Arduousness

Four kids would be too many. I had 2 miscarriages and I think it was because God knew I'd be a terrible mother if I had more than 3 children. As it is, with 3 kids, I'm a marginal mother at best. You see, everyone has needs. And I am supposed to attend to these needs and I do. But then at 11:30 pm I start getting resentful of neediness and then I'm just plain angry and I honestly don't care how hungry or sad or confused or scared or constipated or febrile someone might be. I just want everyone to leave me the fuck alone. Truth.


Tonight I stayed up to watch a movie with my surrogate young adult child. Side Effects. I wouldn't really recommend that you watch it with your 9 yo daughter and maybe not your 12 yo son. Aside from the lesbian love scenes and graphic heterosexual sex, the movie was a bit creepy and kinda wigged me out, so now my daughter wants me to sleep in her room and my son is asleep in my room. The 20 yo is just fine though it has made her reconsider a career in psychiatry (it might help out her cousins who will need therapy bc their mother/her aunt let them watch developmentally inappropriate movies).


Summer has been incredibly busy for us. My solution to long, hot days is to be inside an air conditioned car as much as possible and this can only be accomplished by scheduling an exponential number of activities. I don't know if this is the solution to slothfulness but it sure as hell has the potential to cause exhaustion in the driver and irritability in the participants. So far kid 1 has 2 water polo teams, swim team, chess club, youth group and Boy Scouts. Kid 2 has lacrosse team, water polo team, swim team, chess club and Boy Scouts. Kid 3 has swim team and water polo and she did a week of basketball camp and she has a weekly reading class because I thought she might be a bit slow in the reading comprehension department (then I got her standardized test scores and I realized she's been fooling me). We still have another 3 weeks of water polo, Junior Olympic water polo, youth group trip, volleyball camp and sleep away camp for all 3. And I work, part time, but it's still work. WTF am I thinking? I hate TV and video games so much that I'm chasing my tale and spending close to $10,000 to torture my kids just to avoid it? Why didn't I just pull the plug?


Honestly, I don't think it was this hard for our parents. All they had to do was yell at us for talking on the phone for too long. They didn't have to contend with social media, assassinating video games, online Minecraft weirdos, electronic envy (my 9 yo has 2 friends with an iPhone 5 and she's outraged that she can't have one). Do I lock them in a closet? Give in? Or keep hemorrhaging cash and keep them so busy that they collapse in bed every night? Do they resent me? And, if it keeps them out of rehab or jail, do I care?


I realize that none of this is funny and I'm only bitching, but tough shit. And these are all rich, white girl problems. Yesterday at the dry cleaner, the kid who took my clothes was 14 yo and he and his 2 younger sisters are spending their summer in the dry cleaner's shop because their mother works there and she has no where else for them to go. Maybe that's the kind of camp in which I need to sign up my kids?


Alright, I'm exhausted now and I've been typing when I should have been cleaning the kitchen or sleeping. My poor husband is still working and he's so tired he could use tooth picks to keep his eyes open. I guess this is how it's gonna be unless we go to year round school...Australia anyone?



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:My messy home

Summer

It's 90 degrees at 10:30 in the morning, but with the humidity it feels like 98 degrees (according to The Weather Channel app). We are barely into the third week of summer and already I sense mutiny is on the horizon. I don't think there are any correct answers on how best to occupy your kids throughout the months of June - August. If you ask my kids, who are in the throes of/approaching adolescence, they'd tell you this is their ideal schedule:
A) stay up till 12-1 am every night
B) wake up at noon everyday
C) spend the 12 hours in between either playing Black Ops, Minecraft or watching movies on Amazon. (9 yo sister would request play dates with a different friend everyday and want you to do things like, take her ice skating)


I have a problem with their schedule. Maybe it's my mom's fault because she didn't tolerate slothfulness and now I'm conditioned to be the same or more likely, I'm just mean.
I don't mind being mean, because I figure that my popularity as a parent is inversely proportional to my effectiveness. But it can be exhausting, especially since everyone has an opinion now. I had no idea how easy I had it 5 years ago when they did what they were told, more or less.


