The Unbearable Stench of Impossible...

So... the Impossible Son is now a freshman in high school.

*pause for motherly whimpering*

In our small town, the freshman campus is separate from the high school.  It's also on the other side of town from where we live.  Not a big deal, because this is a small town.  I am lucky, though, that his first period class, athletics, is at the high school, and so is his last class of the day, because this means he can walk to school in the morning and walk home in the afternoon, since the high school is just down the street from us.  Which means... no more sitting in long slow lines of cars to drop off/pick up my student, HUZZAH!!!!

*dance of joy, dance of joy*

Since Impossible is also on the high school cross country team, this also means that every other morning, he has to be at the high school at 6:30 a.m. for running practice. The Husbandly One drops him off on his way to work, and if I wait long enough, I can go out on the back deck and see the whole team go running by.  They get back to the school in time for the team to shower and get ready for their first period class.  Which, for my son, is athletics, as I mentioned earlier.

The next thing I need to mention is that my son, at 14, is the tallest person in our house.  He is all long arms and legs, and the basketball coach pretty much started drooling the moment the Impossible Son loped into the gym.  So... the Impossible Son spends first period playing basketball pretty much nonstop.  All. Period.  Long.

All freshman who have their first and last periods at the high school are required to ride a bus to go back and forth.  This bus leaves at a very specific time, and if a student isn't there at that time... too bad, so sad.  There is only ONE bus for this.  I totally get that.

However, what this means for athletic students is... depending on the coach, there is NO TIME FOR A SHOWER.

This... is NOT a good thing.

So, Tuesday morning of the second week of school, I was sitting and staring at the story I'm presently working on and wondering if I needed to do little tweaking of my outline when the Dropkick Murphys start screaming, "I'm a sailor peg, and I lost my leg! Climbing up the topsails, I lost my leeeeegggg!!"

It's my phone, and I think, "I turned in the athletic forms, he has all his school supplies, omg, what has he done now?"

"Hey, Mom."

I frown at look at the clock, thinking, did he miss the bus?

"I need to come home and take a shower."

Blink.  Blink.

"Wait a minute, didn't you take a shower after class?"

"There was no time," he said a little sheepishly.  "I mean, I barely have time after practice to throw on my clothes!  I have to get out to the bus as fast as I can, no time for a shower!"

Okay, I know that's true, it was true when my daughter was a freshman, and will probably be true until the construction at the high school is finished.

"Impossible, you'll just have to suffer through it," I begin, knowing the school won't just let him come home.  Then I realize, the ringtone was the Dropkick Murphys, not the Legend of Zelda.  He was calling from the school office, not his own phone.

"Mom, everyone in my class says I reek!  I stink, Mom, even the teacher says so!  I need a shower!" he insisted.

It doesn't normally take me this long to catch on.  "Wait a minute, are you just calling me on your own, or did the teacher send you to the office to actually go home and take a shower?"

"Yes, Mom, my teacher insisted!"

"Okay, I'll be there in a few minutes."

I was sort of stunned, but, having been around the Impossible Son when he was sweaty, I could sort of see it.  Thing is, he didn't have that much of a body odor problem, really.  It was mostly his feet that would get us during soccer season, where we would beg him to keep his shoes on until we were out of the car.  But that's soccer pong, and just means keeping his gear clean.  So, I got in the car and drove over to the freshman campus to sign him out.

The freshman campus was built in 1923 and has all the problems you'd associate with a building that old.  It's small (the current class of freshmen are practically bursting out of the seams), it smells, and it's hard to air condition.  In fact, only the classrooms and offices are air conditioned, while the halls are NOT.  It's like walking into a sauna when you enter the building, and you want to hold your breath until you get into the office, where it's nice and cool.  At least for a few minutes.  Air conditioning at the freshman campus really means not as hot as the hall way.

So, I wade through the sauna to the relative comfort of the office to sign my son out.  He arrives and keeps a careful distance from me, and when we get outside, immediately moves downwind of me.

"It's bad, isn't it?" he asks, eying me as we walk to the car.

"Not really."  I take a careful sniff, but I don't smell much because... he's downwind.

"Just wait," he says ominously.

Amused, I unlock the car, we get in, I pull the window shade off the dash, start the car and get the AC going... and immediately my eyes start watering, my gag reflex leaps up and punches me in the throat, and my nose and lungs start rebelling and trying to escape.

"Oh... my... God..." I gag, turning to stare at my son in horror.  "Did you roll in something dead??"

He's grinning at me.  "I know, right?" The Impossible Son's cheeks are red with embarrassment, but there's an odd sort of pride in his eyes, too.  "It's awful, isn't it?  I told you!  You didn't believe me!"

Frantically opening all the windows in my car, including the sun roof, with the AC going full blast in the faint hope of getting the... the... STANK out of my car, eyes watering and leaning away from my child, all I can say is, "Holy crap... how the fuck did this happen??"

"Mom," the Impossible Son says as leans helpfully away from me, "we ran four miles this morning in cross country, and then I had to go straight to basketball practice!  No time for a shower!  And then we barely have time to dress before we have to catch the bus!  We all reek!"

I think all my nose hair was gone by the time we got home.  My eyes are watering just remembering this.  It was horrible.  Like... old cheddar cheese that's been sitting in a bowl of water in direct sunlight for three days, and moldy soccer socks in a hot car, with a little muddy dog and three weeks unchanged cat litter box.  During a hundred degree summer.  With... sweat.

*is still horrified*

I never thought I'd ever say that about one of my children, but omg, he reeked.  It made soccer pong look... pleasant.

So, after he'd decontaminated and changed clothes, he told me the story.

He was in his second period biology class, and the teacher had broken them up into smaller groups to work on their assignment.  First, the kids in his group had started moving away from him with, "God, Impossible, WTF?" and "Dude, did you even take a shower??" Then some of the groups that were close to them started complaining and became vocal about insisting he go home to take a shower.  The teacher, noticing the increasingly vocal protests, called him over to find out what was going on.  At this point, Mr. Impossible had had enough.  "Miss Biology Teacher, I really need to go home and take a shower," he said apologetically.

She said humorously, "So you're a little sweaty, you're fine, stop messing around and get back to work."

"No, I really, really stink, that's why they're all complaining," he insisted.

At that moment, the AC came on, and the vent was apparently behind him and blew air directly toward her.  He said she was opening her mouth to probably tell him to go back to his table when his personal cloud of stench was blown into her face.

She froze.  Her eyes went wide and her nostrils flared.  Her eyes bulged as she stared up at him with horror, then they reddened and started to water.  Her nose looked like it was trying to pinch itself shut.  Her hands gripped the desk so hard, her knuckles went white.  And her mouth snapped shut.

He said, "I seriously started to worry about her, because it was like... she stopped breathing!"

Of course, she stopped breathing!  She was trying not to smell him.

After a moment, she started frantically pointing at the door.  "You," she said, scooting hastily away from him after thrusting a hall pass at him.  "You!  Home!  Now!  SHOWER!!!"

"Well," I said, leaning toward him, "you smell much better now."

"I should," he said as we got in the car to go back to the freshman campus.  "I used almost half my body wash cleaning myself off!  Do they make industrial strength body wash?"

"No, and before you ask, Axe Body spray is not shower in a can," I said firmly.  "If you had used it you would not have smelled better.  You would still have the Stench, it just would have been... the Stench WITH Axe Body spray.  And that would have been much worse."

"How do you know?" he asked as we pulled up to the school and I parked.

"Because the pot smokers at my high school used to try to disguise the smell of what they'd been doing before school started with this mint breath spray called Binaca.  And it never worked."  I grinned at him.  "They never understood why they kept getting caught, but you know, it was because instead of smelling like pot smokers, they now smelled like Fresh MINTY Pot Smokers™!"

He laughed.  "I'll pass that on!"

"Good.  Because we're all kind of tired of smelling sweaty teen pong with Axe Body spray!"

You know, I'm still working on getting the smell out of my car!

Out of the Bushes...

So this morning, I wasn't at my sharpest.  

Alright, let's face it, most mornings, I'm not at my sharpest.  Sometimes, there just isn't enough caffeine on the planet, you know?  But this morning?  Oy.

First off, when the Impossible Son and I stepped out onto the front porch to leave for school, he stopped and went, "Uh... Mom?"

"What?" I asked as I locked the front door.

"Look," he said a little too calmly, so I turned around and looked toward the driveway and my mouth dropped open.

