The kids are back in school and even Darth Jingles is
smarter than me: she’s staying away from this mess.
I should be thrilled my teenagers are now spending most of
every weekday being someone else’s problem. That’s how it should be, not how it
is. First, The Girl started her senior year the Wednesday before last. Yay!
It’s almost over, just one more year, and she has mostly fun classes so less
stress. Dream on. Her schedule was messed up. We fixed it. She discovered all
the kids in her Introduction to Statistics class were morons, then discovered
the same about the kids in her Wildlife Biology class. Apparently someone had
to ask how to spell “gills.” That rant lasted … actually it’s still going
on. I get texts throughout the day as
she tells me things she can’t say in class in the interest of polite
society/not getting beat in the hall. (She’s a snarky little thing but knows
when to rein it in. Usually.)
With The Girl being back in school, we’re faced with her
usual last minute catastrophes. I would have thought at some point in the last 17 years, she would have learned the concept
of “advance notice.” Alas, this is not the case. We still get her panicked race
to our room at 11 pm to tell us she needs something for class and she it needs
tomorrow. When did she learn of the requirement? At least two days previously,
but we still have to drag that gem out of her. How does this apocalyptic event
change our lives? We have to listen to her whine when we refuse to go to
Walmart in the middle of the night, praying they have exactly what she needs.
No, she can wait until after school and we’ll take her to go get whatever it
is. I don’t do Walmart. Ever. Yes, that means she won’t have it for class – as
was specifically required. Tell us in advance next time. We fix that problem
and three days later repeat the exact same scenario. It’s amazing.
That’s The Girl, her little brother is very different. When
The Boy needed something for school, he mumbled it upon walking through the
door (that’s his version of telling us) and then never mentioned it again. He
could be docked points class after class for having a loose-leaf binder instead
of a spiral notebook or something inane like that, but we wouldn’t know until
Parent-Teacher Conferences rolled around. Sigh.
The Boy started school last Monday, several days after his
sister. A reminder: near the end of third term last year we switched him to an
online/home school. I’m his “Learning Coach,” a title I desperately wanted to pass
on to Hubby this year. He declined. The good part about this is there’s no more
mumbling of things as he walks in the door. I know (generally) what he needs to
do and what he needs in order to do it. Unfortunately his teachers don’t always
copy me in their emails to him, and there’s no way he’s volunteering
information, so there’s still that.
The Boy’s schedule is also messed up and I’m having some
trouble getting that sorted. Getting him to go to bed at a reasonable hour, get
up in time for his lessons, and give up video games during the day is fine. So
far. Getting him to give up his 2 hour mid-afternoon nap is already becoming a
problem. Let the battle of wills begin!
That being said, I’ve already been outsmarted by Hubby (he’s not The Boy’s “Learning Coach), and
Darth Jingles (she’s refused to come in until this whole “beginning of school”
thing gets straightened out and her children calm down), so I’m concerned about
this mid-day nap dilemma. Is it sad that I looked over his schedule and
penciled in when he can take a nap? I go check to make sure he gets up again to
finish his work. That feels like giving in. Now I have to wake him up twice a
day when I’m already tired of doing it once. Maybe he’ll ease out of it. (Last
night he fell asleep on the rug in front of the refrigerator after going
downstairs for a midnight snack. Yeah, he’s going to give up his mid-day naps,
sure.)
All right, now that we have that sorted out, the kids finished
their first week and survived, the cat came home over the weekend. The little
brat usually is very sensitive to the needs of her children. She snuggles with
them when they’re sick. She sleeps with them when they’re upset. But she
cleared out when they endured their first week of school. In high school – she was
there for them in junior high. Brat.
Jingles came home bearing a gift – a dead mouse. This is a
little unusual, she doesn’t bring her playmates home with her. Whatever. We
gave her big smiles and ‘good kitty’ assurances from afar. The Girl made sure
she turned away before adding ‘ewww!’ We gave her tuna so the kids wouldn’t
complain about her having ‘mouse breath,’ hopefully that won’t encourage her to
keep bringing home dead vermin. Jingles later gave her boy lots of loves,
tucked her girl in each night over the weekend before prowling the house. She
checked in on her boy throughout the night to make sure he was doing okay with
his video games then settled down when he hit his curfew. You know, being
cat-like.
She woke me up at 3am
and then Hubby with demands for aggressive petting. Then she finally snuggled
down between us and stretched to push us both to the edges of our bed. She’s a
smallish cat so that was a remarkable feat.
And Monday morning, she was off to go play like nothing
happened. Like she wasn’t MIA for five days straight while the kids were having
a rough time in school. Like she didn’t bend the house to her will all weekend
(which is as it should be in her mind). Nope, just business as usual. We’ll see
if she’s home before the weekend or if the threat of homework will somehow keep
the cat at bay.
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