Kid Whirlwind and College

My life has been crazy so I haven't been blogging regularly.
People say, "Oh, too many classes to teach?" But really, most of the craziness comes from my kids.
We knew when Tucker was born (our 3rd) that we had surpassed our limits as parents, but it was too late to go back; we could only go forward. And, we love all of our kids passionately (which might be part of the problem), but their worries and woes frequently weigh on us and take a lot of time.

Famous columns from a building that burned down
years ago on the campus of Mizzou

Problems are working out and in the next few days, I hope to spill the whole story about an incident that made me feel like I was living out an episode of The Sopranos.
For today, I'm enjoying the knowledge that I don't have to go to work today because it is finals week for one of the colleges where I teach.
I also relished a 6-mile run that ended at Starbucks.

This is the indoor water park and giant hot tub at Mizzou

Mostly though,  my happiness comes from the fact that I'm very relieved my youngest son has chosen a college that is within a two-hour drive. He was leaning toward a college eight hours away and I had to beg him to reconsider.
When Spencer's phone broke, it took a tremendous amount of effort and calling in favors from old friends in the area to get him a new phone while he lived 16 hours away and had no way to communicate or get to the store.
When Grace was sick at school 10 hours away, she had to walk herself to the hospital for blood tests and walk herself to the pharmacy for medicine.
Yes, it helps them learn responsibility, but it leaves me a nervous wreck.
Tucker knew these stories and stuck to his plan to attend Mizzou -- the University of Missouri.
When we visited, I didn't even think he like it that much. He was anxious to get back on the road home.
And we have no contacts in Missouri -- no old friends to call on, no family to fall back on.
Finally on Tuesday, I told him the story about leaving his sister and brother at college.
It wasn't as bad with Grace because the college, 10 hours from home, had a plan. They had a convocation, complete with bagpipes and lit candles. Then each dorm broke up into groups to begin activities. Parents were expected to give hugs and move on to the parking lot.
I'll never forget Grace's eyes bright with tears as she stood in a circle of her dorm mates then turned around and gave us a pleading look. We walked out, but that was easier than when we left Spencer.
We moved Spencer into his college dorm room over 1000 miles from home. The school had a convocation
ceremony and then a picnic. We ate. We talked with families around us and then we needed to move on to my parents' house about 90 minutes away. Spencer walked us to our car and we left him there in the parking lot -- alone.
I just couldn't do that with Tucker.
"I know you'll make friends," I told Tucker, "but it's so hard on my to leave you there alone."
Tucker didn't respond to my story so I dropped it.
I had told him he needed to figure out what steps to take next for going to Mizzou. I had to support him.
Two days later, he said he guessed he could go to a college in Ohio. He would room with his best friend Josh and the two of them would have two unknown roommates so they didn't get stuck in a rut with only kids from our hometown.
"You can go to Mizzou," I said. "I don't want  you to choose just for me."
But he had talked it over and they made plans and the relief I felt washed over me. He can catch a bus home for $10. I can be there in two hours if he is hurt or sick. I can drive down a new phone. Or I can go down for lunch if he, or I, feel lonely.
So today is full of paperwork, making sure he accepts the school's offer. I also have to grade papers and get final grades in. Look into changing our insurance company. Deal with some payments to Spencer's schools.
In spite of the busy work, underneath it all, I'm so happy that Tucker won't be going far away.

Car Envy

I suppose it is too much to ask teenagers to be grateful for what they have.
I was reminded of this yesterday when Tucker was complaining about the black car. He drives the black car, a 1999 Ford Taurus, to school and back most days. Earl and I, along with Grace, juggle the other car, which mostly works because I work days and Earl works evenings.
Tucker, 17, sees it as a necessity to have a car even though most places he ventures to, like school, are about a mile away. I understand that driving has to do with status rather than need.
Yesterday though, as he started to ask when we were going to replace the black car, complaining about the squeak when he turns the wheels, or the sun roof that doesn't work, and the way it vibrates on the highway (which he rarely goes on), I started to get fed up.
"You know, you just came back from France and New York, so money is a little tight," I told him.
It's true that he helped pay for the France trip, and the trip to New York was required as part of his Singers class, but the family still made financial sacrifices. And this at a time that my second job has dried up due to low enrollment at one of the colleges where I teach.
My feeling was, if he didn't want to drive the black car, then he could walk.
I was complaining to my mom later about how ungrateful Tucker was when I remembered a story about myself at his age.
My parents bought each kid a used car for their 17th birthday. They started the trend with my sister, so continued with each of us. My car was a dark green pinto.
I worked at Kings Island amusement park during my high school summers so I had to take the freeway to get there. As I pulled onto the freeway, getting up speed, the Pinto stalled. I was able to coast to the side and sat in the car wondering what I would do. This was long before the days of cell phones. I was just bracing myself for a walk down the highway and exit ramp, when a car stopped in front of me.
My older brother.
He drove me home and my dad took care of the Pinto. He had work done and swore that the car was road ready.
I refused to drive it again.
"I will not drive that Pinto," I stated indignantly. I was an insufferable teen and my parents, who had lost my sister around the same age, indulged me.
My dad found a blue Mustang II that I drove through the rest of my high school and college years.
So as I complained about Tucker, I recalled that insufferable teenager that I was. I hope I've changed a lot since then and I'm sure Tucker will too.
But he still has to drive the black car.