"Where the hell's my car???" I asked, shocked, because it wasn't in its usual place at the end of the driveway.  Then memory kicked in and I looked up toward the garage and went, "D'oh!"  Because I'd forgotten that the Husbandly One had moved it to air up the tires.

Yes, I normally park at the end of the driveway.  Why?  Because there are billions and billions of little tiny birds that live in the red-tipped photinias that our predecessors planted alongside the driveway and (1) they are the most prolific poopers on the planet and (2) they have extremely accurate aim when it comes to the vehicles I drive.  I mean, I actually gave up washing the minivan when we had it, because I would have had to wash it four times a day every single day!

Everybody knew my van, because it was the red one covered with bumper stickers... and bird poop.  Not exactly a notoriety I was comfortable with, you know?

So when we got the CR-V, I made the decision to park it at the end of the driveway, before the bushes.  Results?  No more bird poop.  I'm the only one who parks in the driveway anyway, so might as well park the way I want, right?  *sigh*

So, the Impossible Son and I got in the car, my son chattering away as usual, I start the car, put it in reverse and check the mirror, preparing to back out.   All of a sudden, a tall, thin, grey-haired figure lurches out into the street from behind the bushes, slack-faced and dragging one leg, one arm swinging wide while the other is held straight down and in front of a stiff body.  The early morning light casts a grayish yellow pallor to the skin, and my first thought is, "Holy crap, the zombie apocalypse is real, WTF???"

Mr. Impossible says, "Mom?  You okay?  What is it, what's... OMG, Mom, is that... is that a zombie???"

The Husbandly One nearly got a frantic phone call to come home RIGHT NOW!!!

However, my brain kicked into gear and I said, "No, honey, that's the sewing lady who lives down the street."

"Why's she walking like that?" he asked, watching her lurch her way down the street.  

"She had a stroke a few years ago," I said as I plugged in the iPod to give my pounding heart a chance to slow back down to a more normal rhythm.  "We usually see her walking in the mornings."

"Yeah, but from the other side." Mr Impossible watched her go as I slowly backed out.  "Guess she decided to take a different route today."

"Yep," I said, and we made our way to school.  

The funniest part though is, until that moment, I never realized how much zombies in movies walk like stroke victims.  No, really, think about it.  The same stiff legged gait, the arms held out for balance, one swinging loosely, the other sometimes curled up close to the body, or held out straight, the slack-jawed face or dead expression with one side of the face drooping... 

Yep, I was definitely awake as I took off for the school.  Nothing like a couple of shocks to get the old adrenaline pumping!

I'll take a pass on that tomorrow, though, thanks.

The Power of Vocabulary...

Reason number 253 why my son rocks:

Walking home Monday, a group of large sixth graders (meaning they were bigger than my son, who is a five foot tall 7th grader) tried to involve the Impossible Son in a fight by calling him names.

"Hey, faggot!!"

He stopped, frowned, and looked at them.  "Why are y'all calling me a bunch of sticks?  I know I'm skinny, but duuuuuude..."

They stared at him and said, "Wait... what?"

"That's what faggot means.  It's a bunch of sticks."

"No, it doesn't!" one of them said in disbelief while the rest stood there with their mouths hanging open.

"Yeah, it does," he said over his shoulder as he started walking away.  "Look it up in the dictionary."

He said by the time their brains finished processing it and they were able to move again, he was too far ahead of them to even bother.

And just in case you were wondering...

faggot or esp  ( US ) fagot 1  (ˈfæɡət)
— n
1.	a bundle of sticks or twigs, esp when bound together and used as fuel

This is what happens when you read fairy tales to your kids when they're little.  

Heh heh heh...

That moment when you realize you helped raise the next generation of the village...

It all started because the Impossible Son said, "One of my friends is pansexual."

I blinked, because this was a definite non-sequiter not related to the conversation we were having, but I'm well used to this sort of thing because... that's just the way my kids' brains work.  And I admit it, I'm kind of that way, too.  So, I said, "Really?  What makes you say that?"

"Well..." he hedged.

"Do you know what it means?" I asked while keeping my eyes on the road, because I had just picked him up from school and wanted to not, you know, run off the road into a ditch.

"Yeah," he said, "it means you'll basically have sex with anything that stands still long enough."

Wow, I thought, and knew I had to nip that one in the bud.  "Nope, not even close," I said firmly.

"But... that's what my friends said it meant," he protested.

"Yeah, well, they don't know what it means, either," I said dryly.  "Being pansexual means you're attracted to a person, not their gender.  Gender doesn't matter to you, it's the person themselves that attracts you."

"Oh," he said thoughtfully, then he frowned at me.  "Then... why didn't my friends know that?"

I shrugged.  "Because a lot of folks don't even bother to learn what those things mean."

"I thought that was being heterosexual..."

"No," I said, wondering how the hell he'd gotten so mixed up about this, "being heterosexual means being attracted to someone of the opposite sex.  And," I said before he could ask, "being homosexual means being attracted to someone of the same sex as you.   And being bisexual means being attracted to either sex."

We kept chatting until we got home, and I think I cleared it up for him, but wow...

I shouldn't be too surprised, though, that he's mixed up.  Last year, the 6th grade assistant principal told my son he needed to keep some friction burns he had on his hands covered with bandaging, not because it was hygienic, or would keep them clean, but... because he could pick up AIDS from the surfaces of the desks in the classrooms and the tables in the cafeteria.

*watches the collective jaw drop*

Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction, too.

So, going by that shining example, along with the fact that what passes for sex education in the schools in our small town is of the abstinence variety, it's no big surprise that my son's friends have no clue whatsoever what any of those terms mean.

No.  Really.

There is a disturbingly high rate of teen pregnancy in our little town.  My son is in 7th grade.  There's already a girl in his class that is expecting.  A girl at the Impertinent Daughter's high school went into labor on the first day of school.

I have news for all those parents who keep saying that they don't want comprehensive sex education taught in the schools because it might give their kids ideas and make them want to have sex.  Your kids have gone way past having ideas and they're already doing it.  Not knowing anything about it hasn't stopped them.  They're doing it, and they're getting pregnant, and getting STDs because you're too stupid to give them the tools they need to prevent it.  You're preventing them from knowing enough about it to make an informed decision, and you know what?  It's been proven that kids who take comprehensive sex education classes tend to delay having sex longer than kids who don't.

Anyhow, moving on, later in the evening, I was discussing this with the Husbandly One and the Impertinent Daughter, and she said, "You know, Mom, I'm not surprised at all, because my friends used to pop out with stuff like that all the time.  I'd come ask you about it and you would explain it to me and then I'd go back to school and explain it to my friends.  I mean, I knew they were wrong, but sometimes, I didn't know why, or I didn't know how to explain it.  So I'd go to you, you'd explain it, and then I'd go and explain it to them!"

That sort of boggled me and I laughed and said, "Wow, kiddo, you make it sound like I'm responsible for providing all your friends with sex education."

The Impertinent Daughter snorted as she headed to her room and said, "Duh, Mom, haven't you noticed?  None of my friends are pregnant!!"

Holy cow, she's right.  None of her little circle of female friends are pregnant, and none of the girlfriends of her male friends are pregnant.

That... is pretty stunning.  And you know, all I have done is say things like, "It's easier to prevent a baby than to raise one," and "don't depend on the girl to provide contraception unless you're prepared to be a father," and, "if he doesn't love you enough to wear a condom, then he doesn't love you and he's not worth your time," and "No is a complete sentence all on its own.  No.  Period.  End of story,"and "You have a perfect right to refuse to engage in sex if you're not ready, but it doesn't hurt to develop a good left hook, too."

It's not that hard.  You start when they're old enough to start asking questions.  You tailor it to their age, but you answer their questions.  You don't tell them the stork brings babies or that you go shopping at the hospital.  You tell them it takes two people to make a baby, and the process that goes into it.  You tell them about the changes it makes to a woman's body, and what it takes to grow one, and how it comes out.  And... you tell them what it takes to raise a baby.  Money, time, and patience.  A stable job, a good home, a willingness to love, nurture, teach, lose many, many, many nights of sleep, to sometimes go hungry so your child can eat, to forgo new shoes so your kid can have new shoes, or a band instrument, or piano lessons, or whatever they need.

