and so much has happened that I barely know where to start. I decided the color of the blog, though deep and rich, also too much brought to mind something rotten in Denmark. I kept thinking of Lady Macbeth and needing to go wash my hands. Further, I decided to lighten up with titles and airs and such, and while there is no version of "bloggetyblog.blogspot.com" remotely available (must not be an original thought), there certainly was http://www.shligityshlog.blogspot.com/ and that's where you'll find me from this point forth. Perhaps it will help me keep the tone a big lighter. I haven't felt a bit light these days, what with Minnesota winter bringing on my typical blues, weight gain, missing my mother, a teen pregnancy, staff spats, neighborhood house fires, and a pre-pubescent son apparently going full-blown pubescent. A week or two ago, he went from the child who had been born seemingly out of a storybook (excepting long and painful labor and delivery) who had transformed into a full-on jerk. Am I allowed to say that? I wasn't going to until he broke up with his perfectly sweet girlfriend by sending her a (private) message on facebook. Now, before I air any further dirty laundry, let me just say that the only person more protective of this boy than me is his father, who has lately been protecting him from me. The boy and I bonded early and deeply and yet, of late, he's done to me exactly what seventeen years worth of weeping mothers could not have prepared me for. He's tossed me away, emotionally speaking, with nary a word nor glance, and along with me, apparently any consideration for my professional environment since 53 minutes a day he is one of my students. Topping it all off, he decided to split his English homework with his best friend last week and then exchange answers. In his opinion, this was sharing the burden. In my opinion, this was cheating, and he was promptly sent off to Saturday school and poked with sharp stick until his gall bladder became visible. Skip the gall bladder part; I called his father from school, panicking. "You be the teacher this time; I'll be the parent." That night, I was torn when I heard his dad lighting into him. As angry as I was at my son, I also wanted to protect him from his father's anger. The classic Clash of the Titans has begun: a boy and his father in their power struggle as a boy asserts his independence toward becoming a man, a man struggles to mold his son into a safe and moral man with a standard-of-living better than his own. How predictable could we be? This was my first week of being forty, his last month of being twelve. If he were seventeen, I'd feel so much better about this.
My father thought the entire situation was hilarious. My father had been a policeman, but might as well have been a fundamentalist Baptist. He literally witnessed the worst outcome of everything that can go wrong with a teenager and was determined to keep his own children safe from it. This was not cool when he pulled over my own boyfriend, his future son-in-law, riding three-wheeled ATV's illegally in town; now Dad could laugh as his former nightmare received his just desserts. Yet my hairdresser also found my dilemma comical and I was laughing too as I described it to her. She then told me that she was caught cheating on her eighth grade math final and was horrified later that spring when she attended a party with her parents and her math teacher was there! Would the teacher tell? I nearly rose out of the chair and ran out of the salon with my hair half-colored. Who dares cheat on a final?! And why hadn't the math teacher ALREADY called home??? Because of a parent like me, perhaps? Sigh. It's time to dig out that old classic that got me through my most painful professional cheating scandal, Why Kids Lie. It will help me put my son's behavior in perspective. And then I need to get on with life, mine. Clearly he needs guidance, but maybe this umbrella parent needs to shelter herself for a little while.
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