There are days, as mothers, we should never get out of bed.  Yesterday was possibly one such day. It began when I found out (half way into my son’s morning shower) that the main clock we get up by is 15 minutes off … not in our favor.  Since “hurry” is a four letter word in the language of boy, this knowledge forced upon him (while he stands teenage-don’t-you-dare-look-at-me naked in the shower) went over about as well as telling him he was going to have to eat all his vegetables for the rest of his life – starting with breakfast.

Brussels Sprouts and Cheerios son?

Of course, this is all my fault, since in my spare time I manufacture the batteries which make their way into our particular annoying clock we use in the morning.  We parents are responsible for everything.

Then I discover we were out of butter, so instead of toast with his eggs, he had  –   eggs.  I don’t know why I didn’t just shoot myself then and put him out of his misery, because I guess having breakfast without toast is like having to – eat only vegetables the rest of your life.  Suddenly eggs by themselves are – well – Brussels Sprouts.

I proceed to take our morning to new heights of serene happiness when I had to stop for gas on the way to school.  I guess it would have just been better if we run out of gas on the way, then run the last two blocks to school in a happy parent-child jogging bliss. I can hear myself almost saying, “Do you have any idea how far I had to walk to school when I was your age?” (Just say no to becoming my mother). But I knew I would be talking to hear the sound of my own voice (and since I really didn’t want to hear my own mother channeling through me in the car) I gulped my coffee instead – wishing it was a Martini.

We arrive at school just as the second bell is about to ring, so I got the thrill of meeting the attendance girl in my dance sweats (which really make me look more like a homeless woman than a dancer) and I was pretty sure I had coffee stains on my teeth (the men reading this are sure turned on now).  The morning was going so well - why think that some small part of me was fit to greet the public?  She was a cute perky girl who gave Brian that “I understand how difficult mothers are in the morning” look along with the “I am sure it is all her fault and I feel your pain” nod as she passes him his hall pass.

Who in the hell is that perky at 8:00am?  Please don’t marry her son  – she will have us up Christmas morning at sunrise to greet the day holding hands, singing songs and swaying to the beat.

The rest of my day went fairly well and I did manage to shower, do the hair, dawn the make-up and show up for an after school meeting with some of Brian’s teachers.  It seems he is struggling a little in English and History.  This is pretty typical for Brian in the first quarter of every school year and getting him to remember his learning techniques with CAPD, I was not surprised.

The teachers are wonderful.  I love them.  They were all really cute men, but I assure you, as a redhead, this did not factor into my liking of them.  Did I say they were REALLY cute men?  They felt Brian was an A student and were concerned over his C grade.  I was thinking “Wow you are really cute when you smile” “C’s?  Wow – he is doing GREAT!”  Hmmmm I guess I need to raise my expectations.

Unbeknown to me, Brian was sweating this meeting back at home thinking it was over him failing in school.  Where he got this idea is anyones guess.  I thought his father and I had made it clear that we were just checking in with his teachers to see how things are going – period.

When I got home and asked Brian to sit for a second, he begrudgingly plopped himself in the chair across from me.  As I am about to tell him how proud I am of him, I look up to see crocodile size tears cascading down his face.

“What is wrong Brian?”

“I AM FAILING IN SCHOOL!”

Let the monsoon sobbing begin.  Ever try and back your ass out of a fence hole the size of a thumb?  Well that’s what it feels like when you suddenly reduce your child to tears without even so much as a “Hey.”

It took another 30 minutes for me to get him to understand that he has 2 A’s, 2 B’s and 2 C’s and is about to be invited into a problem solving competition.  It felt like I was speaking Russian to a Peruvian.  In the end, I wanted to buy him his own island with a beach – anything to stop that sad, downcast face.  “But Brian your father and I are just trying to help you” sounded more like “But Brian your father and I only beat you every other Thursday, in leap years, on rainy days”.

He retired to his room and I retired to green tea, again wishing it was a Martini.  I survived three real estate downturns, a divorce, thyroid disease, put myself through technical school when no women were welcomed, supported and fed my son all these years, and yet how is it I feel like I can’t find my way out of town with directions and a back seat driver?  Don’t I understand that helping him is the same as driving a stake through his heart?

At bedtime, he has recovered from me as a mom.

“Mom, you really have to get it together in the mornings…”

Me?

“Can we invite her to the pasta feed on Friday night?”

“Who?”

Can I kill myself?  I’m exhausted – and he’s only 12.

Until next time -

C