You talk to them about relationships and what it takes to build them.  What it takes to build a good solid friendship with their buddies, then apply that to a relationship with a girl/boyfriend, a spouse, a lover... you talk about what it takes to learn to live with a completely different person than they're used to living with, sharing books, records, a car, a house, money, or a dog, and you talk about how it all changes when you bring a child into it.

You talk to them about responsibility and respect, for themselves, for others, and you talk to them about how to treat other people.  How to recognize when someone genuinely cares and when they just want to get into someone's pants.  You teach them how to put a condom on themselves, or on someone else.  You teach them about other forms of birth control and how to talk about it with another person.  You teach them about drinking responsibly, about knowing the people they're with and making sure they have a designated sober person in their group.  That they have a signal to let their friends know when they're leaving a party/bar/social scene willingly and when they're in trouble.  That they should have someone they check in with regularly when they go on dates, so that if they miss a check-in, their friend will know something is wrong and will react appropriately.

Doesn't everyone do this?  If not, they should.

And The Growing Continues...

Last Tuesday, the Impossible Son was complaining of a headache, sore muscles, and nausea.  When I took his temperature, it was a stunning 96.4 F.  So... no fever.  I figured it was the result of not enough sleep after a three day weekend and pronounced him mostly fit for school.  However, in the car, he turned green and looked likely to hurl, so I turned around and brought him back home.

I knew something was off when I suggested a nap and he went without protest.

My son has been protesting naps since the advanced age of two.

But last Tuesday, he said, "Huh... good idea," and promptly went to bed.

When he woke up five and a half hours later, he'd grown an inch.  I am totally serious about this.  He was taller when he woke up than he was when he went to sleep.  Noticeably taller.

He's grown another inch since then, and I have a feeling he's going to do it again today.  Because, once again, he woke up complaining of a headache and nausea, but this time, he's added a sore throat to the mix.  I sent him to school after giving him something for the headache and congestion that had led to the sore throat, and they called me around 10:30 to come pick him up.

When we got home, as we were walking through the door, I said, "Maybe you should take a nap... wait, where'd you go?"

He was in bed before I could finish my sentence.  Taking a nap.

He's going to grow again, I just know it.  And dammit, that means MORE SOCKS.  And probably another pair of shoes.

Shoot.  Me.  Now.

Growing, Growing, Too Much Growing!

I cannot keep up with my son's rate of growth.

He's twelve years old, and already looks like a teenager, all arms, legs, and lankiness.  Yesterday morning, while getting ready for school, he came to me and said, "Mom, I'm out of socks."

"Look in your drawer," I said while finishing up lunches, "I know there were four pair in there two days ago."

"There are no socks in my drawer, Mom, I looked!" he insisted.

Grumbling to myself, I went to check and sure enough, lots of underwear, no socks.  So, I headed for my bedroom and the Sock Basket.

In case you're wondering, the Sock Basket is a small laundry basket where we toss all the socks with missing partners.  Sometimes, the missing socks turn up buried in the furniture, hidden under the bookcases or, even more surprisingly, on the shelves of the bookcases.  I have found socks where you expect, jammed into shoes or hidden under beds or the kitchen table.  And I have found socks where you don't expect, like... in a box of music CDs, or on top of the XBox.  And I've found them where you shouldn't expect to, like... between the pages of a book?  Really???  Stuffed into one of the drawers of the china cabinet?   Seriously, guys?? What possible reason would any of you have for stuffing your dirty smelly socks in there???

It's moments like those that I realize my children are strange, strange people.  But I love them anyway.

So, I went to the sock basket, figuring I could at least give the Impossible Son a mis-matched pair of socks, which seems to be all the rage among the teenagers of our small town anyway.  No, really.  They buy pairs of wildly colored or striped or spotted or patterned socks and deliberately mix them up, and wear the resulting mis-matched pairs.  I was dubious at first because, hey, grownup here, raised by parents who kept all our clothes strictly matched and handed down ironclad rules of dressing: 

1.  "No plaids and stripes shall be worn at the same time!!"

2.  "White shoes shall not be worn before Memorial Day nor after Labor Day, unless you are in the Navy and serving in Florida or the Tropics, and you, Young Lady, are not in the Navy!"

3.  "Sandals will not be worn before May, nor after September, I don't care if it's December 25th and it's 90 degrees F and we live in Texas.  It's just Not Done."

4.  "All socks shall be matched and be the same color, and they shall be a color the same as or complimentary to the outfit you are wearing.  And if no matching socks are clean, you shall wear sandals, unless it's before May or after September, in which case, you are Out Of Luck."

However, I got over it, and have seen the mismatched sock thing as a good way to empty out the Sock Basket.  So getting into the spirit of it, I found a mismatched pair for the Impossible Son and handed them over.

Ten seconds later, "Mom... they're too small."

"What do you mean?  We just got you those socks."  

I looked down.  Now, these are what my kids call "footie" socks.  They're the short little socks that barely show over the top of your sneakers, and my son is particularly fond of them.  The sock should come up over the top of his foot and up the back of his heel.  But it doesn't.  It doesn't come up over his heel.  It's too short.

Jaw dropping, I grab another pair of large socks and hand them over.  These are supposed to come up to the ankle.  Except... they don't come up over his heel, either.  So... I grabbed a pair of the Husbandly One's socks, a mismatched pair as well, and they fit.  Kind of.

"How does Papa stand these?" the Impossible Son asks conversationally as he tilts his feet side to side, peering at them dubiously.

"He loves them," I said, putting the other socks back in the basket.  "He says they're very comfortable."

"They're kind of tight around the top," and I look down and sure enough, I see red lines pressing into his skin where the socks end.

I stare at him.  "Honey," I said slowly, "I can't give you any of my socks, because my feet are much smaller than yours.  And I can't give you any of your sister's socks, because her feet are smaller than mine!"

"I know," he said miserably.  "I'll... just wear these."

I had just bought my son socks.  And he had outgrown them in less than two weeks. 

*pauses to hyperventilate*

You know, I thought I was prepared for this.  I thought, because I've already been through the teenaged thing with the Impertinent Daughter, that I at least had an idea of what to expect.  And it sank in.

This... is going to be totally different.  Teenaged boys have a completely different growth rate than girls.  I knew this intellectually, of course.  But I was basically being slapped upside the head with it.  

When the Impertinent Daughter started her growth spurts, she outgrew a brand new pair of shoes in less than an hour.  They had fit just fine in the store, had plenty of wiggle room, and were comfortable.  We put the shoes back in the box, took them to the cash register, bought them, and went home.  She took the shoes out of the box, put them on, took three steps and cried out, "They're too tight!!"

Understand, she's still wearing the same socks she'd worn to try the shoes on.

I knelt in front of her, just like I had in the store, and felt her feet in the shoes, and it felt like her feet were about to burst out of them.  Literally.  I made her take them off and put her old shoes back on.  

She couldn't get them on.

I thought maybe her feet had swollen for... whatever reason feet swell, so I said, "Hey, run around barefoot for now, we'll try them again in the morning."

She couldn't get them on in the morning.

When we went back to the store, her feet had grown a whole size bigger!

So... I thought, when it came to the Impossible Son, hey, I can handle it!

Riiiiiiight.

He's grown nearly four and a half inches since last May.  Which doesn't sound like much, until I tell you that three of them were just in the last two and a half weeks!!  And his hands are now officially bigger than mine, which I know isn't saying much because I have small hands.  His feet are huge right now (think Sora from Kingdom Hearts), and I know that means he's going to grow again, to fit those big feet.

He's going to be taller than me.

I knew that.  I expect that, but it was always in the distant future, when he would be sixteen, seventeen... not now.  Not... like... by next summer, when he'll be thirteen.

Holy Mackinoly... he's going to be thirteen.

*hyperventilates*

He's my youngest child, and all of a sudden, time's passage is rushing by me as I watch his jaw lengthen, his chin lose it's pointy-ness, his face taking on a more adult aspect, and my baby is receding further and further into the past.  I no longer see the cheerful toddler, or the bouncy kid with the big grin, I see the adult that is to come, and whoa!

Then he catches a toad and brings it to show me. And goes flying awkwardly after it when it hops out of his hands.

Yep.  The kid is still there.  And I can still smoke his butt at Smash Brothers.

Hey, it's the little things...

"Don't stop, tick-tock, sun blows up today..."

Today is officially the start of my kids' summer vacation, since school let out Friday, and... apparently weekends don't count.  At least that's what I've been told.  Repeatedly.