I see myself as drill sergeant and they are in my boot camp. The really terrifying thing is I have morphed into my parents: "as long as you live under my roof...."
Yesterday as my almost 13 year old was complaining about some injustice, I told him not to worry because he only had to suffer through his father and my rules for 6 more years and then he could make up his own. He was surprised at the relatively little time he has left living with us and suddenly he was little again, "Mom, don't some kids still live with their parents after college?"


Speaking of which, we have the pleasure of my 20 yo niece living with us this summer. She's finished her first 2 years of college and a decade worth of teen years and she is not that much closer to maturity than my 12 year old. Don't get me wrong, she is absolutely lovely, and a joy to have in our home and I can only hope that my kids will be as successful, academically, but adolescence seems to extend into the mid 20s. The next 15 years look bleak for us.


I think I understand why parents want to live long enough to see their own kids struggle through parenthood. There is no price tag on vindication.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Squalor

I'm sitting in my car bawling my eyes out while my daughter is in her guitar lesson. It's raining outside and I have guinea pig fur all over my black leggings and t-shirt.

I've been sick the past couple of days and I think I should have just stayed in bed today. I probably wouldn't be weeping like a toddler, sucking back snot, with guinea pig fur all over my clothes sitting in my car in the rain outside the guitar teacher's house.

I've had 4 large plastic tubs lined up in our hallway for about 4 weeks waiting for my husband to put them in the attic. He's not lazy, just busy. Because of the 4 large tubs there is a very narrow path by which you can get up and down the hallway. And there is a bookcase in the hallway too. That's mine. I moved it out of my daughter's bedroom about 3 months ago with intentions of finding it a permanent home. But it's sat in the hallway instead. My husband put the turd infested guinea pig cage into the hallway on top of the plastic tubs about 4 days ago. He said it smelled too bad for it to stay in our daughter's room. So his good idea was to really reinforce the concept of squalor. I swear to you if you walked into our house you'd think you were on the set of an episode of Hoarders.

Probably because I'm sick and not thinking rationally, I chose today as the day to clean out the guinea pig's cage. There were more turds than bedding in the bottom of the cage. Those things are just poop factories. Because it smelled so bad in her room, I decided the thing needs to go in a common room-more open space to disperse the odor. The problem is the current arrangement of the furniture doesn't allow for guinea pig cage placement. So I decided to start rearranging major pieces of furniture and thus the tears. Now I no longer have just a nasty guinea pig cage to deal with but I have chairs huddled together in the TV room and a piano in the dining room and tumble weeds of dog hair that have been unearthed and suddenly I feel like my home is not fit for humans and I'm just an imposter...a slob and CPS and the SPCA are gonna come remove my kids and animals and I'm gonna become part of the homeless community living under 610 fighting over discarded cigarette butts.

I probably need to go back to bed (if I can find it) and start again tomorrow.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Cousins

An old one I never posted. A text to my dad.

Last night...


Have cousins here. They spent the night last night. The girls are still asleep in my bed. Last night we watched "Throw Mama from the Train" after eating at a little hole in the wall by their house, Jolly Cup. The cousins directed the dining and cinema choices and everyone really enjoyed themselves. You'll have to get the cousins to take you to Jolly Cup when you come. They have great Vietnamese sandwiches (banh mi) and shakes with tapioca balls. We were trying to find a cheap place where I could feed all 5 of them and they both were very much in favor of this place. At first oldest son tried to stage a hunger strike (he had been out-voted 4 to 1 against his choice, Chipotle) but the Big Dawg knows good food when he smells it and eventually his sense of taste and smell won out over the his principles (must always have my way?). Jolly Cup was a good way to let the searing pain and humiliation from my 322nd back up into another car (can anyone say back up camera on the next car?) dissipate. Niece forgot her handmade gift to Uncle Lee so I decided that reversing down the cul-de-sac at night with a van full of kids would be the most expedient method of retrieval. Only we didn't get very far because our backward progress was impeded by a white Toyota Camry, which lucky for me, sustained no damage. We managed a quick get away without the gift and with only one explicative said aloud (which daughter was quick to spin for me in a moment of crisis. "You mean frick, mom, right? Because you hit the car? That's what she means 6 year old girl cousin"). Regardless, Vietnamese sandwiches in a dodgy strip mall in a restaurant filled with patrons who mostly spoke either Spanish or Vietnamese (except for the very loud 5 children who were alternately demonstrating Jane Fonda-esque aerobic maneuvers as can be done with your bar stool-niece with daughter as her star pupil or an 11 year old executive-nephew-handing out food orders whilst simultaneously looking very grand with a functionless blue tooth poking out on his right ear). Niece was generous enough to share her copy of Auto Trader magazine with me when she was done reading it and nephew was quick to explain the virtues of a giant bottle of communal Great Value Ranch Dressing vs bastardized barbecue sauce in a Siriracha bottle on your hot wings to his 10 year old cousin. Thankfully C-Span was playing on the 65" screen TV for all of us to enjoy.

