanted more mastery over my geography. With no lake to serve as a point of reference, Naperville proved a geographical nightmare.  So, I would get lost. On purpose. What with the circles, cul de sacs, unincorporated areas and streets that change names mid-street, it’s pretty darned easy to get lost in Naperville. Obviously, I always found my way back home.

    I haven’t always been lucky in loss. Frankly, I’m a world-champion loser. I am resisting the urge to write, “Just ask my kids,” but, clearly, I am losing that battle with myself. See? I really am a loser.

    I have lost all kinds of things. Recently, I lost two steaks. They were big fat rib-eyes, grass-fed, that I snatched on sale at Whole Foods. In the pantheon of things that will stop your heart cold, rib-eyes are up there with an air embolism and Tori Spelling without makeup. I make myself believe that, if I buy them at Whole Foods, the good I do the Earth balances the evil I do to my body in a sort of personal health “cap and trade” program.

    I got the steaks home and then they disappeared. For days, I rummaged through the refrigerator and the freezer hunting down the steaks. Eventually, I gave up, assuming I’d find the steaks the same way I found a pound of hamburger I lost when my son was a baby—by smell. But, the house didn’t start smelling like the stockyards on a summer afternoon so soon enough, I forgot the steaks.

    I don’t just lose meat; I lose money. Now, I’m not talking about making bad investments. I don’t need to invest one cent to lose money. I lose money just by letting it out of my hands. The problem is that I don’t let the money out of my hands in a controlled, habitual manner. If I were to take money that is given to me and immediately place it in my wallet, I would not lose money. But I don’t, thinking that if I do, I will then spend the money. So, I put money all over the place. I put it in my back jeans pocket. I put it in my jacket pocket. I put it in the cupboard with the coffee cups. I put it on top of my clothes drawers in the closet. I put it in any of the three or four pockets inside my purse. I put it on counters, in drawers, in cups, in nooks and in crannies

    I love winter, but not because the snow is pretty and covers up all the ugly gray drabness that is Chicago after autumn. I love winter because I find money in just about every pocket of every coat I own. The first few weeks of winter are like winning the lottery. Every day, I find anywhere from one to ten dollars waiting to make my day. So far, most of the money I’ve lost has come back in due time. Still, there is a twenty-dollar bill floating around the house somewhere.

    I lose my keys, but everyone loses their keys. I lose whatever book I’m currently reading at least two times per day. I’ve found them all sorts of places, like in the gazebo, under the dining room table, in the car. Once, I found a paperback on a shelf under the sink in the bathroom.

    Something I’ve never lost, though, is my mind. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder sometime after I had my son. I’ve been treated for depression. I’ve been treated for dysthymia. Never, in all the years I’ve been treated for my myriad of mental maladies, have I misplaced my mind. Frankly, there were times I wished I could. I was naturally curious then when I discovered iCarly, the kids’ show on Nickelodeon, would be airing an episode titled “iLost My Mind.”

    I was warned that this episode would present a terrible picture of mental illness and institutions that treat it. Mental health support groups implored parents to boycott the show. Of course, my daughter wanted to watch it. So we did what we’ve always done when my kids wanted to watch something I was pretty sure was crap. We watched it together.

    “iLost My Mind” is crap. I did not say, “I told you so.” We did talk about what was funny and what was not. Not funny: dirty walls with signs on them saying things like “Don’t eat the puzzle pieces” and “Friends don’t kill friends.” Funny: a male character dressed up as one of the other character’s moms. My daughter admitted that she understood that delusional people don’t act the way the characters in the show did but she thought one of them was funny anyway. And, we talked about how people with mental illnesses are a lot more like her mom than the characters in the show.

    I found the steaks. They were delicious. I have no idea where the $20 went. Perhaps my son knows. And my mind? Firmly and permanently ensconced in my skull.

    © Copyright 2011 by Janice Lindegard. All rights reserved.

  • What I Learned On My Summer Vacation

    Summer vacation brings to mind long car trips, my little brother comfortably wedged between Mom and Dad in the front seat and my sister and I in the back. My sister refuses to believe that she would terrorize me into sitting in the wheel well so that she could lie down on the back seat. I refuse to believe that I would willingly sit in the wheel well, so we are at a standstill over this issue.

    It’s a cliché, and I do so hate to be a cliché, but my flight to Boston recently was only marginally more comfortable than traveling in a wheel well. I was lucky enough to have a travel companion who didn’t snore, smell or attempt to annex my seat. That this companion was also my son made the trip that much more bearable. In fact, I was in a very good mood as we winged our way to Beantown. I was on a mission: visit my son’s dream college so that he could see for himself that college is not a mythical place that swallows his cousins for years at a time, spitting them out intermittently to attend important family events. With any luck, I thought, he might also discover that he wants to attend college and needs to work hard now even though he won’t hit freshman year until 2014.

    I learned many things over the course of two and a half days, most of them surprising.

    Surprise number one: my son will eat vegan food. While I don’t necessarily believe in fate, I do welcome a serendipitous unfolding of events. Just days before son and I were to leave for Boston, a friend invited us to his daughter’s Senior Recital. We have no money and, therefore no lives, so we were happy to accept. Actually, we would have been happy to accept in any circumstance. The young singer in question is a truly lovely and talented girl who once babysat our daughter.

    While we waited for the recital to begin, we chatted with others we know. In that wonderful way the world has of dropping plums in my lap…ok, that’s just crap. I don’t usually get plums dropped in my lap. I’m the one watching other people get plums dropped in their laps while I stand there saying, “Where’s my plum?” So, when life does manage to drop me a plum, I snatch that puppy up. Here’s the plum. Through the pre-recital chat, I learned that we know a young man who graduated from Berklee College of Music (son’s dream college) and—here’s the plumiest part—still lives in Boston.