Of course, they're still passed out, and I'm up, because I'm still in "gotta get up and make the lunches and take the kids to school," mode.  And because I know this is the only quiet time I will get today.  Now, a responsible mom would have rousted the younguns out of bed by now and had a variety of projects for them to do, but we already know that's not me, right?

Besides, after the tough year they've both had, they deserve it.  At least for today.

When they were younger, I used to look at summer break with a mix of "Yay vacation!" and "Nooooo... I'll be home alone with them... all day long!!!"  Which I know is probably not an attitude I'm officially supposed to take.  Officially, as a stay-at-home mom, I'm supposed to be all, "Oh, I'm so glad to have them home with me where I can nurture their little hearts and minds and be a mom!!"

Yeah... not so much.  Because you have to understand, I'm essentially raising Calvin and Hobbes.  And those roles are interchangeable, too.  Or you could say I'm raising John Sheppard and Rodney McKay.  Kirk and Spock.  Basically, think of any extremely bright, prone to getting into either excessive trouble or excessive mischief duo you can think of... and that's my kids.  My kids are extremely intelligent, very inventive, and attract trouble like a magnet.  I am barely one step ahead of them, and that margin gets smaller and smaller every day.  Thinking of things to keep the Dynamic Duo occupied, engaged, and happy is a bigger and bigger challenge every single year.  It's crazy.  And I have alternately loved and dreaded it for years.

However, in the last two years, I have met the advent of summer break with a huge sense of relief, especially on the Impossible Son's behalf.  We live in a small town, with a small school district, and good teachers are far and few between.  Inspiring teachers are even rarer.  And while the district has a strict policy about bullying... it isn't consistently enforced, if it is enforced at all.  Only when it's something drastic, or so big that it can't be hidden easily.  Like last year, with the kid who physically attacked my son.  Had he only shoved the Impossible Son, or called him names, the administration of the elementary school he went to last year would have made conciliatory noises at me and promised to "deal" with the boy, talk to him, etc, etc.  But because it was a big issue, where the police had to be called, and because the Husbandly One and I threatened legal action, especially when it was shown that the principal dropped the ball when it came to informing us, AND because there was a threat to younger, smaller children, the bully was isolated from the rest of the school population for about three months and counseled within an inch of his life.  Plus, the principal "retired" shortly after that.

His first year of junior high was a mixed bag.  Great, because he was in band and discovered a whole new group of friends and hey, new school!  And sucky because there's only one junior high in town, and five elementary schools' worth of kids are going there, so... not only are there new friends, but... the old bullies are there, too.  And they didn't wait too long to start in.

Not only that, but he had a teacher bullying him, too.  And when I switched him out of  that class, he waited until the last three weeks of school to tell me that his bullies were in the new class.  So they were in his first, second, and fourth period classes.  Fourth period was gym.

*sigh*

And... the Impossible Son also learned the social implications of hanging out with the Wrong People.   Hanging out with the kids who always got in trouble, who back-talked the teachers, who harassed other kids, meant that when he was being harassed and he appealed for help from the teachers, they weren't as willing to listen to him.  And tended to look the other way.  It also meant that when he found kids whom he shared interests with, kids who liked the same books he did, or read manga, too, they weren't as willing to talk to him because... he hung out with the kids who harassed them for reading or being smart.  And they were afraid of being played.

He also found out what happens when he hangs out with a kid who rubs Mom the wrong way.

Yeesh, that was a tough one!  I don't often go off on a kid, but every once in a great while, one of my kids' friends will send out vibes that grate on my nerves like coarse sand on sunburned skin, and I'll balk at letting them hang out.  And I'm always vindicated later on.  And no, I don't say, "Told you so!" or "I was right!"  I usually hug them and say, "I'm sorry."

Then there's the math issue.  Dear gods, if there is ONE thing about this district that makes me absolutely furious, it is the absolutely SUCK-TASTIC quality of the math education here.  Seriously.  They have absolutely no clue how to teach math here.    Can anyone explain to me how it is possible for my daughter to make 98's, 97's, and 95's in Pre-AP Physics... and 50's, 60's, and 70's in AP Pre-Calculus??  They're using the same math!!!  That's why they're taking them together!!

By the way, the reason she didn't fail completely (she passed with a 78) was because of the math she learned in Physics class.  I kept trying to the Impertinent One into asking Uber-Awesome Physics teacher for help, but she didn't want to overburden him.  Because she wasn't the only one.

And then there was my son, who had an actually semi-competent teacher this year, and when I could convince him to go to tutoring, he raised his grade from 56 to an 88.  Then... he stopped going to tutoring.  And when I got him back, his grade went up, but not as dramatically, and when I asked his teacher about it, she looked at me helplessly and said, "Mrs. J.  there's just so much I can teach him... and so much he doesn't know because... he never learned it."

He never learned it.  Because they didn't teach it to him in elementary school.

And you know, my son isn't alone.  

So, yes, I am relieved that school is over for three months, and I can spend this time again trying to get my son back up to speed.  And trying to make up for the lacks in what passes for an educational system in Texas.  

Ibuprofen, anyone?

Because I like to get their attention...

I'm at the dryer, pulling out dry towels and putting them in the basket when I hear the fridge door open.  And I know it's the Walking Stomach otherwise known as my son, so I immediately call out, "Leave the strawberries alone!  They're for lunches!"

"Not touching 'em!" my son shouts back as I hear crackling and rattling coming from the kitchen.

"Leave the blackberries alone!" I shout.

"Not touching 'em," he shouts back, sounding almost bored as more crackling and rattling is heard.

Just for grins, I shout, "And whatever you do, leave the squid tentacles alone!"

"Not touch... wait... WHAT??"  An outraged face pops up in the door to frown at me.

"Just checking to see if you were listening," I said with a grin.

Yep, still got it.

And sometimes, it goes better than you expect...

So, last Tuesday, I went to have a chat with the principal about the referral the Impossible Son got on Monday, in hopes of getting rid of it. Because it was so totally not deserved. And I admit, I was geared up for another battle, because... you just never know, right?

I've always gotten along with the woman who is currently principal. She was the tenth grade assistant principal at the high school last year, and I never had a problem with her. So I was pleased when she got the position of head principal at the junior high earlier this year. So... I was kind of dreading the idea of having to butt heads, you know?

Instead, it was probably the most reasonable conversation I've had with anyone in administration. We sat down and the first thing she said was, "I have a vague outline of what's been going on, but I know you pretty well, so... what happened??"

So, I filled her in, and she took notes and then looked up when I told her about Mr. Impossible being pulled from band and said, "Weren't you called?"

"No," I said and she frowned.

And when I mentioned that he had been pulled from P.E. on Friday to color a picture that frown got deeper and she said, "Wait... she pulled him on Friday, too?"

"Yes," I said.

"And she didn't call you then, either?"

"No."

When I mentioned that he'd been pulled from class on Wednesday, she sat up straight and said, "Just... how many times has Mrs. Picky pulled Mr. Impossible from class?"

"I understand this was a frequent occurrence," I said, keeping my temper under control, because I know Mrs. G. was just trying to establish the facts. "And I was never informed. Mrs. Picky has both my cell phone number, and my email address, and she never contacted me about pulling my son from classes."

"And he's been removed from her class for," and she looked down at the file, "a personality clash?"

"By the time Monday arrived," I said calmly, "it had gone way past personality clashes and straight on to mutual hostility and aggravation. In fact, I will go so far as to say it was plain straight out bullying on her part." And I went on to tell her about the circumstances on Monday and asked that the referral she'd written be removed.

"Oh, no problem," Mrs. G. said. "It shouldn't have been written in the first place. And I'll look at the Band-Aid incident, too. That should probably be removed as well. But the I.S.S. because of Nut-Check Thursday..."

"Oh, I have no problem with that one," I said, trying not to laugh at this point. "He deserved that one! And if anything, that one will teach him to pick his friends a little more carefully."

We laughed about that, and then chatted about a bullying problem that had come up for the Impossible Son, and I passed on what his grade level AP had told me, which was she was aware of it but could not intervene because "she needed my permission to intervene," which made Mrs. G.'s eyes nearly pop out.

"Uh, no," she said, very affronted. "If we see bullying, we have to intervene. We are required by both district policy and state law to intervene if we see bullying! She doesn't have to wait... I see I need to have a meeting with my AP's to discuss this and make sure they all understand what they're supposed to do!"

