To the Mom with the Screamer -- Oh, That's Me

Here's the post I wrote earlier today:

Dear Mom from this afternoon --

You were sitting in the lobby area before dance class with your screaming, crying, wailing daughter clinging to your lap, her face the color of rage. I was running late, so I missed seeing whatever brought on the trauma -- but it sounded like maybe it had something to do with her leggings.

I just wanted to tell you... what, I don't even know. But somehow I wanted to wave a magic wand and make it all stop. 

Not because she was bothering me, which she wasn't. Simply because I felt so terrible for you -- both of you -- that your Wednesday afternoon was melting down into madness.

I know that moment. The one where you're silently wrestling over the lesser of two evils: a) standing strong in the face of the fit because dammit you PAID for these dance classes and they ARE fun and she WILL go to class and enjoy it or b) tucking her under your arm and taking her fit-throwing self home because you're both just too exhausted to do anything else.

After more than six years of parenting, I'm no closer to knowing the right answer to that debate.

All I really want you to know is that I'm not judging you, that I stand in solidarity with you and that I hope you got a very early bedtime tonight.
Love, 
Me

* * *

But then I had one of those early evenings where everything is going along fine and then, suddenly, Pippi goes completely deaf to the particular pitch of my voice and she ignores every single thing I'm saying to her and loses one of her brand new gloves on the walk home and just grins while I dissolve into fist-clenching frustration.

So she ended up back in this familiar spot while I had a glass of wine and put the pizza in the oven.

And by the time I'm finally back at my computer to finish up this afternoon's post, all I can think is who the hell am I to be offering magic wand wishes to another mom?

Here's hoping that all of us have smoother days tomorrow.
.

Would You Send Your Child to School Wearing This?

One of the unfortunate ironies about blogging is that people with the best stories or the most interesting lives are often too busy living those lives to have time to write down any of those stories.

So today, I bring you a guest post via an email from a friend who is a high school social studies teacher. For the purposes of this post, we'll call her Ms. T (so as not to get her fired because she's an excellent teacher and goodness knows we can't afford to lose her) -- otherwise, the story is relayed here (in italics) as she shared it.

A freshman boy (yes, a 14-year-old) in my 4th period was wearing a t-shirt today that said: “Boobies make me happy.”

I’m not sure what is the worst part of this scenario:

1. That he, and possibly his parents, thought this shirt was appropriate for school.
2. That he got rude with and then yelled at the SRO [school resource officer, basically school police] who spoke with him about the shirt being appropriate after I sent the student to the office.
3. When the student’s administrator was called (after the yelling) and told what the shirt said, the MALE ADMINISTRATOR said to the school secretary, “Well, they do.”

So there you have it. And people wonder why teachers feel under-paid and under-respected.

______________

Note: When I did a Google search to see if I could find the shirt (available from Cafe Press), I also found a series of the same shirt with the breast cancer ribbon included in the background. I'd like to believe that this particular kid was just showing his support for breast cancer survivors, but somehow (call me cynical) I don't think that's really the statement he was trying to make.
.

Bad Omen? Or Nowhere to Go But Up?

My husband likes to say that, when I met him, I'd had the longest winning streak of anyone he knew. That may have been true (I found him, didn't I?), but I've also had some jarring losing streaks (like mono at age 30 that knocked me out of work for a month) to break up the wins. Thankfully, the good times always came back around -- but I'm a little worried about this start to 2010 that's causing me to flashback to five years ago.

In the final days of 2004 and the opening of 2005...

• While visiting family in California, we borrowed our niece's car to drive to San Francisco. The car was vandalized at the train station where we parked outside the city (side and rear windows smashed in). After trying to drive the car back to Davis in the rain, we finally gave up and called my husband's sister and her husband to come rescue us. Oh, and I was about 13 weeks pregnant, so you can imagine how even-keeled I was about the whole thing.
• While trying to get home from California, we sat in the plane on the runway for 3+ hours before finally taking off -- then missed our connecting flight in Chicago after running (literally) through the airport and ended up spending a few hours of sleep in an airport hotel before catching an early morning flight home. Did I mention I was pregnant?
• On my first day back at work after the holidays, my wallet was stolen out of my office by a con-man who (through an elaborate scam that I won't detail here) was able to charge several purchases to my ATM card before I realized what was happening. (Thankfully, the Credit Union took great care of me once we got the mess sorted out -- but let this be a reminder to all to NEVER EVER tell anyone your PIN, even if you think they work for your bank. Ever.) And again, did I mention I was pregnant and emotional and exhausted?

Thankfully, despite the disastrous beginning, 2005 brought us great gifts -- namely, one beautiful, healthy baby boy. He came with his own craziness, but he's definitely worth it.

I tell you all of this now because here's what happened today:

• A water pipe burst under the house this afternoon. It was a comedy of errors (okay, it wasn't funny at the time, but you have to laugh so as not to cry) while I tried to locate the tool to shut off water to the house (we have no inside-the-house shut-off) and then attempted to figure out how to use it while my husband coached me over the phone.
• Our home warranty won't cover the plumbing problem because it involves freezing weather and a hose bib. Really? I'm paying you over $500 a year so that you can NOT cover things that break?
• UNC lost to the College of Charleston tonight. C'mon, Heels!
• When I reminded my husband that 2005 turned out to be a great year after all (because of course, we both went back to that jinx when the pipe burst today), he said, "Oh no. I hope you're not pregnant." But clearly that's not a problem as I started my period this morning -- this may seem like a good thing, except that it also means I'm on a 26-day cycle. At this rate, I'll end up menstruating twice a month before the end of the year.

Okay, so that last one was probably more than you wanted to know. But it really was the perfect ending to a completely stellar day.

The good news? The plumber is coming tomorrow morning, so hopefully we'll have water again by tomorrow afternoon. And in the meantime, we have wonderful neighbors who are going above and beyond the call of duty to take care of us.

Hopefully this is all a good sign that 2010 will be just as fruitful as 2005 was -- but in a totally different way.