    Proactive mom that I am, I got in touch with the Berklee alum. We’ll call him Mark. Mark said he’d be happy to host my son and me at his place for dinner. Actually, he had no idea who I was at first but I am either very persuasive or he eventually remembered our connection.

    We arrived at Mark’s place, a huge old Victorian mansion in the Roxbury neighborhood, which houses twelve people united in a desire to live sustainably, spiritually and affordably. They call it a co-op. Back in my time, we called it a commune. While I didn’t smell any patchouli, my son declared everyone “hippies.” We talked with Mark while the other hippies, I mean, residents prepared dinner. My son was rapt in that sort of nervously nonchalant way teen boys have of hiding the fact that they are so excited they would squeal if they were girls.

    Then dinner was served. There was curried couscous with cashews and peas. There were homemade veggie burgers bursting with lentils. There were beet greens sautéed then sauced with balsamic vinegar. There was a platter of thick, juicy grilled tofu squares. My son ate it all, politely, and thanked the cooks when we left.

    Surprise number two: it takes a whole lot of Coldstone Ice Cream to remove the taste of vegan from a 15-year-old’s mouth.

    Surprise number three: my son is not a vampire; he does not spontaneously combust when exposed to sunlight. Frankly, I was astounded that someone who spends eighty percent of his day sitting on his…chair playing video games could make it from the hotel room to the curb without complaining. In fact, he walked ten miles without complaining. Now, it probably helps that he didn’t know he’d walked ten miles until we sat down that night to figure it out.

    Surprise number four: what they’ve done with Faneuil Hall and the surrounding area is criminal. My son and I both particularly wanted to see Faneuil Hall, mostly because we think it’s fun to call it Feng Shui Hall, but that’s a long story. The website proclaims Faneuil Hall Marketplace a true Boston experience. I proclaim it a cross between Navy Pier, the Mall of America and every food court fast food emporium in America. I’m not buying the true Boston experience thing ‘cause I’m pretty sure Ann Taylor was not one of the founding fathers. I’m also thinking Betsy Ross didn’t wear Victoria’s Secret bras and Washington’s troops were not shod by Orvis.

    Surprise number five: there is a Texas cheerleader mom hiding in my soul. We did the official Berklee tour with a number of other families and their beautiful, talented children. Two of the kids came all the way over from Sweden. There was a singer from Paris, a pianist from Brazil and a bunch of other kids from places I can only vaguely remember, including one really strange and hostile young woman. And there was my son.

    As we toured the school, I kept an eye on my son and his reactions, hoping for some indication that mission was being accomplished. Nothing. Nothing, that is, until we came to the recording studios. I know the fire was lit there because he did something I’ve never seen him do. He asked a total stranger a question. Actually, he sought out the total stranger and asked him a question.

    In that instant, a nearly suffocating desire to protect my child took me over. I looked at the other children and saw talented young musicians. I looked at my son and saw my baby. Yes, he’s a talented young musician, but he’s also sensitive and vulnerable and “What,” I thought, “would it do to him if he wasn’t good enough to get in?” I closed my eyes and fought the urge to hold him close, as if he’d even allow it.

    So, Boston visited. Son inspired. Mission accomplished. And if I start letting go of my baby now, maybe I’ll be ready for him to fly off to Boston on his own in three years.

    ©Copyright 2011 by Janice Lindegard. All rights reserved.

  • Inside My Head

    There is a foul-mouthed, judgmental witch in my life. I’m ashamed to admit that I even know her, but there is nothing I can do to eradicate her presence. You see, she lives inside my head.

    I am, by nature, a curious person. At the same time, I like to do things “the right way,” which means that I do lots and lots of research on what is the right way to do particular things, especially household tasks. The voice inside my head, therefore, has an opinion about everything, from how people should brush their teeth (two minutes, reaching all tooth surfaces) to how they should fold their sheets (the way I do).

    Naturally, I am a huge fan of Martha Stewart. Martha understands me. She knows that there must be a best way to do everything and she will find it, by God. Take the dishwashing liquid bottle on the counter, for example.  Probably eighty percent of the households in America have a big plastic bottle of green or blue liquid dishwashing soap sitting to one or the other side of the kitchen sink. I had one. I thought it was ugly. Martha had one. She thought it was ugly. In a stroke of genius worthy of a NASA engineer, Martha decanted the brightly colored liquid into a beautiful glass bottle and topped it all off with an attractive liquor pouring spout. I immediately bought a beautiful glass bottle, filled it with Dawn and set it beside my sink. It made me smile. But that wasn’t good enough for the voice inside my head. No, every time I spy a plastic dishwashing bottle while visiting someone’s home the voice inside my head says, “Ewwww!”

    “Ewww” is one of the tamer things that rattles around my brain. “Hooker” pops up more often than I like to admit. I have no idea why, but the “inside my head” voice sees hookers just about everywhere I go. I was in Target this past winter. I was doing the economy a favor, pushing my cart up and down the aisles. I turned a corner to find a young woman wearing a heavily ruffled blouse under a pea coat, which was heavily ruffled in the back. My eyes traveled south of the ruffled pea-coat-butt to the thigh-high, black suede high-heeled boots and “Hooker!” popped into my head. I saw similar boots on a five-year-old girl at the mall not long after that. Right after “Hooker boots!” popped into my head, I wondered, “Who buys hooker boots for a five-year-old?”, immediately followed by “Who makes hooker boots for a five-year-old?”