On the car ride home I learned that Isaac likes niece as evidenced by his demonstration of love in kindergarten with a kiss to her forehead. The admiration is not reciprocal because niece has pledged her affections to Conner.

The girls started on a puzzle which generated a conversation about nerdiness; is it good or bad and what constitutes a nerd? The general consensus was, though they may like to study a lot, it was good to be a nerd although no one present was willing to be categorized as one.

The girls, very sweetly, laid in bed and read with me last night. Niece with her stack of Berenstain Bears books, daughter with her chapter books and me with my People magazine. And their they remain with books all over the bed. The boys all bunked in middle kid's room and nephew had emerged for a brief moment but went back to sleep when he learned he couldn't start playing video games at 7 am.





It's so comforting to be in their presence witnessing the creation of memories as a fly on the wall-just a facilitator. They all have their own unique and special role in the family dynamic and that sweet new baby niece better rest up now because she's gonna have to be ready to rumble soon enough!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Giving Bad News

Giving bad news never gets easier. And the older I get the more difficult it becomes. I suppose it's because I now have more life experience and when I was a younger doctor I could easily separate patients' lives from my own. Recently, I had to tell a woman that she has metastatic cancer. I had suspected as much but, like her, I was holding out unrealistic hope.

The past week or so I've been having paroxysms of sharp pain in my right temple and in my back, over my ribs on the right. The pain doesn't last long, seconds, but the rib pain, especially, catches my breath.

Normally, I'm prone to ruminating over whatever ache or pain I may be experiencing. Let me clarify, I don't ruminate frequently, but when I do have a pain, my mind immediately conjures the worst case scenario with me dead within weeks to months.

The mind and body have such a powerful connection. I'm not particularly new-agey but things in your subconscious can manifest themselves in many different ways, both bizarre and simple. Over time, doctors develop coping mechanisms to deal with unpleasant and uncomfortable feelings. Humor and repression are two popular and convenient ways to handle them. My husband is on a committee that deals with professionalism and medical students. Many of the committee members are not clinicians, meaning they have no patient contact. To them, some of the things that are spoken during rounds or in clinic would be incredulous. What they don't understand is that clinicians, on the whole, aren't cold and insensitive; we're simply trying to stay sane. In his brilliance, my husband has developed something called "the box of unprofessionalism". It's kind of like a confessional booth in that while you are standing in the box of unprofessionalism (which is far away from patient care areas and behind closed doors) you can say whatever you like without reprimand. It's not that he embraces insensitivity or crassness, rather he understands the importance of decompressing during incredibly stressful situations. (Maybe this is why he wins so many teaching awards).

For several days I've been repressing my grief over my patient's diagnosis. I had to tell someone, speak aloud, the words no one wants to hear. Every year Lee and I, along with one of our colleague's, give a lecture to the medical students about being a doctor and having an illness. We all discuss how your life changes the day you (or a loved one) receive the unwelcome news. All of the sudden you have to alter the landscape of your life. As a doctor, I don't think I can discount or underestimate the significance of giving another person equally life-altering news. What's the correct way to process? There is no course in medical school or residency that tells you how you are supposed to act, feel, behave. And for how long afterwards should you feel like shit? What's that patient thinking right now? Is she scared? Resolved? Indignant? Angry? I'll tell you how I feel, overwhelmingly sad and if I'm really honest with myself, guilty. Why her and not me? Why do I have the burden and responsibility of reminding someone of their own mortality and why is her number up and not mine?