A Good Heart

Sometimes, on mornings when the 16-year-old is particularly surly, I need to remind myself that deep down he's a good boy.

Here's a little reminder, to myself, and other parents who may be gritting their teeth as they live with teenagers. 

Anyone who cuddles and kisses a cat must have a good heart.

Lochte Lookalike

It started with a trickle -- a friend of Grace's said, "You know that swimmer Ryan Lochte, he kind of looks like Spencer."
So, the next time he was on television, I took note. Maybe the nose, the cheekbones.
Then more and more people started commenting on it. A friend from Connecticut sent me a Facebook message. A friend of Tucker's mentioned it during a car ride.
I'll let you be the judge. I snapped a photo of Spencer last night and then borrowed some of Lochte from websites.


Here's Spence, 18, on graudation day in May. This is a different picture than
 the one I had on the post earlier

Lochte, 27, at the Olympics. This photo is from the website yimg.com

 I can see it around the eyes and eyebrows too. But what I'm really afraid of is that some  people see a bit of physical resemblance and some attitude resemblance.
The reason I'm afraid is because Lochte really seems to be a douche. It's almost a cliche now, but it's the word that comes up most when people talk about his sparkly shoes that have "Ryan" on the bottom of one and "Lochte" on the bottom of the other or when he shows people his diamond-encrusted grill that he wasn't allowed to wear on the medal stand.
Spencer can give off that sense of bravado too. But Spencer is clever and funny. I haven't gotten that sense from Lochte.
There's a hilarious article about Lochte on the website Jezebel.com. The article is called 10 Reasons Why Ryan Lochte Is America's Sexiest Douchebag. And it's mostly written for women who comment on whether they'd still sleep with him even though he's a jerk, so don't read it if you might be offended!
Well, there is one other way that Spencer is like Lochte. He could be a blue jean model since he works tirelessly to keep his cut body. Here he is, caught in his natural state without a shirt, asleep on the couch.

I think the entire reason he decided to go to college in Florida was so that he could go shirtless through the majority of the year.

I guess there could be worse things than being compared to an Olympic swimmer, even if he seems like a jerk a lot of the time.