    While playing Fashion Police is a favorite activity inside my head, I really get cranking when someone ticks me off. This seems to be happening more and more during my regular runs. I mostly do trail running, usually through a prairie preserve near my home. Recently, my daughter begged to join me. Inside my head I was whining about not getting my mileage for the week but my mommy instinct won and my daughter and I headed to the prairie despite 20 mph winds and a constant drizzle.  We ran one and one-half miles with the wind yanking my daughter’s hat off her head every chance it got. Back at the trailhead, I spied a couple dressed, to my mind, completely inappropriately. Being the considerate person I am, I attempted to warn them that the wind was fierce that day. “I’m sure it is,” said the woman runner, giving me her best “maybe you can’t hack it, but I can” smile. I do not like condescension and, inside my head at least, I’m not particularly mature either. “I hope your hat blows away,” I thought.

    While condescending runners get my goat, it’s the cyclists on the trail that really set my inner witch to wagging her tongue. When I was a cyclist, I was ever so considerate. I never cut anyone off; I never rode on the wrong side of the path. Readying to pass another cyclist or a runner, I announced myself. “On your left,” I said, and then thanked the passee.  Not so those who share the trail with me. Many are the cyclists who whiz past me unannounced, scaring the whiz out of me. To each and every one, I think, “Get a bell, asshole!” as they speed out of sight.

    Inside my head, the trail I run is “my trail” and I am not particularly kind to those on my trail that I consider, shall we say, stupid. Witness the happy runner who trotted toward me on the wrong side of my trail. In America, we drive to the right, we walk to the right, we run to the right. I looked right at the wrong-sided runner. She did not yield. Instead, she smiled. “WTF,” I thought, so I gave her the universal WTF sign: palms raised to the sky, eyebrows up, quizzical look on my face. She did not yield. No, she smiled wider, waving, and trotted happily down the trail. “Idiot!” I thought, as I stepped out of her way.

    Immediately after thinking the idiot an idiot, I felt bad. “Maybe she’s from England,” I thought. “Maybe she has some leg length discrepancy that requires she run on the left side of the trail. Maybe I’m just mean and intolerant.” By the time I reached the end of my run, I had convinced myself that I am a nasty-minded, judgmental witch. See, as nasty-minded as I am toward others, I am hardest on myself. My children have called me fat, mean, stupid and ugly, though never all at once. It doesn’t get to me. I realize I am not fat, mean, stupid or ugly. But inside my head there is a constant barrage of insults. Can’t find my keys? “You are so stupid,” I tell myself. Gained a pound after having my annual turtle sundae? “Ack. You’re fat!” Reading a book instead of de-cluttering my office pig mess? “You’re so lazy!” You name it, my inner witch has a nasty comment for it.

    This morning, my daughter wanted me to hear a Selena Gomez song. In it, Selena sings, “Who say’s you’re not perfect?” My daughter sang merrily along while I held her in my lap and cried. Inside my head I thought, “I hope you never have a nasty, judgmental witch inside your beautiful, perfect head.”

    © 2011 by Janice Lindegard. All rights reserved. Photo: Martha Stewart.com

  • Never Never Land

    The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is closed . . .for good. All of the exhibits are being dismantled, the artifacts sold. Michael Jackson’s glove? Elvis’ jukebox? Grace Slick’s fringy vest? Jim Morrison’s Cub Scout shirt? Bet you can find ‘em all on ebay. At least, that’s what my son thinks.

    A little background is in order here. When I still thought I would find a full-time teaching job, we made plans for a family car trip from Illinois to Boston, where we’d check out the Berklee School of Music, our son’s dream college. Since Cleveland is sort of on the way, we figured we’d stop at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Then, since Boston is closer to upstate New York than Illinois is, we thought we should check out the Eastman School of Music, our son’s dream-on college. Sure looked like Canada was pretty close, so we added a trek up to Toronto. By the end of our planning night, we were going to be on the road for about three weeks and our son was wondering if it was possible to drive to China.

    Fast forward to today. I am still under-employed so the three-week driving trip to Cleveland, Boston, Toronto and Beijing is out of the question. Still, my husband and I believe that our under-motivated son needs the kick in the pants that a meeting with an admissions counselor might provide. And, we reasoned, touching the actual college might make more real the idea that he has to work to get there. Sort of “See, Mom and Dad weren’t lying. There really is a place called college.” We decided that I would accompany our son on a trip to Boston. I was looking forward to it, thinking my son would, too. A couple of days with Mom—the fun parent—in a pretty cool city without his sister. What’s not to like?

    “Son,” I said, “Dad and I decided that we can’t afford the big family trip. So, you and I are going to fly out to Boston to check out Berklee.”

    “What?! We’re not going to Cleveland?”

    “No, we can’t do Cleveland and Boston and the point behind this whole trip was for you to check out Boston and see Berklee. We’ll have fun, just us!”

    “Oh, my god!” he yelled. “Now, I’ll never see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!”

    It is a sign of my maturity as a parent that I simply rolled my eyes and walked away.

    Never seeing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is just one of the things that will never happen in my son’s family. For instance, we never have anything good to eat. Typically, we have a wide variety of foods, from fresh fruit, yogurt and gourmet cheeses to crackers, popcorn, cold cuts and, of course, bacon. There is enough food that my husband and I work at not eating too much. Still, there is nothing to eat, according to our son.

    We never do anything fun, either. This Sunday evening, for instance, the four of us played poker together. Our son happens to be one of the funniest people I know and he was in very good form. He noticed our cat, Oliver, had crawled into a shopping bag. Now, you need to understand that Oliver is a terrible cat otherwise what I am about to say might make you think that we are cruel to our cat. Feel free to check out my post about our pets, then come back for the rest of the story.