"Yes," I said, and then thanked her for her time and patience. What actions were taken away from this meeting? Well, she is going to be talking with Mrs. Picky about her actions regarding the Impossible Son, and the having a meeting with all her teachers to make sure they all understand that if a child needs to be pulled from another class to finish an assignment or for extra work, it is a sign there is a problem, and the parent must be informed. NO EXCEPTIONS.

I am totally cool with that.

She will also be removing the referral from Monday from the Impossible Son's record.

I am totally cool with that, too.

On an aside, as we were walking out, she said, "You know when I got back from a conference, the office ladies were passing around this check out slip, and laughing over it, and I wanted to see it so I read it and there was your name, and your son's, and then I saw the reason you'd checked him out was for a ... rescue mission. What was up with that??"

I laughed and said, "Well, I didn't think you'd approve if I wrote kidnapping, and I was rescuing him from Mrs. Picky, so...."

"See, I knew there was a reason I liked you!"

So, maybe the next two years won't be so bad after all? One can only hope!

UPDATE: The referral was removed from his record. Mrs. G. for the WIN!

Because creativity needs to be nurtured...

The Impossible Son has one class period that at one time might have been called "study hall." However, this one is more interactive, as it's basically a tutoring period because our district fell way behind on math and reading scores ("hmmmm, wonder how that happened?" Jo asks sarcastically). So... he's getting extra help in math and in language arts.

So, a couple of days ago, they were working on "correcting sentence fragments," basically changing fragments and making them into whole sentences. And the example given was "at the station," which had a finished example of "I can meet you at the station tomorrow morning."

Then the teacher made the mistake of saying, "But that's boring, I'm sure y'all can do better than that!"

Heh.

So... these are the sentences my SON came up with. His "corrections" will be in italics. You might want to put any liquids far from the computer, and don't drink anything while reading, because some of them are surprisingly hysterical.

Don't say I didn't warn you!

1. Before the dance I killed a vampire.

2. While we worked on the experiment my friends turned into zombies.

3. Once the baseball season begins, THEY WILL COME!!

4. Ahead of me, he watched me with a bat.

5. After the summer vacation, vampires came.

6. Without a pen or pencil I can't kill Bigfoot.

7. Opposite the park he still watched me, but with Bigfoot.

8. When she began to speak a bear came, wielding a sword.

9. Even though the temperature was warm, the bears took over.

10. From my seat, I could see the orcs coming.

11. Next to the library, they were still watching me.

12. How the rumor spread was because of the duck.

13. On top of my dresser was a honey badger.

14. Past the principal's office, they continued to watch me.

15. When they are found, we take them to NARNIA!!



I think my personal favorite is #6. I laughed so hard when he read that one out to me that I nearly drove us into a ditch. Though... a bear wielding a sword is pretty funny, and so is a honey badger on a dresser. I wonder if it cares?

For eleven years old and having virtually no writing instruction beyond what I cram down his throat during those times he's willing to sit still for it, that's not a bad fledgling effort at letting his wonderfully weird sense of humor show through. What kind of bothers me, though, is the teacher had laughed and said, "This is weird. It's crazy, what's up with this??"

And then I remembered, "Oh, wait, that's right, they don't have things like irony, humor, and creativity here." Because, you know, this sort of thing, well... it's normal at my house!

Yes, yes, I'm getting sarcastic again.

Still, I'm proud of what he's done, and happy to see his creativity developing. I can't wait to see what he does next!

Because random is the word of the day...

I was watching my kids the other day, walking out the back gate on their way to a pick-up game of soccer out by the high school and the Husbandly One said, "Wow, the Impossible Son is almost as tall as the Impertinent Daughter."

And wow, he was right. The Impossible Son is definitely catching up to his sister. It's a surprise, because he's always been so small, so tiny compared to the other kids in his class. Watching him play soccer all these years has had us alternately elated and terrified. Elated because he's really good, he's extremely fast, and his small size is a definite advantage when it comes to maneuvering on the field. Terrified because his small size means he gets knocked around, and especially lately, the other players seem like giants next to him. Especially when he's in the goal box.

He's growing like a weed. All of a sudden, his arms and legs are too long, and his hands and feet are too big. He's outgrowing clothes and shoes at the drop of a hat. He's eating everything in the house and groceries run out way too fast. And even though my husband and I are both small (he's 5'6" and I'm 5'3"), I'm wondering if the tall genes in my mom's family are activating, and Mr. Impossible is going to be taller than both of us?

I remember when my nephew suddenly started shooting up in height, and the day he realized that he was taller than me. It was Thanksgiving and we were in the kitchen. He was handing me a fork when he suddenly froze and grabbed my hand, staring at it. "Aunt Jo," he said, his eyes wide. "Your hands are so... tiny!!" Then he stared at me in shock and said, "You're tiny!!"

I laughed and said, "What brought all this on?"

And he said, "You've always seemed so... big to me! I mean... you're... Aunt Jo!!"

I have sudden visions of my son going through the same thing. I wonder if he'll have that same moment of staring at me and realizing he's taller than me and have his whole reality shift because of it. I'm waiting for my own shock when he's tall enough that we're able to stand eye to eye.

I"m still reeling from being able to do that with my daughter.

Part of me isn't ready for any of this. Somewhere in my mind, both of my kids are still small, still hanging on to the leg of my jeans with a determined little fist, still chirping away in their little voices and asking questions that I still have answers for. Then I look at them now and see... that they aren't so small any more.

They still chatter away, and they still ask me questions. Some of them I have answers for, and some of them, we have to go look it up. I'm just glad the dialog is still open, to tell you the truth.

As I watched them walking out the gate together, though, I found myself glad that they're growing together, and as they get older, they still find things they can do together. That through all the squabbling and fussing, they're still friends. I just hope that when he's taller than her, he doesn't forget she's still in range of his stomach!

Writing in Public...

Yes, I'm in the public library in San Marcos yet again for another summer. For the past three years, the Impertinent Daughter has been going to meetings for the Animanga Club. The Impossible Son and I would find a table with available plugs and hunker down for the duration. Sometimes, he would find a pile of manga to read, or books that interested him. Or I would check out a library computer for him to play games on while I did some writing. Because I've been finding it easier to write at the library than at home.

Writer's block sucks, by the way, just in case you were wondering.

This year, though, the Impossible Son is old enough to go to Animanga Club, too, so I am actually alone at my table... and finding it almost impossible to write. Part of it is missing my little companion... who isn't so little any more, by the way. And the other part is... paranoia. Because most of the tables near accessible and available plugs do not have sides that face convenient walls, so... anyone can walk up behind me and read over my shoulder, and regardless of what I'm writing, I have never liked having anyone read or look over my shoulder. Sucked when I was taking art in college, because that's all the teachers do is look over your shoulder to judge your progress.

Anyhow, whenever I'm working on something a little... er... adult, shall we say... I can always tell who read over my shoulder by the fact that their ears are turning red as they hurry away.

*sigh*

Add in my extreme dislike of sitting with my back to doors or wide open areas, and you can see my problem. Thank you, high school, for giving me that particular issue.

Still, my kids are enjoying themselves and probably were a big hit when they walked in the door. Come on, it's an Animanga club, and the kids both have wildly colored hair. The Impertinent Daughter, though she started the summer red, is now once again blue, and the Impossible Son opted for bright florescent green (it glows under black light, how cool is THAT??). This, of course, makes me the Coolest Mom Ever. Thank you, Manic Panic.

So far, all I've really accomplished today, writing-wise, is a long email to my mom, and this blog entry. Did I mention writer's block sucks? Because it does. Like a Hoover. Or a Dyson. No... a Hoover. Because it sucks like crap.

Anyhow, if this keeps up, I'm either going to have to beg my husband for either a new battery for this old laptop so I can sit in odd corners and type away to my heart's content (what a COOL idea, and I know just the corner I could use, too!!), or beg for a new laptop, which really, we can't. Because I want my next laptop to be a Mac (no, I am no longer a fan of Windows, how did you know?). And to be fair, the next person in the family who should get a laptop should be Miss Impertinence. After all, she'll be starting college in two years...

*has a moment of major Mom-Freak-Out*

OMG... she'll be graduating high school in two years. Excuse me, I have to find a paper bag, because I'm hyperventilating. Because, no way. I mean, she only took her first steps LAST YEAR... right? Where the hell did the time go?? Is it a rule of quantum physics or something that time goes from dragging so that it takes approximately three years to go from Christmas to Christmas to suddenly only a week passing before it's Christmas again?? Since when did we go from "slower than molasses in January" time to warp speed, warp factor 11?