Mistakes

Have you ever made mistakes that haunt you?
Yesterday at the library, I saw a little girl who reminded me of a big mistake I made.
I was walking down the stairs at the library. The stairs are open to the main floor all the way down. I was on the third floor and as I reached the second floor, a little girl came marching up the stairs. She had blond shoulder-length hair, a pink sun dress and pink flipflops that flapped against her feet as she took the stairs. I smiled. She seemed determined and confident. The girl was probably 5. I expected to see her mother walking up the stairs behind her, maybe lugging a younger sibling. But the girl turned toward the 3rd floor and continued on up the stairs alone.
I didn't say anything, like "Where's your mom?" And our downtown library is not the kind of place where kids should go exploring on their own. Some shady characters take refuge in the library during the day. But the girl really looked like she knew what she was doing.
That's when I remembered that time long ago when I didn't intervene with another little blonde girl.
We were living in Michigan and had probably been friends with Sarah's family for about six months. Sarah's mom Patricia was from Arkansas. She had an adorable southern accent and that haunting ability to make every person she met feel special. In addition to her daughter Sarah, who was 5 like Grace, Patricia had a son who was a few years older. Patricia made fun of how overprotective I was. She scoffed at the booster seat I still made Grace use in the car. (In Michigan at that time, the carseat laws only required a carseat up to age one.)
We were at Shakespeare in the park, and the green, grassy hill was covered with families watching the play below. Some of the kids climbed to an open gazebo at the top of the hill. I went to check on them. There were several little kids, like Grace and Sarah, along with an older boy. Sarah was sitting on a low wall swinging her legs and she introduced me to the older boy. I don't remember the boy's name now, but I said hello to him and asked Sarah how she knew him.
"He's my friend," Sarah said.  I wasn't clear whether he was a boy she knew already or had just met him. I sent Grace down the hill and considered whether to make Sarah come down too.
I remember feeling torn. Patricia thought I was too overprotective already. Would she simply roll her eyes and allow Sarah to traipse back up the hill? I decided to walk back and tell Patricia then let her decide. I looked at the boy, figuring he wouldn't do anything stupid knowing an adult was aware of him.
Then I started back down the hill, making a beeline for Patricia.
That's when I saw Spencer and another boy throwing acorns at each other. I stopped to redirect them. It didn't take more than a few minutes to talk to the boys, but during that pause Sarah ran past me sobbing, straight to Patricia's blanket.
"Oh, no."
I went running over to the blanket. 
"There was a boy," I gasped as Sarah sobbed and hid her face against her mother.
As we pieced the story together, I remember Patricia's eyes piercing me as she said, "You sent your daughter down and you left mine?"
And, I had. I didn't think about it as a sacrifice of her, but I had protected Grace. Grace wasn't the type of kid who would have allowed a stranger to get close anyway, but Sarah was an open, welcoming child. She didn't know a stranger.
Sarah had sat on the boy's lap and he clapped a hand over her mouth then put his other hand in her panties. I don't know how Sarah got away.
Our husbands went searching for the boy but couldn't find him. Patricia took Sarah to the hospital for an examination and the police asked lots of questions.
As the adult who had seen the boy, I answered police questions and tried to come up with a photo sketch. A year or so later, as we were getting ready to move to Ohio, the police came by again with a number of photos. The boy's photo I identified was already in custody.
But little blonde girls, like the one at the library will always remind me of the time I didn't protect a little girl.

Prom 2012

So after much boy drama, my boys are gone to prom and the house is quiet.
Here's Spencer, 18, and his date.

Here's Tucker, 16, and his date.

But I know everyone really wants to see what the girls are wearing to prom, so I'll include a few pictures of the group so you can see for yourself.

I'm pretty sure girls were not this beautiful when I was in high school.

And Grace went to formal last night, so here's a shot of lovely Grace in purple with a cute, dimpled date, Tom, standing in the scenic hallway. Well, I wasn't there to direct the pose.

Excuses

So, I hope that some of you visit my blog regularly enough to notice that I haven't been posting as frequently, or as interestingly, as in the past. This is my excuses post, so you feel bad for me and give me a break. JK.
I am kind of bogged down teaching seven college classes. Add to that basketball season, which means games twice a week, plus breakfasts twice a week for the team. (I'm not sure if it's this way everywhere for high school basketball, but we feed these boys constantly. Breakfast from Panera, dinner after school from a local restaurant, Subway for the bus ride home from the game. On the weekend, we make a "spread" at someone's home and serve them that. This weekend I did waffles with blueberry sauce, cheesy potatoes, fruit, and another parent brought 8 pounds of bacon plus 4 pounds of link sausage! Do they think the parents can't feed them?)
Then Tucker is in high school swim season. We don't feed them as much, but the meets always seem to be far away and last for several hours. On Monday we drove to Marietta. I carried the swimmers' bags in my car so I followed the bus and it took two hours and twenty minutes. Next a three-hour swim meet and then a two-hour drive home.
So if teaching and sports were not all that is going on to keep me away from my blog, Grace is home for one more day. She goes back to school tomorrow.
Sometimes it's hard for me to process the fact that she'll actually be gone.
In spite of deciding that this far away school is the right choice for her, she's feeling very anxious about returning. I have tried to be supportive, saying things like, "Remember how nervous you were before you went the first time" or "This is nothing compared to staying in France for three months alone."
As her anxiety continues to rise, I decided tough love might be better. "Everyone would prefer to lie on the couch and watch America's Next Top Model rather than going to school or working..." or "It's what kids your age do. They go to school. It's not a big deal." Truthfully, if Grace doesn't go away to school, then I have failed at the process of raising her and setting her free. What Mama bird wants to set her baby bird free and the bird decide to stay in the nest?
I know Grace is just nervous because she hates change and because last year at this time she became depressed at school. She can't handle the idea of feeling like that again. I don't want her to feel that either. But she chose to return to this school and so we need to march onward so she can stop anticipating the bad.
So those are my excuses for why I haven't been blogging as much or commenting on other people's blogs.
Forgive me, but I see no respite in sight for another month or so.