    So, we were all playing poker. Oliver was hanging out in the shopping bag. My son picked up the bag and Oliver settled down into the bottom, belly up and all four paws sticking up in the air. It was one of those permanent shopping bags, made out of recycled bottles, very sturdy. I, half joking but remembering all of the teapots Oliver has broken, said, “Hang it from a hook!” Just as my son was about to hang the shopping bag from a door handle, my daughter burst past me saying, “Wait, I’ll get my bungee cord!” Now, I don’t know about you, but I was thinking this was some fun stuff, in addition to wondering why my daughter has a bungee cord.

    “Never” is not the only negative thrown around in our house. Its close cousin is “no one.” No one cares about my daughter. She makes a point of telling me this at least twice each week. No one cares about her when her best friend has gone home for the night and I am busy making dinner, forcing her to entertain herself. Frequently, no one cares about her when she is expected to clean up her messy room by herself since she’s the one who made the mess.

    I’m convinced that my children’s catastrophic thinking comes from years of watching Dora, the Explorer.  I realize that Dora is beloved by generations of children around the world but, to me, she’s just a wimp with a head shaped like a football. Dora’s gotta know by now that Swiper is waiting around the corner just itching to screw up her plan to get the baby bird past the Grumpy Old Troll and over the bridge to Blueberry Hill. But every time Swiper throws a monkey wrench into Dora and Boots’ best-laid plans, Dora has the same reaction, “Now we’ll never. . .” Well, you get the picture.

    Recently, my daughter was so convinced that no one cared about her that she decided she would leave.

    “Where will you go?” I asked, watching her stuff one of my tote bags with her clothing.

    “I’ll go live on the streets,” she said, turning back to stuffing the tote bag.

    As she continued to pack, I remembered my own running away from home adventure. Convinced no one cared about me, I got on my bike to ride away, expecting my mother to run out of the house, begging me to stay. She didn’t. She merely said, “We’ll miss you if you go.” I didn’t go.

    “I’d better take some sweaters,” my daughter said, mostly to herself, but loud enough for me to hear. “I might get cold.”

    “Yes,” I said. “I wouldn’t want you to get cold. You know, we’ll miss you if you go.”

    She snorted a little “Sure, Mom” snort and continued packing. But she didn’t go.

    Life’s problems come in black and white for my children. “Never,” “no one,” “always,” “everything” are their constant companions. I envy them their certainty but don’t have the heart to disabuse them of it. Besides, I’ve got to go check out the auctions on eBay. I’m thinking Grace Slick’s fringy vest would look pretty stylish on me.

    © 2011 by Janice Lindegard. All rights reserved.

  • I See London

    Lately, my daughter has been asking about embarrassing moments.  “Mama,” she said, “what was your most embarrassing moment?” I don’t embarrass easily, so I had to think hard. I recalled a truly embarrassing incident in fourth grade when a teacher wouldn’t allow anyone to use the bathroom. I really had to go; the teacher really wouldn’t let me. I waited until lunch period, but we weren’t allowed to use the bathroom at lunch either. So, I got in the lunch line. My bladder reached the end of the line just when I did. I wet my underpants, copiously, as I handed my lunch money to the cafeteria lady.  I understand my dad come to school and ripped the teacher a new one. I take great satisfaction in this.

    My daughter, however, was not satisfied. Apparently, wetting my pants more than forty years ago isn’t embarrassing enough. She wanted something more up-to-date, so she supplied it.

    You need to understand that I am on a first name basis with my pharmacist. These things happen when you’re on the auto-refill until eternity program. For some reason known only to the god of chaos, my prescriptions auto-refill on different days. For some other reason, known only to the god of reason, this cannot be changed so that I can maintain my version of sanity with a once-monthly visit to “Chris.” Until the planets align, I am at the pharmacy counter at Target a minimum of two times per month.

    Last week’s toothache and antibiotics to cure it required an additional visit to Chris. He’s a pleasant guy, always ready to answer a question. As I chatted with Chris about drug interactions and other pharmacy-related topics, I heard my daughter say, “Ewwww!!!”

    “What is it,” I asked?

    “That!” she said, and pointed to the latest Target flyer. I admit to feeling a little awkward explaining pretty lingerie to my daughter in front of Chris. But I thought I had it covered when I told her that some women like to wear pretty underwear and reminded her that she, in fact, likes to have things like princesses and ponies on her undies.  She didn’t let the subject go, though.

    “My mommy doesn’t wear panties sometimes,” she said to Chris.

    I had no idea what she was referring to. Really. Honestly. So I said the first plausible thing that came to mind.

    “That was only once when I had to run down to the laundry room to get some, Sweetie.” “Sweetie” was the only publicly acceptable name I could think of for her at the time.

    Somehow, Chris filled my prescription without looking at me. I managed to pay for it without looking at him.

    Two days ago, I remembered what she was talking about.

    “Mommy,” the evil mistress of embarrassment said, “you went commando at the Y.”

    And she’s right. I did indeed go commando at the Y. See, I can get my kids to school with everything they need from lunches and homework to water bottles and notes to the teacher. Me? Not so much. I am usually stuffing my stuff into my gym bag as I push the kids toward the car. Frequently, I find myself missing some essential workout ingredient. One day—and it really was just one day—I finished my shower and reached into my bag to find no underwear. I looked right, I looked left, then pulled my pants on and got my GI-Joe self home as quickly as possible.

    My mother would have been appalled. What if, God forbid, I had been in an accident on the way home? What if I had been grievously injured? What if I had been taken to the hospital where the doctors cut away my pants to find that I had not just failed to wear nice underwear but had failed to wear underwear at all?