Those commercials weren't kidding. Life comes at you fast. Somebody should have told me to wear a helmet!!

Adventures in Grocery Shopping...

This is what I posted on Facebook a few minutes ago...

"Grocery shopping with my children is rather like being orbited by my own tiny planet and moon. A hyper, dancing, chattering, extremely frenetic tiny planet while a very grouchy, cranky moon continually snarks and fusses at the tiny planet. No wonder I forget stuff. Aleve, please?"

The Impossible Son orbits around me, literally sticking to my side and hopping, dancing, twirling, and jigging on both sides of me, and behind me, and in front of me, until I can't keep track of him and I end up almost falling over him or bumping him or... yeah. And yes, it drives me NUTS. It was one thing when he was small and I could easily move him either into the basket or up on my back or hip and thus out of the way.

Now, however, he's eleven, and he's in that all long arms/long legs stage of pre-explosive growth, and that's just entirely too much boy to be dancing around Mama and nearly tripping her up!

And while he's doing this, he's talking my ear off and with the grocery store being full of people and annoying music, I can't make out a word he's saying, and I can't focus or concentrate for anything. GAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

In the meantime, my daughter is pushing the basket, fussing almost nonstop at him to get off the shelf, get off the the display, move out of the way, don't touch that, put that down, don't pick that up, get that for Mum, please, no, don't put that in the basket, not that one, genius, the other one, wait, no, don't touch that or you'll knock it all over... MOOOOOM!!!

Yes, as you can see, the fun of grocery shopping with my kids lives on.

It's very... migraine inducing.

Good thing I love them. Of course, I can't walk away from them and pretend they aren't mine because (1) they look just like me and (2) it's a small town, everybody knows us, and no one is fooled any more, though they might take them off my hands for an hour or two out of sheer kindness. Maybe.

Have I mentioned that my kids are also going through the ravenous wolf phase? The Impossible Son is eating nearly everything in sight. Fruit doesn't last long in our house. Or frozen vegetables. Or crackers. Or ham. Or hot dogs. Or leftover grilled hamburger patties. Or cheese. Or chips. Or bananas... dammit, I forgot bananas!!

*head-desk*

And the Impertinent Daughter, at 16, is still growing, and has moments of, "I'm not hungry," followed by three or four days of, "eat ALL the food in the house!!" And there are days when she sort of eyes her brother, but he's too skinny to eat. Not enough meat on those long bones of his. Perhaps I should be nervous!

And then the Husbandly One comes home and says, "Where's all the food?? Didn't you just go grocery shopping???"

And I say, "It was sheer self-preservation!! I had to, or they would eat ME!!!

I don't know why he never believes me...

The State of Me...

Okay, so... let's see... I went to see an orthopedic specialist two weeks ago about my knee. Verdict, yes, I banged it up good and proper, I also have osteo-arthritis in my right knee (not unexpected, considering the way I've injured it in the past), and... at some point will need intervention. I'm too young and active for knee replacement, he could do surgery to clean out all the crunch stuff in there, but it would come back eventually (also true), or there's an injection he could give me after the inflammation and irritation calms down in my knee called "Synvisc One" that would basically replace the fluid that lubricates and cushions the joints in my knee. He's had good results with that one, and it turns out that the mom of one of Mr. Impossible's team mates has had it and said, "OMG, Auntie... get it. It's wonderful. I can move, I can walk, and it doesn't hurt!!"

You know... I was doing pretty well there for a long time. I mean, I was able to run and play with my kids, and while stairs were tricky at times, mostly, things with Rice Crispy Knee were good. Until now.

So for the time being, Dr. S. gave me a steroid injection in Rice Crispy Knee to calm down the inflammation and help with the pain, and advised me to stay off of it as much as possible, no stairs, no bending it, no kneeling, no lifting, etc., and to use a crutch when I needed to walk around.

Okay, cool, I can do that, and I promise, I've been very, very good. Very good. Except, I haven't told my mom about it because... really, she would freak for no good reason, and right now, I just can't see the point of upsetting her. Really. Besides, I really, really don't want to hear the "Marching Band Ruined Your Health, And So Did Drum Corps, If You'd Only Stayed In Swimming And If You'd Only Gone to Bellaire High School, You'd Be So Much Better Off" lecture again. I got a five year break from that one, but now that her memory isn't so dependable, she doesn't remember us settling that one so... it's being recycled. Yay.

Last week, the Impertinent Daughter turned... sixteen.

*incipient freak-out*

Have I mentioned how awesome my daughter is? May the 4th is her birthday, it's Star Wars Day, and "The Avengers" came out in the theaters. TRIPLE BONUS!!! So... we took her to San Marcos for dinner at her favorite Chinese restaurant, where the Impossible Son got this in his fortune cookie...

If you can't read it, it says, "About time I got out of that cookie!"

After that, we went to the theater where I'd pre-ordered tickets and got in line. And hey, I just have to say, I really like this "ordering movie tickets online" thing, because the show was sold out!! It was awesome!! Yes, yes, I know, welcome to the 21st century, Jo.

I learned a valuable lesson that day, too. The Impertinent Daughter is absolutely NEVER allowed to ever, ever, EVER drink Mountain Dew again. As far as she's concerned, it's a controlled substance. OMG... one of her friends gave her a can for her birthday, and she was feeling tired when she got home from school. She wanted to stay awake for the movie, she said, so she decided to drink the Mountain Dew with her snack. This is around 4:30 p.m.

Holy Mackinoly, y'all, that child was wired for sound!! I mean, seriously, she talked nonstop (except when she was eating, and even then it was a close thing) from 4:35 until 1 a.m.!!!! EVEN DURING THE MOVIE.

I would shush her so I could hear the dialogue, and I'll say this for her, unless her enthusiasm got away from her, she mostly kept her voice really soft and quiet, which had irritations of it's own, because I couldn't hear her well enough to understand her!! And she tried valiently to be quiet in the car on the way home after, but... chatter chatter chatter!!! At least it mostly made sense!!

"The Avengers" was ... awesome by the way!!! Just... oh, yeah, gonna go see that again just so we can catch what we missed the first time!!!

The Impossible Son had a soccer game Saturday, and didn't play like himself at all. By Saturday evening, he had a fever of 103 F (39.4 C). That was fun. Turned out to be a virus that's blasting its way through town. The Impertinent Daughter fell victim to it Sunday night, but her temperature didn't get as high as the Impossible One's did, thank goodness. Mr. Impossible missed Monday, and Miss Priss should be back at school tomorrow.

After her doctor's appointment tomorrow, I shall retire to the couch with pillows to prop up Rice Crispy Knee with an ice pack and not do one damn thing until the kids get home from school!!!

Weirdest. Morning. EVER.

You know, I haven't posted a Weird Animal Story in a while, mainly because the Killer Psycho Mockingbirds have been relatively quiet. So... I guess we were kind of overdue.

So... this morning. We troop out of the house so I can take the kids to school, and as we get to the car, I pause. Why? Because there's this huge BUZZARD, also known as a turkey vulture in the street behind my car. Just sort of... hanging out. You know. "Doopty doo, doopty doo, nothing to worry about folks, hyuk, just doin' mah buzzard thang heere, heh... don't mind me, now, y'all just... pretend I'm not here!"

Riiiiiight.

And he won't move. Usually, buzzards don't like being approached, and will take off if you get too close. Not this one. I figured whatever it was that was dead, it must be really, er... tasty. Or something. Problem was, I couldn't smell anything dead nearby, and didn't see anything, either. So, I herded the kids into the car and had to back up creatively so I didn't end up with a big ol' turkey buzzard stuck to my rear bumper. And it was as I was pulling out that I realized what had attracted Mr. Buzzard.

Our neighbors had this... this... HUGE FISH lying in their front yard against the mutual hedge between our properties. I swear the thing must have been six feet long!! NO WONDER Mr. Buzzard was so determined to stick around, I mean, he must have thought he'd hit the Mother Lode of Dead Crap!!

Okay, so... the kids were freaking out, and laughing hysterically, and kept looking back to see if he'd approached the Big Dead Fish yet the whole way up the street.

The Impossible Son looked back as we turned and said, "He's going for it!"