Awkward Conversations

Talking to a grown up nephew is, well, awkward.
I see it on both sides of the family.
The nieces always seem to have a lot to say. I can ask them questions about studies and jobs and life choices. The guys generally answer in monosyllabic grunts of yes or no. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has this difficulty because I've seen my adult relatives feel the same awkwardness when trying to talk to my teenage boys. Sometimes I'll jump in the conversation with stories, illustrations. My boys rarely volunteer examples.
Tomorrow, my nephew Michael comes back from Afghanistan. Our family will meet him at the airport. The crowd of well wishers will probably prevent one-on-one conversation, but some time in the week that he's home, I hope to get some time to talk with him. And I need a plan so I can have a real conversation.
Michael was the first child of my siblings, a surprise baby the year my little brother graduated college. I had just finished grad school and taken a job in far away Florida but I immediately fell in love with those big brown eyes and the unruly brown hair of his. My brother and his wife would travel to Florida to stay with me for vacations and I loved spending time with Michael. I gave him his first haircut and cleaned up his puke from too many chocolate donuts.
He was an overactive little guy and found mischief wherever he went -- like the time he stuck the tweezers in the outlet of my makeup mirror blowing the circuit or when he stamped his foot during our visit to the llama herd. He got a sword at Disney World and broke it the next day before making up the saddest song ever about how "Michael breaks his toys..."
It's strange that after sharing an aunt/nephew life with so many good memories, we now have awkward silences.
Michael is 24 now and has been in the Navy for five years. He volunteered for duty in Afghanistan rather than going back on the nuclear sub he has served on in the past. I'm proud of all he's accomplished, but there's not much of a response to "I'm proud of you."
So, any suggestions on conversations with young men who, when they were little, climbed in my lap, and now have nothing much to say?

Impending Troubles?

How do you respond to someone's prediction of doom?
I'm not really sure what to do with this. Maybe you can help.
Just this morning, I called Sheila, asking her to review how she handled her 20-year-old son's teenage years. Tucker seems angry whenever he's home. I want things to be better, but I end up getting angry back at him. Sheila and I talked for awhile but, as usual with parenting, we didn't come up with a solution. As I dropped Tucker at school this morning, the slam of the door resounded like an exclamation mark on our relationship.
I've been worried about Spencer the past few days too, since he came home at 9 p.m. Saturday. He hasn't hung out with his friends since then. He claims everything is fine, he's just decided to stay home more. That makes me nervous. He's the most social person I know. Is he fighting with his friends? Is he trying to avoid trouble?
So worry about my boys was nibbling at my brain when I got home and checked my email. One of my former students, Muhanned,a smart man who I trust and stay in contact with, sent me an email. Muhanned was born in Saudi Arabia, grew up in England and the U.S.
His email was titled "I had a dream." I figured he was sending me another video of his baby daughter. But not. He wrote about his dream that "some harm came to your son" and "you were offered $300 million in compensation." He woke up with a feeling of foreboding and wasn't able to shake the feeling for the past few days, so he emailed me.
I felt tears fill my eyes.
Should I go pull both boys out of school and keep them home -- forever -- to keep them safe?
I don't know whether Muhanned has prophetic dreams like his namesake, but the idea of something happening to either of my sons is frightening. And when I thought about it, I realized there is nothing I can do to protect them from the world.
Of course, I analyzed Muhanned's email. I wanted to shoot back questions: Which son? Have you had dreams come true before? Did something happen during the day that made you think of me, which could have spurred the dream and had nothing to do with my future?
And I looked at his carefully chosen words: "some harm." He didn't say "die" but why would I get compensation if said son was still alive? $300 million compensation meant some sort of accident and a big corporation responsible. I brooded on his words. I needed to make sure my boys were safe.
The thing is, there's nothing I can do to make sure my boys aren't involved in an accident if Muhanned's dream is correct or if it isn't. The only thing I can do is to make sure that the boys know how much I love them, to be certain our relationship is fine in case anything should ever happen to them or me -- whether it's related to Muhanned's dream or just to life.
So I asked Tucker to go to lunch, but he turned me down. He wouldn't mind if I gave him his weekly allowance though. So I dropped by the school. Tucker and his buddies filled the car and asked me to drop them at Qdoba. He leaned over and game me a kiss before he got out.
Then I saw Spencer walking with a few friends on their way to lunch on this beautiful, sun-drenched day.
Whatever the future holds, I hope we can all say we didn't waste our time together fighting or complaining.
And I'm thankful to Muhanned's dream for forcing me to go make peace with Tucker and take a few minutes out of my day to remember how much I love my kids.