    Many mothers have the same rule mine did—wear your nicest panties when you go out because you never know when you’ll be in a terrible car accident. My best friend’s mother had that rule. Naturally, my best friend was in an automobile accident on a low-laundry day. She blessed her luck that she wasn’t grievously injured else the doctors would cut away her pants to find her wearing her husband’s tidy whities.

    Sometimes wearing panties can be a source of embarrassment. Another friend prides herself on her appearance in public. No gnarly sweats and socks with Birkenstocks for her. She undoubtedly wears nice panties when she goes out. Sometimes she wears them in surprising places. Once, in a hurry, she grabbed a pair of pants from the laundry basket. She tossed them on and ran out the door. At the grocery store, she felt as if she stepped on something once or twice, but thought nothing of it until the third time. She looked down to find a pair of panties peeking out of the leg of her pants. It says something about my friend that she was embarrassed not only about the panties but by the fact that they were her everyday plain old white ones. I have another friend who is as frazzled on her way to workout as I am. She found herself at dance class once with her underwear on over her workout pants.

    Wearing thongs is particularly problematic. My best friend reports that her daughter believes women over fifty should not wear thongs. Apparently, we are supposed to suffer VPL in our yoga pants. I gave up thongs with yoga-type pants a few years ago, when I bent down to retrieve something while wearing a pair of lovely pale pink sweat pants. A man standing behind me, who I thought was a gentleman, remarked, “I thought thongs were no longer fashionable with you girls.” My daughter doesn’t believe anyone should wear thongs. I’m following her advice these days.

    About three days after I started the antibiotics for my tooth, the phone rang. Though I didn’t recognize the number, I answered anyway. It was Chris, the pharmacist, wondering how I was doing on the antibiotic. I’m betting that isn’t all he was wondering.

  • With Friends Like These

    When I was a teenager, I fell in with a bad crowd. Cognizant that some of my loyal readers were friends of mine when I was a teenager, I should immediately state, “I’m not talking about you.” It is most likely that none of the bad crowd with which I fell in are regular readers of Snide Reply. I suspect one or two may not be regular readers of anything, but that is neither here nor there. My parents felt it their duty to point out that I had fallen in with said crowd and to do all they could to discourage further falling.

    Though I don’t necessarily believe it, apparently the crowds children fall into these days are even badder—in the bad sense of bad—than those I encountered. There was binge drinking when I was a teen, there was sex when I was a teen, there were drugs when I was a teen. (Again, my high school buddies, I am not talking about you. Oh, OK, I am but I’m not telling who did what or with whom.) The drinking, the drugs and the sex are all bad enough and I’ve worried about my kids doing them since probably a day or two after they started kindergarten. I don’t need to think about worse vices my children may be pressured to try.

    Now that I own a teenager, my parental friend radar has been tuned to high gear. It’s a wonder my son hasn’t noticed the brain hum in the background. Every time a new name is mentioned, my “who the hell is that” button gets switched. I try to be nonchalant as I grill my son.

    “Fred?” I’ll say, “I don’t think I’ve heard you mention a ‘Fred’ before.”

    “He’s a friend,” my son will say.

    “Well, duh!” I think.

    “Well, duh,” I say. “Where did you meet him? Is he in one of your classes? Does he drink, do drugs or have unprotected sex? Is he a member of a weird religious cult?” Well, maybe I don’t say that last bit, but it’s only because I know that’s not an appropriate thing for a parent to say outside of her head.

    As if worrying about new friends weren’t enough, I’ve discovered old friends can go bad.

    We moved to Naperville just as our son was entering fourth grade. He spent his entire first year here friendless. Oh, we made sure he saw his Oak Park friends and installed a phone line in his room so he could call them whenever he liked. Still, fourth grade was tough. In fifth grade, he made friends with a very nice boy. So, he had a friend. One friend.

    Middle school started out miserably, friend-wise. Our son was placed into the gifted program; his one friend wasn’t. Friend ground zero all over again. But, having found his tribe, he started making friends more easily. Eventually, he had a bunch of friends.

    All of his friends, at least all that I’ve met and I’ve met quite a few, appeared to be fine young people. I might have written, “appear to be fine young people” but recent events necessitate a change in verb tense. One of those fine young people has turned out to be quite a . . .hm. . . what’s the word . . .well, it rhymes with “spit head.”

    Spit Head has twice, in the last month, hurt my son’s feelings deeply. The first time, Spit Head convinced my son that he was over-reacting. I wanted to give Spit Head a good talking to, but held my tongue. If my son wanted to remain friends with Spit Head, then I needed to let him do it, I reasoned.

    The second time Spit Head hurt my son, Spit Head’s mother got involved. Now, before you think that she was telling Spit Head he was behaving badly, stop yourself. Spit Head’s mother was proving the old apple falling from the tree thing. Surprisingly, my son has dealt with Spit Head’s latest antic much more calmly than me. “He’s a douche,” he said. “He’s a douche,” one of his other friends agreed. Then, they moved on.

    Me? I never want to see the kid again. And I if I ever see his mother? Well, let’s just say Naperville is gonna look a little bit more like the Jersey Shore that day.

    My daughter is having friend troubles but it wasn’t her feelings that were being hurt. Instead, my daughter is the grand prize in a battle for affections that is largely waged by a gang of siblings we’ll call “The Delightful Children” with all due credit to “Code Name: Kids Next Door.”

    The Delightful Children include two brothers and their younger sister. She adores my daughter, who I’m sure she sees as a big sister substitute. Problem? The Delightful Children seem intent on breaking my daughter’s considerable bond to her Best Friend.