So... we get to the Impossible Son's school, and there is a truck in front of us that has a... tiny deer sitting on the hitch. No, seriously. A tiny little deer, sitting cross-legged on the hitch with one of it's forelegs up in the air, like it's saying, "Hi there!!"

The Impertinent One said, "Oh, I wonder if it's like the cow Papa and I saw on a truck once! When they hit the turn signal, the cow's eyes glowed red and the legs went up and down!"

"Yaaaaagh!" I said. "That sounds creepy!! And distracting!!"

The truck didn't turn, so the kids were disappointed. However, after I dropped the Impossible Son off, and then went to drop Miss Impertinent off at the high school, the truck appeared again, turning out of the driveway of one of the schools I pass on the way home, and there was the tiny deer again. This time, the truck turned, and THE DEER WAVED AT ME AND KICKED ONE LEG UP AND DOWN!!

O.O

I almost had a car accident, I was so... mesmerized...

So, when I got home, Mr. Turkey Buzzard was pecking half-heartedly at the Big Dead Fish, and I could swear he was saying, "WTF is this shit??" I peeked around the hedge and realized his problem right away.

It was a TAXIDERMIED Big Dead Fish!! In fact, it had lost most of its scales at some point, and there was fiber sticking out from where it had split at the top, and oh, the reek!!! Evidently, the bushes sort of protected us from it.

Mr. Buzzard gave this indignant squawk and sort of hop-flapped away before taking off for something less well-preserved. I mean, seriously, it's pretty bad when you manage to disgust a BUZZARD.

LIFE. It Happens.

Can I just... step off the roller coaster for a few minutes? Kinda feeling dizzy... just a bit.

Let's see, we're having to replace the central air/central heating unit in our house because (1) it has reached the age where there are no spare parts available any longer and (2) even if there were spare parts available, it wouldn't be safe to fix.

*sigh*

Yeah, that was fun. The guy who came to repair it works for the company who installed it in the first place some twenty years ago, and after first telling me what needed fixing and how much it would cost, then telling me the parts that needed fixing needed to be replaced, then telling me they don't make those parts any more, I got to deal with the blustering, Good Ol' Boy owner of said company. Mr. Good Ol' Boy took one look at me and decided that I was the type that could be easily manipulated into what he wanted me to do, and proceeded to try to intimidate me into agreeing with him that his company should be the ones to do the work.

Y'all know that went over like a lead balloon, right?

Funny how Mr. Blow Hard and his tech went all through the closet where the CA/CH unit is housed, with Mr. Blow Hard taking measurements and loudly telling his tech that they'd have to rip out the wall, and probably part of the floor to put in a new coil, and he would recommend a contractor to rebuild the wall after they were done replacing the unit, blah, blah, blah, and it never occurred to him that I was texting the Husbandly One basically a blow by blow account of what was going on while I sat quietly at the kitchen table with the laptop. Mostly, Mr. Blow Hard shouted out a series of arcane numbers that I'm guessing were supposed to be measurements of some kind, or maybe it was just supposed to impress me with how technical he was...

When he finally "presented" me with his "findings," I said politely, "Well, I'll discuss this with my husband, and we'll let you know what we decide."

He frowned, then smiled indulgently and looked at his tech, nodding as he said, "Oh, right. You'll discuss this with your husband." He snickered. "You mean, you'll ask him what to do and then do what he tells you."

Yeah, that pretty much made me see red, but I just raised an eyebrow and said, "No, I mean I'll discuss it with my husband. We're partners. Neither one of us makes big money decisions on our own. We talk it out, go over the pros and cons, and go from there. Sometimes he has the final say, sometimes I have the final say, but either way, it gets discussed, we do research, and decide how big a hit our budget can take, because it affects both of us. So when I say we'll discuss it and let you know, that's precisely what I mean. You have a problem with that?"

"Well, if you go with us, you won't have to pay the service fee for this visit," Mr. Blow Hard said, still trying to work the intimidation factor. "But if you go with someone else, I'll have to send you a bill for $85."

"That's fine," I said with a sweet smile. "We'll let you know."

"You should decide soon, because we might be booked up," he said as he headed for the door.

"We'll take that chance," I said firmly. "Bye now."

Yeah, that was fun.

We called a couple of companies, but decided on one recommended to us by the Tall Blonde. What settled it was (1) he got back to us and (2) he didn't just look at the main unit. He also went up into the attic to check the ducts and connections, and went under the house to check the coil and the drains. He was very patient with my questions, and also cleared up a mystery that's been driving us crazy for some time now.

Every time the A/C or the heat came on, I'd smell this... faint burning odor that made the back of my throat burn, and would sometimes set my asthma off. We had the unit checked several times because of this, but there was never anything we could find to explain it.

Then Mr. A/C guy takes a look at the duct work and peers up at the top of our unit and goes, "Huh."

Yeah, that's not a good sound, either.

Seems that when Mr. Blow Hard's company installed the unit, they used a type of duct work that has since been banned in our country because it's... well, basically a piece of crap. And when all the new ductwork was installed, they left this original duct work in place where the unit connects to it all. Basically, what happens to the crap duct is that it dries out and starts cracking, then dry rots and gets blown about in the system. That's what I've been smelling every time the unit comes on.

Mr. A/C said, "What I don't understand is why they left it there. Because even if the new duct wouldn't fit, there's a way to work around it and adapt it, so... why leave the old stuff? It's not safe!"

Well, judging by the crap unit Mr. Blow Hard wanted us to buy, I'd say it was done to cut corners. After all, how many homeowners actually look up into their attic to see what they've got up there? And how many of those that do would know what to look for or what they're even looking at?

We're fortunate that the weather has been mild, though the first three or four nights after we lost our heat were tough, because it got down in the thirties. Thank goodness for lots of blankets!! This house holds on to the cold like you wouldn't believe, and I've had to open the windows during the day just so I can feel my fingers!!

The Impertinent Daughter's team survived a three day soccer tournament over last weekend, and so did we! Again, in San Marcos at the fields where the Impossible Son and I froze our katooshies off. And, yes, it was cold, but not as cold as last year! Friday night, they were in first place, but by Saturday afternoon, because of the bizarre point system the folks who were running the tournament were using, the JV found themselves playing for third.

I'm still not sure where we placed, because every person I've asked have said something different. Personally, I think they placed pi.

Hey, it makes about as much sense as that point system!!

And the Impossible Son has started soccer practice for the rec league this week, which is going to be frustrating, I can tell already. Why? Because once again, there weren't enough coaches for the record FIVE U12 teams that were formed this season, so they basically started grabbing any warm body. And one of the warm bodies is the woman who is coaching my son's team.

I have nothing against her. She's a good person, I've known her since the Impertinent Daughter started playing soccer, and now her daughter and mine are playing JV for the high school. It's cool. However... she's never coached soccer before in her life and has no idea where to start. The good news is, she knows this, and has enlisted the help of several girls on the high school team, as well as any parents who have any sort of know how, or is willing to help out. This can work, I've seen it work before.

I've also seen it go to hell in a handbasket.

So... I'm hoping and keeping my fingers crossed that things will go well. However, the Husbandly One and I have decided this will be Mr. Impossible's last season playing here. If he plays rec league next fall, it will be in San Marcos.

And that is the State of Jo so far. Woo.

Because sometimes, they just need you to be there...

So... had a parent-teacher conference with the Impossible Son's primary teacher today. It was interesting, and encouraging.

It was only supposed to be for 15 minutes, but... we ended up talking for 45! We talked about the Impossible Son's math problems at length, and I found that he's been rushing through his math assignments so he can read a book afterwards. While she's pleased to see him reading, she's not so pleased that he's rushing through his math, getting problems wrong, and not asking for help. He says nothing to her. Just finishes as quickly as possible and hands in it, then grabs his book and disappears into it.

*sigh*

Shades of his mother. Meaning me. Which means I know exactly what he's doing.

So, I told her, explaining yet again about the lack of trust in his teachers, and said, "It's not you personally. This started in second grade, with Mrs. Oblivious Teacher, who is now teaching fifth grade." I filled her in on what he had gone through, trotted out several of the math "explanations" she had given me, and followed up with what he had gotten in third and fourth grade, including the outside issues that were causing problems for him.

"Was he as lost as he seems to be now last year, too?" Mrs. S. asked me.

"Oh, yes," I replied. "I had Mrs. H. send home math homework, worksheets, whatever it took, to tutor him through what was stumping him."