Philisophical Thought

There was a time when I probably enjoyed debating deep philosophical questions. But that time has passed. I'm much more shallow now.
Deep questions make my head hurt, like graphing calculators do.
So you can imagine how concerned I am that Spencer and his friends have embraced the writings of Albert Camus and existentialism. It seems incongruous to me that guys who love to mix it up on the basketball floor and compare the size of their biceps spend hours sitting in a friend's garage discussing existentialism.
I think I can blame the existentialist movement throughout our small town garages on the Senior English teacher who assigned "The Stranger" by Camus. Spencer declared it a good book.
So I racked my brain to remember some of the ideas of existentialism, which was espoused in Europe in the 40s and 50s by people like Jean Paul Sartre. The current existentialist ideas, I think, relate to today's hipsters. Spencer would probably argue this point, but it would make my head hurt and I wouldn't contine after a few minutes.
Spencer described existentialism as the realization that life is absurd. "The themes popularly associated with existentialism—dread, boredom, alienation, the absurd, freedom, commitment, nothingness, and so on" according to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
I fear that part of embracing this philosophy comes from the fact that one of the boy's older brother's commited suicide this fall. The boys are probably trying to find some answers and excuses for why this happened.
Online, I find a debate about whether hipsters are existentialists, but from my point of view, hipsters are people who are determined to declare everything in life boring and out-of-date.

Spencer is no stranger to philosophy. It was one of the subjects he chose to study when we were homeschooling. And, although he doesn't see it as a good college major, he wouldn't mind minoring in philosophy.
I can picture a day when my son is speaking in terms I don't understand at all. This might be worse than basketball jargon as he talks about picks and triple/doubles.
And I'll probably break down and get him a book by Sartre for Christmas. I just hope he doesn't want to discuss it with me.

Being Unkind

Being mean to someone is more work than you would think.
It's not something I normally do, so maybe I'm just out of practice.
Here's the story, this summer, Spencer and some of his friends got in trouble. His friend Danny didn't have any consequences for the actions and the mother told me she had encouraged Danny to be a better influence on Spencer, which made me crazy, because he was doing the same things that Spencer was, but he lied to his mom about it.
So this summer, when the mom came up to me and put her arm around me, I said that I couldn't talk to her then. I was still mad that she fell for Danny's BS.
What I discovered through the summer and fall, was that it is kind of nice to not be talking to this mother. She has ADD and talks incessantly. She gossips about all the kids in the high school and she doesn't understand limits. I'm constantly having to say, "You're in my space" when she moves in too close, or "We were in the middle of a conversation" when she walks up and starts talking. So that can get kind of tiring.
The mother of another boy and I had planned to ride to a basketball game together Friday night. I got a message from Danny's mom saying "Can I ride with you to the game?"
We were leaving in about 20 minutes and I had looked forward to spending time with the other mother. I simply ignored the text.
Well, about half an hour into the game, Danny's mom arrived and sat by us.
The other mother isn't as good about setting limits. She had even complained that Danny's mom had ridden with her to most of the soccer games and she tried to leave town early to avoid her, but she couldn't bring herself to say no.
At one point, the other mother and I were talking about her brother who is going to New York for Thanksgiving when Danny's mom jumped in: "Now who was this? What was happening?" Aaargh. See how annoying that is?
So I left without having made eye contact or talking to Danny's mom.
I don't think I can keep it up through the whole basketball season though.
So what should I do? Simply accept the fact that she's going to glom onto us throughout the season and put up with it.
Lay out some boundaries, like "you can ride with us to every other away game but not every time."
Point out that she is very annoying the way she talks constantly and interrupts people?
My running friends said I was being too harsh, but she really doesn't get boundaries unless they are clearly stated.