    My daughter plays with Best Friend nearly every day. They can play together for hours on end. In the winter months, things are fairly quiet on the friend front. The Delightful Children are, for some reason, not allowed to play in other people’s houses. So my daughter and Best Friend trash, I mean, “play” in our house. Sometimes they “play” in Best Friend’s house.

    In the summer, the wars begin. The Delightful Children have one of those redwood things with a playhouse on top. The monstrosity is nestled in the branches of willow tree so the playhouse is hidden from sight. I believe the tree may be a Whomping Willow because, invariably, Best Friend rushes home from the playhouse in tears. It being illegal to water board children, we’ll probably never know the details of what ensues in the Playhouse of Pain but it seems to involve harsh words from The Delightful Children toward Best Friend.

    My daughter recently wailed, “It’s like I’m being forced to choose between hurting my Best Friend and hurting a little girl!” My little girl being the one getting hurt, I decided to lay down a law. No playing with Best Friend and The Delightful children together. My husband reports the law is being respected with unexpected results. Recently, Best Friend and The Delightful children played together while my daughter practiced gymnastics in the family room.

    I figured we were finished with friend issues for a while until my son started a conversation like this, “Well, I was talking with one of my pothead friends . . .”

  • A Shameless Mom

    Lately, my son and I have been watching the Showtime series, “Shameless,” together. He’s not a very demonstrative kid. He hasn’t kissed me since he was eight and has to be coerced into giving me a hug. So, when he voluntarily bonds with me over something, I welcome the opportunity. We’re having a good time watching the show together, talking about the characters, loving the songs and downloading our favorites. The problem is, deep inside, I feel like I’m a bad mother for letting my son watch what is clearly a series for adults.

    I’m sure other parents wouldn’t allow their teenage children to watch “Shameless.” It’s loaded with graphic sex. The characters smoke pot. The father is an unrepentant alcoholic and a con artist. The children do whatever they need to get by, including stealing an entire truckload of meat. There is, in short, everything to which a child should not be exposed. I remind myself that my son has the digital version of girly magazines and that he regularly locks his bedroom door to, I’m sure, avail himself of them. Still, every time my son and I watch “Shameless,” I feel I’m a bad influence on my own child.

    Certain of my son’s friends’ parents would agree. I’m thinking, in particular of the parents of one of my son’s closest friends. His parents are fine, upstanding people. They would never let their children watch “Shameless.” On the contrary, I’m sure they only watch wholesome family shows. They probably have a boxed set of “The Waltons.” I’ll bet they don’t allow girly magazines, digital or otherwise, in their house. I’m pretty sure they are a little intimidating to their son. Hell, they intimidate me.

    My husband thinks I’m insane when I tell him I’m a bad influence on our son. He points out that our son has similar values to ours. We happen to think our values are pretty good ones, though they are rather to the left of many of our neighbors. Our son’s friends were amazed to hear that he sometimes—ok, often—uses the “F” word at home but he is not allowed, under any circumstances to use the “G” word. Recently, a friend of his posted, “Are you gay?” on his Facebook wall in response to something our son posted as his status. Our son responded, “Why, yes, I’m pretty happy right now.” My husband and I were pleased. His friend was confused.

    I worry about different influences with my daughter. She’s become quite sassy lately and has developed what my parents called a “smart mouth.” I never really understood that phrase. Wasn’t very smart of me to use it. It always got me in trouble.

    I’ve been trolling other mommy blogs, scoping out the competition, particularly those who’ve managed to turn their rambles into cash. On one such blog, I found moms complaining about their own children’s smart mouths. They attributed the phenomenon to “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody” and its sequel, “The Suite Life on Deck.”

    As in many shows targeting children, the characters in the “Suite Life” series sass talk the largely incompetent adults. It never occurred to me that the show might be a bad influence other than to convince my daughter we should be living on a cruise ship.

    I started tracking her behavior following episodes. Damned if her mouth didn’t get smarter almost immediately after viewing a half hour of the show. I decided to follow the blog moms’ prescription and encourage exposure to a different sweet life.

    The remedy was The Food Network. According to the blogosphere, kids eat up cooking shows. So we tried Food Network for a while. My children have never watched a television show that I didn’t watch with them the first time. This means I’ve suffered through Telly Tubbies, SpongeBob, Dora, Bob the Builder, Imagination Movers and some strange thing called “Bobobo-bo Bobo-bo.” I’ve pulled the plug on a number of requested programs but what I saw on Food Network was truly frightening.

    I try to eat a healthy diet and encourage my children to as well. I buy lots of fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads, low-fat milk, yogurts. My son routinely spits them out then buys the junk he prefers with his allowance. I’ve pointed out to him that he is literally crapping his money away, but it doesn’t faze him. He won’t walk his dog, but he’ll walk ten minutes to the local Walgreen’s when he’s jonesing for a Mint Milano.

    I’m particularly interested in teaching my daughter the importance of healthy food choices. She’s got more holes in her teeth than a block of baby Swiss and a sugar habit that’ll keep Willy Wonka in top hats for the next ten years. But thanks to Food Network she now has recipes for pink lemonade layer cake, corn chowder chock full of heavy cream and brownies the size of The Hulk’s fist.

    I should have known better than to flip the channel to Food Network. I once witnessed Paula Deen cook a juicy hamburger, top it with cheese and a fried egg then place the whole works between Krispy Kreme donuts. Paula says she doesn’t eat that way every day, but geez, eating that way once is bad enough.