We went over what I've found so far that stumps him, showed her what he was doing and what I had done to correct it, and finished with, "I can't help him if I don't know what's going wrong, so please, please, please send home worksheets!"

About this time, a mouse made its presence known.

Not long after that, a second larger mouse made its presence known.

We spent the rest of our time with our feet up off the floor, keeping an eye out for the mice, and talking about the Impossible Son and what we could do to help him.

Somewhere in there, I found myself volunteering to tutor three of her students who are having difficulty with reading comprehension. They read beautifully, but have no memory whatsoever of what they've read. "Apparently, this is a skill they didn't learn back in second grade," she said grimly. "Nor have they been tested or had any sort of intervention recommended, so far as I can find out. And the parents are... not responding to any of my notes."

Oh, goody.

So... this should be fun. I'll start out twice a week, and depending on how things go, I may end up doing it more often, but we'll see. I figure getting them to break the stories down into smaller parts and asking them to tell me what they remember is a good place to start, and I'll expand from there.

The other advantage is that this gets me into the Impossible Son's classroom twice a week, so I can see what's going on and unobtrusively observe him in class.

Lastly, I also need to talk to his Language Arts teacher about why he's making a 75 in a class he normally makes 90's to 100's in. I mean, seriously, this is a kid who is reading at a 7th grade level! I mean, I have my suspicions, but... I'll wait until I talk to the teacher.

*sigh*

Tis a puzzlement!!

People to do, things to see...

So... it's been awhile, hasn't it?

Part of that's been because we had the Stomach Virus from Hell, which was possibly a norovirus. Well, the Husbandly One got it on a Wednesday night, threw up and had... um... well, let's just say he drove the porcelain bus, too. Yay. He had me worried to the point of hovering.

I don't hover. Unless someone is really sick.

He got better Thursday afternoon, which was a good thing, because that's the day the school didn't call me when the Impossible Son had been attacked at school.

*sigh*

By Friday, I had a meeting with the principal, informing her in no uncertain terms that she would be seeing both myself and the Husbandly One for a meeting, it was not going to be postponed to a more convenient time because as far as we were concerned, since she and her staff dropped the ball, her convenience was irrelevant to the situation.

I will say this about the Impossible Son's principal. Confronting her is like bashing yourself into a brick wall surrounded by fluffy pink blondeness. Seriously. First, she tried to blame the lack of calling on the counselor. "I told her to do it immediately," Mrs. K. said. "She knew she was supposed to inform you first thing!"

"Except she was in the office with you, because according to your own words, the student was out of control."

"Well, yes, but she should have called you the minute she left my office, and I reprimanded her for it, telling her that her priority is always to inform the parents..."

"Mrs. L. has always called me when there is a problem," I said firmly. "That has never been a problem for us before."

Yeah, that kind of threw her.

And... she tried to turn the Impossible Son's esteem issues back on us. Ohhhh, don't even go there! Don't... even.

We announced our intention to transfer Mr. Impossible, and THO tried to couch it diplomatically, saying that sometimes, just changing an environment can be good (he's had personal experience with that), and of course, she tried to discourage us because they really, really don't want to lose the Impossible Son from that particular school, which is the "flagship" of the district.

*insert eyeroll here*

And finding out what measures they were taking, in the meantime, to protect our son was like... pulling hen's teeth. She kept citing privacy laws to us and I finally snapped and said, "Look, I just want to know if my son is going to be safe! I want to know what guarantee there is that this won't happen again. I want to know what you are doing to make sure he's safe! Are you moving this kid to another class? Are you separating him out and putting him in in-school suspension? Are you sending him to the alternate school? Are you fitting him with a shock collar? What??"

I mean, she wouldn't even tell me if this kid was bigger than Mr. Impossible!!

I found out later through a friend who works at Mr. Impossible's school that Lug has a "shadow." A teacher who is assigned specifically to him who is with him at all times, and that he isn't allowed to come into contact with the other children.

It was a most unsatisfactory meeting on all sides.

So, THO and I made an appointment to talk to the principal of the school across the street from our backyard. She was pleasant and calm, asking for our son's name and taking notes when we told her why we were there and wanted to transfer him. Then she dropped the bomb.

It seems that the fifth grade class in our district is the largest ever, and the fifth grade classes at all four elementary schools in our town are literally jam-packed to the gills. In fact, the class at the Impossible Son's school is the largest in the district, to the point that they had to hire a fifth teacher just to handle the overload.

I already knew this. It started in second grade, when they had to hire a fifth teacher (there are normally four teachers at each grade level at his school) and let her go at the end of the year, then hired a fifth 3rd grade teacher the next year... and let her go, and so on and so forth. I just didn't realize it was district wide.

Anyhow, the principal, Mrs. O. told us she would give us a call after reviewing the situation with the fifth grade teachers at her school, and as soon as there was an opening.

That was Friday. That night, the Impossible Son got the stomach bug, and threw up continuously for several hours. He wanted his Papa with him, so THO stayed up with him while I went to grab some sleep, only to be shaken awake at 2 a.m. "We need to take Mr. Impossible to ER," THO said. "He's dehydrated."

So, I got up, got dressed, woke up the Impertinent One, grabbed a blanket, a towel, and a bowl, and drove to San Marcos and the ER there. That's when we found out it was possibly norovirus, and that we weren't the only ones. There were a lot of people with the same thing there.

Fun, fun, fun.

The Impertinent One, in the meantime, trying to stay awake and to not starve, raided the vending machines and consumed Dr. Pepper, a slice of carrot cake, a Coke, and Doritos. This... made her incredibly hyper and it was exhausting just to look at her. When we got home, the Impossible Son crashed on one couch, THO passed out in our bed, and I went and curled up in the Impertinent One's bed.

I was too tired to process that my teenage daughter was hyper and had nothing to do!!

When I eventually woke up several hours later, I staggered into the dining room and stopped, frowning. Something was missing. The feeling increased as I moved through the kitchen, and then into the living room.

She had cleaned the dining room, the kitchen, and the living room. She did dishes and several loads of laundry and... and... then she... she...

...FOLDED IT ALL AND PUT IT AWAY!!!!

I am still gobsmacked. Still.

Needless to say, our weekend was pretty mellow after that.

Well, Monday, Mrs. O. called and informed me that she had talked to Mrs. K., who had assured her that measures were in place to protect my son. And Mrs. O. was hesitant to transfer my son, but not because of Mrs. K's assurances. She said, "The thing is, we have a group of boys in our fifth grade classes and there is a lot of... ahem... drama going on with them. Normally, this is a problem with the girls, but this year, for some odd reason, it's the boys. And I'm really concerned that if we transfer your son here, we will be taking him from one ... dramatic environment... and dropping him smack-bang into the middle of another dramatic environment with the added bonus that he would be The New Kid. And Mrs. J.... that would be like tying meat around his neck and dropping him in a shark tank."

"I can see that," I said with a sigh, and I do. Great.

I haven't called the other elementary just down the street because that's the school we transferred Miss Impertinent away from when she was being bullied, and the same woman is still principal. She didn't protect Miss Priss, and I don't have a lot of confidence in her protecting Mr. Impossible.

*sigh*

That night, the Impertinent Daughter had a choir concert at the school, and I... wasn't feeling so good. But I went, leaving THO with the Impossible Son, and sat through the junior high choir's unenthusiastic and uninspired droning (no, you can't possibly call that singing) and was relieved when it was the high school choir's turn, because they actually can and do sing, and... drove home after, hoping the rock in my stomach would go away.

Yeah, I spent the night throwing up and ... driving the porcelain bus. Let's put it this way, THO didn't change out of his work clothes until the next afternoon.

So far, the Impertinent One has avoided it. *knocks frantically on wood* This stomach virus is ripping its way through town, and I just hope it doesn't come back for a second visit because... eurgh!!

And then this week, I had a checkup with the endocrinologist. During my last appointment, there was concern that the Lump on my thyroid seemed to be growing, so I was scheduled for an ultrasound, which ended up being rescheduled several times due to circumstances beyond my control (i.e. sick kids). Well, I finally got it done, and when the doctor saw me, he had a pleased smile on his face. The Lump has apparently been reabsorbed, and while they are going to be keeping close tabs on me (I go back in December), they're pretty certain this is just one more part of having Hashimoto's thyroiditis (anybody know Hashimoto? I'm sure he's missing his thyroiditis, and I really wouldn't mind giving it back...).

So... there we are, all caught up. And now, it's time for me to pick the Impossible Son up from school!