I'm not going to lie...this morning was not my proudest moment as a parent. We all have them, but today, I really exceeded my worst expectations. N has this Mavs jersey that he loves, but it's getting too small for him. He still wants to wear it to school, but I think it looks weird, so I tell him he needs to just wear it to play in, not to school. He is my child though, and every once in a while, he tries to see if he can get away with wearing it.
This morning was no exception. He wasn't wearing it when he got in the car, but as the bus pulled up and he got out of the car, I noticed he was wearing it. I told him to take it off, and he looked at me like he didn't even realize he had put it on. Sorry, kid...your mom's a lot smarter than that. I made him take it off, and told him I didn't appreciate him lying to me, that it wouldn't go over very well for him to be deceitful to his mother. He insisted that he wasn't being deceitful, and I blatantly ignored him and told him to hurry up and get on the bus. As he walked off, head down in defeat, I stopped and said (out loud to myself), "Why am I being so mean?" The truth was, I had no idea. I almost jumped out of the car and took him the stupid jersey to let him wear it, but I didn't want to call attention to him. Then I thought about going to the school and waiting for him to get there, but again, I didn't want to embarrass him.
It was eating away at me, and I felt so horrible about it, so I decided to take him lunch to apologize and try to make amends. I took him one of his favorites, and he was surprised to see me. I apologized to him, and he told me he had also been feeling badly about the whole situation. I told him I'd see him after school, and left him to eat lunch with his friends. When he got home, he went into his room and found the note I had written him, apologizing, and vowing to try harder to give him the benefit of the doubt...because I could tell after I blew up at him this morning, that he wasn't trying to be malicious. He was just being a boy. He's so mature in so many ways, that sometimes I forget he's only 10.
I wish I could say the discord ended there...but it didn't. I got an email from one of his teachers saying he was turning in late assignments, and there were two so far this week. We had just had a conversation about late assignments, and I told him if there were any this week, he'd be grounded for a month. It's time for this mom to play hardball because all he's doing is making it harder on himself. Right? Right. He got so angry when he realized it was happening. He blew up, from the inside out, and I just let him. Sometimes you just have to. The good news? He eventually got over it and finished all of the assignments that were late. I guess that's something. Right?
As the afternoon/evening wore on, I made brownies for the boys' teachers and, on a whim, made them queso as well. Why not? We put the baskets together, ate some dinner, and the boys went to bed...mostly without incident. It was a good ending to their day. As I was waiting for the brownies to cool, I caught up with an old friend and dumped a whole lot of advice on him. I'm happy to dissect other people's troubles, but tend to stay as far away from my own as possible. In this case, addressing some of his problems served a dual purpose: he and I are a lot more alike than either of us would care to admit. I guess it's why we've been friends for so long.
After a long conversation, catching up on the past several months, I was on a roll and caught up with a couple of my girlfriends, too. It was then that my Twinkie and I realized we're both going to be in the same city in July!!! A visit is so long overdue...I can't wait for next summer. I have no words to describe how excited I am about this.
Of course, the world can't end on Friday if this is going to work...
I have too many people I haven't seen in entirely too long, and if you're wondering if you're one of them, you probably are.
Aubs
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