    Paula’s not the only bad influence on FN. The Neely’s lay on the sugar and fat in ways that make their corpulence make sense. And have you seen Ina Garten lately? I’m loath to say it, but she is morbidly obese. I’m loath to say it for two reasons. First, I realize obesity is a complex problem. Second, Ina is apparently a very nice lady and has lots of fans that flame anyone who criticizes her weight. But Ina’s health and temperament are not my concern. My daughter is back to watching “The Suite Life on Deck.”

    I feel a little bit better about my parenting lately. My son’s friend had dinner at our house. The dinner conversation ranged wildly from my son’s condom sandwich caper at school to the shows the boys watched when they were younger. The friend was gob smacked to learn that I not only knew the names of the shows my son watched, but I actually watched them. When I said, “What was up with the hair on that Bobobo guy?” his friend said, “Wow. My parents never watched anything I watched.”

    “Woooo hoooo,” I thought and gave myself a mental pat on the back. Finally, something I can be parentally smug about. My son may make sandwiches with condoms in them. My daughter may clap her hands together and say, “Breakfast! Now!” But I’ve approved every bit of media they’ve consumed. It is definitely something to feel gay about.

     

  • Puh-leeeeze Read My Post About Whining

    I like to watch brain surgery. Really. I’m not being sarcastic. I am leading up to something, but, seriously, I like to watch brain surgery. My favorite brain surgery to watch is the kind where the top of the patient’s head has been taken off and the surgeon is rummaging around in the brain looking for a particular section that will elicit a particular response from the patient. The surgeon calls for the patient to be wakened. Then he (OK, or she) prods the identified brain section with his brain prodding thingy and the patient starts talking about some long forgotten incident. I’ve seen it lots of times and I still think, “Cool!”

    I want a brain surgeon to open my head and look for a particular spot and then sever its neural pathways. The one I want him to find is the one that causes my entire body to convulse when triggered by that parental nightmare: the whine.

    Whining slices straight through me. My entire body contracts, my eyes squinch, my brain crackles. I will do anything to make the noise cease. Some people can’t stand fingernails on a chalkboard. Some can’t stand ringing telephones. I can’t stand to hear the sound of whining children. This is a problem. I have children.

    I don’t recall whining being a huge problem with my son. He wasn’t a particularly whiny kid but all kids have something they do that is completely and utterly obnoxious. My son’s obnoxiousness was physical. He liked to hang on people. Literally. We knew it was annoying, but we never tried to stop him. The then-current parenting fad was logical consequences. The logical consequence of our son hanging on people was that they would be annoyed with him and tell him so. They did. He didn’t care. The logical consequence of our attempts at logical parenting was that lots of people thought we were indulgent parents afraid to discipline our child. Who? Us?

    Our daughter is the one who makes me want a lobotomy. Like many an eight-year-old, she is a charming child. She is beautiful and delicate. She is bashful around strangers. Her teachers report that she is popular, helpful, considerate and kind.

    These people have never denied her a thing. I know the monster that lurks within her. I have told her, “No.” I know the keening banshee that lies beneath her placid exterior, the one who comes out to play when the Empress is thwarted.

    A typical exchange might happen at breakfast. My daughter will say, “I know you’re going to say ‘no’, but can I have sugar cookies?” I will ask, “Have you had something healthy?” “No,” she will say, “but you said I could have them yesterday and I didn’t eat them then.” I will remind her that yesterday she asked to eat the cookies after she had eaten something healthy.

    “You can have the cookies after you eat your bagel and cream cheese.”

    “But I don’t want the bagel and cream cheese.”

    “You asked for a bagel and cream cheese. You will have to get your own breakfast if you don’t want what I made you.”

    “Ok. I’ll eat the cookies.”

    “No, you may not eat the cookies until you’ve eaten the bagel and cream cheese.” By now, the pre-whine tone has entered her voice. I can feel the tension building in my toes.

    “But I don’t want the bagel and cream cheese.”

    “Then get your self something else that’s healthy.”

    “You’re supposed to make my breakfast! I’m just a little girl!” She is now in full-on whine. I am resolved to remain tough. She is my little Zen master and I will not rise to her call to chaos.

    “You know the rule. If you don’t eat what Mommy makes, you make your own breakfast.”

    “Fine! I’m having the coo. . .” Before she can say “. . .kies,” I say, “No, we talked about this. You may not have the cookies. You must eat something healthy first.” I can feel myself slipping. The knife-edge of her whine has sliced my brain in two.

    “You interruuuuuuuuuuupted MEEEEEEEEEEE,” she wails. “I’m trying to talk and you interrupted meeeeeeee!  You always do that! I’m trying and trying to explain to you and you interuuuuupt meeeeeee!”

    And she has me. I cave.

    “Fine! Eat the cookies!” I say, thinking I would probably let her eat glass at this point if she would just stop whining.

    I don’t always cave in. Sometimes I hang tough. I remember that she is acting, that she can turn the tantrum off at will and that I have proof.

    Our children do nothing together but bicker. We spend lots of money on therapy so that they will learn how to do something other than bicker. After two years, they are able to tolerate playing video games together for about 20 minutes, in the therapist’s office. Progress.

    One night at dinner, our son was lobbying hard for some electronic or musical hundred-dollar-plus gizmo. Probably a Les Paul, but maybe a 40,000-gigabyte iPod Touch. Whatever it was, he was pushing with all his considerable negotiating talent. His father and I were resisting mightily. We were winning. Then, our daughter started whining. The whine turned to a wail. She was sobbing, tears were falling down her cheeks. All conversation stopped. We turned to her. “Sweetie,” her father said. “What’s wrong?” When she had all of our attention, she abruptly stopped wailing, looked at us and said, “Now will you give him what he wants?”

    We did not give him what he wants. But, while condemning her methods, we applauded her solidarity with her brother.