Saturday Snapshot -- Guitar Reflections

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

One day this week, after a long day of school and work, Tucker sat down on the edge of the couch with his guitar. I was ready for a nap, so I slid onto the couch behind him to claim it. He lay down on the floor and held his guitar above him. That's when I snapped this picture: Reflections on a guitar.

New Drivers and Angry Moms

My 15-year-old son got his temporary driving permit on a Friday, and, unfortunately, my 17-year-old son totaled his car three days later on a Monday. Thus, the number of driving hours for the 15-year-old are limited. We only have one car right now, and who wants to risk that one car with a brand new driver. He's a good driver for someone with no experience, still, it feels pretty iffy.
Yesterday after school, after he informed me that he didn't like the stir fry I planned to make for dinner, he begged me to take him to buy a sub sandwich. Plus, he would drive.
Sometimes I'm vulnerable to these arguments. My boys never seem to find enough food in our house to fill their ravenous bellies and send sustenance to their quickly growing limbs. I agreed to go with him and pay. I sat passively in the passenger seat while he drove the few miles to the sub shop. I gave him a 10-dollar bill and sat listening to NPR while he went in to get his sandwich.
On the drive back, he was turning left and he over turned, a little too far and came close to a car that was waiting to turn left.
I sucked in air through my teeth and made that sound a person makes right before something bad is going to happen. I'm pretty sure it was barely audible from his seat.
"You oversteered back there. You need to straighten out the wheel sooner," I said.
"I know, Mom, but when you make that noise it makes me panic and then I'm going to crash," he said.
I hadn't raised my voice, but the sucking in of air would drive him to crash?
His words. His tone. The thought that I drove with him to the sub shop and paid for his sub while he complained about me breathing. They all pissed me off.
"Fine. I guess you should just drive with Dad instead of me," I declared.
"I guess I will," he replied.
And we didn't speak the rest of the night except after swim practice when he asked why I was so mad.
I told him I was tired of his rudeness, but then I kissed him goodnight and he said, "If you aren't so mad at me in the morning, will you wake me up early?"
I took the boys to get coffee before school this morning.
I drove.

Sleeping Giant

This morning, while I was gone on a run, Spencer got out of bed and went to a friend's house for some early morning yoga. He and this friend have been intensely lifting weights and they decided to add yoga to the routine.
He came home and showered, screeching out the door to get to school on time.
He lifted weights after school and just got home.
"How'd the yoga thing go this morning?" I asked. Spencer isn't exactly a morning person.
He explained how they do "downward dog" and "plank." They do balance poses like "tree." "I fell asleep in 7th period study hall," he said.
"Really?"
"Yeah. I woke up 7 minutes after school got out."
I can picture him with his head on the formica desk, drool dripping from the edge of his mouth.
"Your friends and the teacher left you there asleep?" Earl asked.
"Yeah. They said they tried to wake me up. Then they just left."
As I was writing this, I realized that Tucker shares a study hall with Spencer. I called down the stairs to him.
"Hey, Tuck. Did you leave Spencer asleep in study hall?" I asked.
"Well, Joe tried to wake him up," Tucker said.
"So you just left? What if he'd had a heart attack or something? He could have been unconscious," I protested.
"Mom, it was obvious he was asleep with his face in his book," Tucker explained.
Now my vision changed from him lying with his head turned sideways on the desk, to him face down in his Calculus book. I feel pretty certain that it was his Calc book because that's what he has homework in tonight.
I'm not sure what the teacher's reaction was. Did she try to wake him up or did she give a shrug and close the door behind her? He did give her a hard time when she told them to sit in assigned seats. She might have given a little smile as she walked out the door, leaving a slumbering, and no longer protesting, Spencer asleep.
At least they didn't lock the door.

