Lesson #15,129-Crap I Wish I Wouldn't Have Done

Okay, so since having a child there have been many, many mistakes made.  I have done some crazy stuff.  Mostly because I was sleep deprived and didn't have one more ounce of strength to do one more thing for one more person that day.  There have been a few things that I have done that I am not proud of.  I have thrown a towel over peed on sheets before.  I have thrown a towel over vomited on sheets before.  YES, they were washed the next morning but I just didn't have the strength or energy to take them off of the bed and put them in the washer that night.  Of course, the kid was changed and wiped off with a wet wipe but the bedding wasn't of my concern at 3am!!  Don't you judge me!!

If you are like me, you have done your child's homework before.  The kid was taking hours to do 5 friggin' problems!!  He had almost pulled out every hair from his head.  He had shed 4,000 tears.  The kid just wasn't getting it!  We were on about hour 6 of homework and again I needed my sleep.  I took the pencil from him, sent him to bed and wrote in my most horrible handwriting the answers to the questions.  Don't you judge me!!

I have lied to this kid about so many things that I cannot even keep track of my lies.  I will not even start with the obvious, Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy and The Easter Bunny.  There are the lies that have been told about what ingredients are in foods.  This kid has thought that squid was just chewy chicken.  Come to think of it, my son has eaten many dishes that he thought was chicken that turned out to be something completely different.  Only after he had eaten them was he informed about the pseudo chicken. Until you have an extremely picky eater, don't you judge me!!  Then there are lies about what we are going to do that day.  When my son was little, he was a bit of a frady cat.  He was always afraid to try new things.  I would tell him that we were going to go do something that he has tried before and then we would do something else.  He would usually cry and scream and hang on tight but ended up enjoying whatever we were really doing.  Until you have a child who is a frady cat, don't you judge me!!

The thing that I am least proud of as a parent is when my son was about to turn 10-years old, he would sneak into the bedroom and climb in bed with me.  Of course, he would wake me up!!  Have you ever known a 9-year old who could sneak anywhere??  Anyway, he had woken me up for about the 15th night in a row and I told him that "if his friends ever found out that he was still sleeping with his mommy that they would make fun of him". Oh.  My.  Gosh.  The poor child burst into tears and wouldn't speak to me for a day.  Oh, I felt so bad!!  It was true though.  He would probably still sneak into my room if I hadn't made him think of that. Don't you judge me!!  I needed my sleep!!!

Lesson #15,120-This Homework Thang

Okay, so this homework thang is really cutting into my watching TV and vegging out time.  I know that I have complained before about how much homework kids have nowadays but this studying for tests, writing papers and doing projects thing is seriously getting out of hand.  I had to miss The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills rerun last night because we had to put together a poster of The Muscular and Skeletal System.  These kids nowadays cannot get away with plagiarism like we could.  I copied word for word from the encyclopedias that we had from 1969 and got away with it when I was in middle school.  These kids today cannot get away with it because the teachers can scan their papers and have the computer check for plagiarism.  Poor kids!!  Poor parents!!!  What a pain in the butt that is!  The teachers at my school had to just guess if we had copied that crap from somewhere else!  If it didn't sound like something that you would write, they would just ask if you copied it out of a book.  We would all be like "Noooooo".

Sometimes I think computers are the greatest thing ever because you can type anything you want into the search engine and you will find tons of information on any subject.  That makes writing an essay, report or term paper very easy.  We used to actually go to the library and find books on a subject, if there was one!!  Now, you can sit in your underwear, in your living room and pull up information on The Cold War, The Great Wall of China or The Branches of Government.  You just better not plagiarize any of it because they have that same computer to check for that!!

I suppose it is a good thing that we don't have to have all of those Encyclopedia Brittanica A-Z's in our living rooms now.  They used to be decoration in our house but now I have leather bound, antique books as decoration.  Some of which are not even written in English but I just thought they were "pretty"!!  I'm such a loser!!  Anyway, life may be easier now but back when I was a kid I could just copy that old information and cut pictures right out of the same encyclopedias to get an A+ on my projects!!  So kiddos, Y'all better get to work on your projects!!  Be sure not to copy ANYTHING word for word!! Hahahaha!!  We may not have had the Internet, cable TV and Xbox but we also didn't have plagiarism software!!!! Who had the better childhood?  BOOM!!