    There’s not much evidence that our daughter will leave the League of Fine Whiners any time soon. Why would she? It’s the most effective weapon in her arsenal. She may even be recruiting her brother. He has begun using whining as a tool to achieve his desires. So far, he does it playfully and it’s really rather amusing to see him smoosh his very teen-aged, semi-bearded face into childish pleading. He even holds his hands clasped together and gives me puppy dog eyes, while saying, “Pweeze, Mommy.” It’s ridiculously endearing. The first sign of serious whinery, though and I’m headed for the nearest neurosurgeon.

  • I Am That Mom; Hear Me Roar

    Today, I was going to write about needing a third breast, but I’ve always said that the greatest challenge in parenting is the uncertainty of every moment. One minute you’re thinking you’ll write about needing a third breast and the next you’re writing about being “That Mom.”

    I try, on the whole, to be amusing in my musings. But today that just doesn’t seem to want to happen. Call it a confluence of events, but the stars have aligned in such a manner that I find myself royally pissed off. I guess I should have ended that last sentence with the word “angry” so that I wouldn’t end it with a preposition, but “angry” doesn’t have the explosive “P” (pun intended) in it that makes “pissed off” such a satisfying description of how I feel at this moment.

    For the first time since she was three years old, my daughter said, “I don’t want to go to school.” Actually, she sobbed, “I don’t want to go to school.” Now, my daughter dawdles. I routinely tell her to go to the car at least 10 minutes before we need to leave. In her world, re-reading the latest issue of American Girl magazine is a vital part of getting from kitchen to car. As is training the dog to stay. Brushing the teeth can be easily forgotten. Playing with mom’s eyelash curler cannot. But today’s tears were not about dawdling.

    When my son was in grade school, “I don’t want to go to school” invariably meant that he was being tormented by one of the other boys in class. Now that he’s in high school, “I don’t want to go to school” is a static state. I’m sure he enjoys the hormone-charged cacophonous chaos that is his school, but if he ever said, “Man, I can’t wait to get to school, today,” we would have to up his meds.

    My daughter is a good student. Her parent-teacher conferences are a pleasure. I don’t bring a list of questions or stacks of research, as I may have done for another child who lives in our home. Hell, I don’t even bring my husband most of the time. I walk in and sit down. The teacher says, “Your daughter is doing great. Do you have any questions?” I don’t. My daughter likes school. She does well in school. She has friends. No one is bullying her. So, why would she tell me, “I don’t want to go to school.”?

    My daughter doesn’t want to go to school because it is ISAT week. For those not in Illinois, ISAT stands for Illinois Standards Achievement Test. The ISATs are the tests used to judge the effectiveness of Illinois’ schools. ISAT scores dip too low and schools “fail to meet adequate yearly progress,” as determined by No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Fail to meet AYP enough times and seriously bad things happen at the school, including the possibility that administration and all of the teachers might be fired. The ISAT is what they call a “high-stakes test.”

    For weeks now, my daughter has been inundated with messages about how important it is for her to do well on the ISATs. There have been pep rallies. There have been practice sessions. Her class made “Rock ISATs” shirts with their names stenciled across the back, as if they are so many gridiron warriors out to defeat the terrible test monster. They’ve been playing “Minute to Win It” games to sharpen their test-taking skills. Last week, she brought home a “Be Like Bud” checklist. Check off the good test-taking strategies and she’ll be just like “Bud.” Don’t make the right choices and she’ll be a test-taking “Dud.”

    Well, who do you think my daughter wants to be? She’s a girl, for crying out loud. And, though millions of bras were burned before she was even born, she still has an overwhelming desire to please others. Compound that with the “I was adopted so I need to make you happy” issues. Of course, my daughter wants to be like Bud.

    What does all this have to do with being “That Mom”? (Let’s forget for a few moments the completely sexist use of the name “Bud” for the “good test taker.” There are only so many things that can yank my crank on any given day.) I’m sure I’m not the only mom who had to cope with ISAT meltdown this morning. But I am one of the moms that is going to get her shorts in a bunch and write a bunch of letters to the people responsible for my daughter’s anxiety. I’m going to be “That Mom,” the one who gets in your face when you mess with her kid.

    I am going to get in the face of whoever’s brilliant idea it was to put so much pressure on an eight-year-old girl that she can’t stop crying. I’m going to do it not because I can’t stand to see my child cry. I can stand that. I stand it all the time. I stand it over chores, I stand it over candy, I stand it over every little thing I’ve done that she thinks isn’t fair. But I’m not going to stand it over something that really isn’t fair.

    It isn’t fair that my daughter is being forced to bear the burden of a society that has gone insane over its educational system. My son took the very same test when he was in third grade. His school made just enough of a deal of it. His teachers prepared him for it by explaining what was expected and having the students practice. He did great; his teachers were pleased. That was six years ago.

    A lot has changed in six years. The issues involved are many and complicated. Our country, ever desirous of being first and best, is not the best at educating children. I think it’s Finland this year overall and I’m pretty sure Singapore is doing a bang-up job in math. We look for an easy answer: the teachers and principals must suck. We threaten them with their jobs. They feel the pressure. The pressure gets pushed off on our children. In grade school, it makes our children cry. In high school, it can drive them to suicide.

    I am That Mom. I am going to write letters. I am going to do it for my child. I’m going to do it for her best friend who will be in third grade soon. I’m going to do it for the boys I’m tutoring right now who are getting my services for free because their school can’t meet AYP. Five weeks ago, they couldn’t read English. Last week, they could. I feel good knowing my NCLB tax dollars can go for more than driving a child to tears.