Parenting, Still

I'm so tired of giving my boys "consequences" for their misbehavior. After 19 years of parenting, I want to be finished.
Spencer got caught in a lie this weekend so he's now dealing with the punishment, which means a lot of family time. For Spencer, who is the most social of all my kids, this is torture. He wants to hang with his friends any time he is not at work or basketball.
His friend Danny, who got caught in the same lie, did not receive any consequences, and that drives me crazy. Danny doesn't speak nicely to his mother and rarely spends an evening at home during the summer.
When Spencer woke up at 7:30 this morning to get to weightlifting by 8 a.m., I told him he could ride his bike to school for lifting.
"I'm supposed to give Danny a ride," he said.
"Yeah, that's why I'm making you ride your bike, so you don't spend extra time with Danny."
Because this boy doesn't have consequences, he never worries about misbehaving or getting caught. That makes him a bad influence.
I'm not one of those moms who believes my boys are perfect and being led astray by other boys. My boys know right from wrong and they are making mostly good, but some bad, decisions. When I find out about the bad decisions, they face consequences, as much as I would prefer to wave them out the door to hang with their friends.
This morning, as I saw my frustration level rise, I called Danny's mom just to let her know why I didn't let Spencer drive Danny this morning.
"Oh, Spencer didn't go to the turf last night?" she asked. "They were doing some live action role playing game."
"No. Spencer was grounded," I said. "He cleaned the basement and has to wash the cars."
"Oh. I told Danny he needed to be a better friend to Spencer and help him resist peer pressure," she said.
Yeah, I needed to hang up then, but I did give the mom some missing information about what happened this weekend. Apparently, surprisingly, Danny hadn't told his mom the entire truth.
And then when the mom started to cry because her husband never supports her and she's tired of parenting alone, I had to comfort her instead.
Earl was shaking his head at me as I finally got off the phone. I wanted this mom to understand why consequences are important even as our boys move toward their senior year of high school. This is our last chance to be sure they make good choices and give them simple consequences like being grounded. In the real world, the consequences can be greatly magnified.

Homemade But Not Healthy

If you eat healthy, just stop reading now because you will only judge me if you continue to read.
Yesterday, as Earl and I were leaving our ballroom dance class, Tucker called.
"Will you please get me some donuts at Tim Hortons?" he asked.
"No. You eat too much fast food, I don't have any extra money this week, and Dad needs to get to work." I reeled off the reasons for the rejection.
Truthfully, both of my boys would eat every meal at fast food restaurants. They don't even like my homemade bread, much less the brownies or the pasta salad or grilled chicken. Anything I make, they would rather have the restaurant version.
Earl dropped me at home and headed off to work. I was determined to make something to eat that Tucker would like.
It needed to be quick though because I still had a bunch of essays to grade.
I pulled out a heavy pan and filled the bottom with canola oil and started heating it. Then I unwrapped a tube of biscuit dough and popped them open against the counter. I found a small circle, half of a tea ball, to cut holes in the center of the biscuits and soon had 16 donut shaped pieces of dough. I dropped them into the hot oil, turning them when they started to brown.
When both sides were browned, I used metal tongs to fish them from the pan and throw them into a plastic bag I had filled with cinnamon and granulated sugar. Another bag was filled with confectioner sugar. The hot donuts were covered with sugar and set on a plate.
The ones with sugar and cinnamon tasted like elephant ears from the fair, and the ones with powdered sugar tasted like funnel cakes.
Tucker ate four.
A fewer hours later as I sat at the desk grading papers, I heard his footsteps pounding on the stairs.
"What's for dinner?" he asked.
"Donuts," I said. "Help yourself."
What can you expect? I'm only good for about one meal a day -- healthy or not.

The Male Perspective on Prom

The funny thing was at 4 p.m., when Grace's friend Deidre showed up to have her makeup done, Spencer hadn't even showered yet. He was chilling with some friends. Deidre's nails and hair had been done. Glitter spritzed her face and the poofy part of her hair. Grace gave her smokey eyes before taking her home so she didn't muss her prom preparedness.

Spencer hopped in the shower at 5. His tux was hanging on the closet door. The orchid corsage for his date was in refrigerator. The prom tickets were in his wallet.
I took a few pictures of him alone before he left, but couldn't get a genuine smile out of him.
The minute he got to his date, he relaxed, as if the anticipation was much worse than the actual experience.
When Grace went to prom, we had the advantage that her date came here so we could get some photos of the two of them together. Earl and I skulked over to Claudia's house, hoping to snag some photos of the two of them before the big crowd arrived. Too late. 12 couples and most of their parents came to take pictures.
Here's a picture of the whole group so you can see how diverse the girls' dresses were.
That's Spencer in the center towering over everyone else and his date slightly to the right of him in the photo.
Here's my favorite picture of Spencer and his date Claudia.

All 24 kids paid $17 each to ride on this "Party Bus." It took them to dinner then to the prom at Franklin Park Conservatory.