Life Lesson #15,025-School Projects Should Not Hurt My Self Esteem

Life Lesson #15,025-School Projects Should Not Hurt My Self Esteem

There is no way I could ever make up for the horrendous school projects that I have helped my child make.  When Jordan was in 2nd grade, he was assigned to make a diorama of what the earth looked like when the dinosaurs were alive.  Raise your hand if you know what the earth looked like when the dinosaurs were alive.  Yea, that's what I thought.  There aren't any photographs or drawings or written history left behind from the time of the dinosaurs.  That is, unless you can understand the cave drawings that have been found around the world but who knows when they were really drawn, right?  So anyway, he walked into that school with the most jacked up looking clay dinosaurs proudly displayed in the shoe box covered with construction paper.  I thought it was great!! I could not have been more proud.  UNTIL.  I walked in the library where each child had displayed their dioramas on top of the bookshelves all over the library.  There were masterpieces in that room!! I mean these kids have some real talent.  We have sculptors, paper mache prodigies and painters who should have artwork in The MOMA in NYC.  I tell you some of these kids had some amazing and creatively designed boxes!! Some didn't even use shoe boxes (like the directions explicitly stated to use.). Some kids used boot boxes.  Some kids used produce boxes.  Oh and did I mention that the directions also explicitly stated that the kids were to do this project all by themselves?  As we put my son's diorama down one of the 2nd grade teachers came straight over and ogled all over his sad little clay dinosaurs who looked more like bloody worms with large eyes and swollen feet.  As I walked my son to his classroom, I thought about how I was going to tell him that he was probably going to be in the "special" school next year because we would surely be kicked out of this fine school as soon as an administrator came through the library. I leaned down and gave him a kiss and almost darted to the door with the speed of Usain Bolt. I almost made it out the door and saw that obviously farsighted teacher who complimented my son on his model and she waved to me to come her way.  Just as I make it to her I burst into tears.  She asks, "What is wrong, sweetie?".  I said, "Did you see Jordan's dinosaur diorama? Why did you give it compliments when there are obvious masterpieces here in this room?".  She grabs me by my arm and says, "I gave him those compliments because those masterpieces in the library are obviously done by those kids' parents and I would rather see wormy, bug eyed dinosaurs done by a 7-year old than those bronze sculptures done by parents ANY DAY"!  I could have kissed her right there in front of twenty-four 2nd graders.


So now I know that most parents help their children with their projects.  I do allow him to do most of the work but I have helped him put together visual projects and they were pretty darn good if I do say so! Last year, in 6th grade, "WE" got a 92 on a project.  A 92???? We worked our butts off on that stupid project.  I was ready to go off on that psycho teacher! I deserved at least a 99 on that project.  I mean, he deserved at least a 99 on that project!! Seriously, did she not see how awesome that project was?  I was not invited to attend Carnegie Mellon for my artistic talents but they were as good as I could possibly do and that witch gives me a 92.  I mean, gave him a 92!!  How dare she!

(Read this like you are weeping uncontrollably.) This Sunday, between eating frozen Tyson chicken sandwiches and Domino's pizza, we had another project to do.  It was due yesterday and we worked on it all day!! It was great!! Sort of. But anyway, we got a 95 on it and again I am stabbed through the heart.  When will we...When will he get a 100???  I am gonna have to hire an artist to help my son with his projects from now on so we...he can get that elusive 100!!  I'm doing it!!  Any other parents out there have their self esteem seriously bruised by middle school teachers?  I may need therapy for many things but my bruised ego is right up there with issues which should be much more damaging to my psyche!!

Life Lesson #15,012-Kids Have Too Much Homework

Life Lesson #15,012-Kids Have Too Much Homework!
School has been in session for one month around our household and I am already ready for summer break next year!  My 12-year old son does more homework in the 7th grade than I ever did in college!  These kids don't have time to go outside and blow off steam.  They don't have time to talk to their friends or play video games or watch TV or ride bikes or socialize.  And you know what that means, right?  Neither does MOM!!  I remember being able to come home after school and have a snack and then do a few questions of homework and then getting to veg the rest of the afternoon.  That was living!!  No wonder there are so-called "Helicopter Parents".  They have to hover over the kids because they are having to help them with their homework!  Seriously, I can help with Science, English and Social Studies and my husband can help with Math. (He lost me in 3rd grade with Math!! Word problems may as well be in Russian.) But Spanish!! Nobody can help with Spanish in my house!! We had to buy one of those language programs for the computer because I took 3 years of French.  My husband speaks Dutch and Afrikaans.  A lot of good that does us!!  We have even had 2 music projects to do this year!! I mean, what happened to the music class like we had as kids? The crazy music teacher would come in with a big cardboard box and hand out some old beat up musical instruments and we would go to town beating on drums, playing horns, pinging the triangle and crashing the cymbals!  Music class was fun!!

Look let's just be really honest. Mama doesn't like homework very much and neither does Daddy.  Mama hasn't had a glass of wine on a week night since school started!  If Mama doesn't get her wine, Daddy doesn't get any.................wine either.  What did you think I was going to say?   Anyway, why can't kids be kids these days?  Everything is a competition now.  They have to make straight A's to get into college.  They have to play the best in their sport so they can get a scholarship.  They have to Study, Study, Study!!  They have to Train, Train, Train!!  Can't we just accept the fact that the Chinese are better than us and smarter than us and just go back to a simpler life?  I didn't mind being behind the Chinese when I was in school.  As long as we are smarter than the people of some small country in the Caribbean,  I'm good with being behind the Chinese!! KIDS NEED TO BE KIDS!! STOP THE MADNESS!!