We didn't hear from the kids again until AfterProm where Earl and I were chaperoning. Spencer and friends played basketball while the girls sat in groups talking. Baskets overflowed with food -- Chipotle, pizza, fruit, chips, baked goods. I stayed until 2 and Earl closed down the place at 3:30 when all the kids were shipped home.

You'll Never Find...

When my boys aren't making me mad about something, they crack me up with their ideas of teenage romance.
This morning I was greeted with rain and 43 degrees. I decided to forego a cold, wet run. Instead, I took Spencer's car to put some gas in it. He told me that he had scraped together $2 in nickels and quarters the night before to put gas in the car. We give him $20 a week for gas so he can drive to school and to basketball practice with occasional forays over to Ohio State or to The Men's Wearhouse to order his tux.
That seemed like plenty of money for gas until prices shot up to $4.19 per gallon.
As I stopped at a stop sign, I heard things clinking. I thought maybe empty bottles were under the car seat. Another stop and another clink made me open the console betweeen the seats.
There, I found an aluminum bottle of Old Spice body spray -- a necessity for teenage boys.
The next item puzzled me. Two votive candles in glass candleholders.
When I got home, as the boys were scrambling to get out the door on time, I asked Spencer why the candles.
"I set them down in the sunken area and light them," he said. "Adds a little ambiance."
"While you're driving?" I ask.
"No, when I'm parked at the turf or the school lot."
I know that the high schoolers hang around their cars on weekend nights and I tried to picture Spencer with his flickering candlelight.
I told him he was definitely in competition with his father who had sculpted shag in his van as a teenager.
Then I suggested that candles and cars don't really mix that well since cars are highly flammable.
"Yeah, I gotta get rid of those," he agreed.
There goes the romantic candlelight when sitting in the middle of the school parking lot surrounded by other teenagers. I guess they'll have to fallback on Plan B -- a portable strobe light that they ordered from Best Buy.
"Are you sure we can't use it while we drive around?" he asked.
"Pretty sure."

Choking on Powdered Sugar

Tucker has always been precocious. Maybe because he's the third kid and he caught on quickly to what his older brother and sister were doing. He learned how to work the mouse on the computer when he was 18 months old. He learned how to pedal a bike when he was two. He started the violin at 4 and quickly caught up with his older brother.
Does it count as being precocious if you can grow facial hair early?
Tucker just turned 15 and is growing a beard.

He has had a few episodes in the past where he refused to shave and the hair on his face looked scraggily, like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. This time, I think he's actually got something going. Luckily, he still has braces so he doesn't look like he's 20 when he smiles.
People have always told Tucker that he looks like his father. I warned him that he would get more comments that he and Earl look alike if he grew a beard. He was undeterred.
Looks are not the only way Tucker and Earl are similar though. Actually, both of my sons take after the father in this one way.
I was making French toast for breakfast on Saturday morning. I hadn't put the powdered sugar and spoon into a bowl like I usually do.
Tucker pulled the bag of powdered sugar from the "baking center" where I store it. As he took off the clip and began to unfold it, he started coughing. Then when he sprinkled the powdered sugar on his French toast and took a bite, he coughed again.
All of the men in my family get choked on powdered sugar. Earl has often told the story of how he nearly choked to death when he was a child because his sister sprinkled the brownies with powdered sugar.
No matter how much they all look like each other, or don't, they have that one trait, a hatred for powdered sugar. Yet, they continue to encounter it.

Long Sunday

Today was the most gorgeous day of the year with the temperature climbing to 80 degrees and the blossoms suddenly bursting forth on the trees.
Spencer is playing AAU basketball, which means many weekends are spent at local basketball tournaments. Today's tournament was 45 minutes away and they played at 9 a.m. so we left before 8. The morning was foggy and eerie until about half way to Lancaster. Then the sun burned through.
Only five guys showed up for Spencer's team, so they all played hard the entire game without any subs, getting only a 3 minute break at half time.
Spencer had some friends over for awhile then they decided to go bike riding. When Earl and I got home from ballroom dance class, a sweaty Spencer was sitting in a stupor on the couch. I took the boys for ice cream then Spencer swung his legs over the arm of the chair and he fell asleep while Tucker controlled the remote control. When Spencer roused after a little while, I urged him to move to the now vacated couch so he didn't get a stiff neck.
As the bright sun headed toward 6 p.m., it left these shadows on my tired boy's sleeping face.
An afternoon nap well earned during a pretty satisfying weekend.