I think that if I could get alone for a bit I'd probably have a good cry and I think I need a good cry. Not just for myself, but for that lady. Maybe the lump in my throat would go away and the pain in my head and the ache in my back.

One last thing, especially since I'm typing this on my phone while my family is on a road trip and my kids are about to mutiny because they want lunch (and maybe that's why I can finally think about this. I'm not helping someone with homework, or finishing a yearbook, or paying a bill. I'm on vacation); it's a story from medical school. When I was a second year student on my general surgery rotation, my friend and I were given the task of sewing closed a young man's chest cavity after he had died. I can't remember the mechanism of his accident, either a gun shot wound or a car accident, but he had been brought into the emergency room as a shock, meaning he was being artificially resuscitated. Well, chest compressions alone weren't reviving him, so the surgeons cracked his chest and performed cardiac massage. After what seemed like an eternity, they called the code realizing nothing was going bring the guy back to life. What had moments before been a shock room full of frenzied activity was now silent, with me, my friend and the dead man. The nurses and surgeons had gone to talk to the family and left us to "close him up" so he would be presentable to his family and so we could "practice our suturing skills." So Carie and I stood there, silently, each carefully sewing up one side of his thorax. Sometimes we still talk about that night an how ill-equipped we were to be given such a responsibility and how, afterwards, no one but us thought it was a big deal. When the surgeon came back in he said, "Good job, but make sure to take the tube out of his mouth because it's upsetting to the family." And that was it.

In the 22 years since I started medical school, they have advanced a lot in terms of sensitivity training and all of that 21st century PC stuff (no such beast as a professionalism committee in the early 90s), but personally, it never gets any easier and I hope it never does.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

House Guests

Text sent to my father this morning, 2 days before our trek to visit him. No offense to any Lithuanians....

Yo daddy....you awake? Wanna make sure you and Jan are still ok w/ us coming out there. You seem a bit hesitant about the number of house guests. Is it stressing you or Jan out too much?

By the way...I hope you don't mind, but we are hosting a band of Lithuanian foreign exchange students and their flock of camels. We feel bad about leaving them behind with the language barrier and all. We figure there is enough space for the camels in the yard and the Lithuanians don't take up too much space...they are compact and you can stack them on top of each other. Maybe one or two can sleep in the bed with you and Jan. They are cuddly creatures. By the way, the camels are gluten free, so would be good to have some grain free camel kibble for them. The good news is you can reuse the dung in your compost. You'll have award winning azaleas next year. If you don't get the grain free stuff, they get gassy and, pardon my language, but that shit smells and then the whole situation can get uncomfortable. On the whole, they've been delightful and I think you'll enjoy the lively, high spirited bunch. And the good news is they are a very loyal people so they are likely to come back next year and they usually bring with them many distant relatives and livestock


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Saturday Morning

It's a beautiful Saturday morning and I'm sitting in my front yard watching 2 of my kids play lacrosse with our neighbors (and hoping to God that no one breaks a window or dents a car) and not helping my oldest kid with his science homework (because it involves physics and I suck at physics and I was giving him the wrong answers).

The best part of today is: WE HAVE NOTHING SCHEDULED!!!! This is a minor miracle. The other best part is I can sit in my front yard in my pajamas and no one cares. Let me clarify; I'm not wearing a neglige (in which case people might turn to stone if they cast a glance upon me and my middle-aged physique) but flannel bottoms and a sweatshirt. And I'm wrapped in a blanket drinking my coffee. This is considered appropriate weekend attire on my street (especially considering we have a batty old lady who routinely walks up and down the street in her inside out pjs and peers into everyone's cars, windows and trash cans).

The kids and neighbor kids have decided that using one of our plastic adirondack chairs as a target would be a good idea. And from an 11 year old boy's perspective it is very ingenious. From the broken chair's perspective, not so much. In case you didn't realize this, children destroy things. Usually it's not intentional but the formula is directly proportional; the higher the concentration of boys the greater likelihood you have for destruction.

Middle kid's best bud moved in across the street. This is a good thing. However, right now they are in a battle over how to calculate points per shot. It's like I'm watching a political debate and tempers are flaring. It's a completely ridiculous and stupid argument and they've already been warned so now they are each in their own penalty boxes on separate sides of the street. Not sure if this is the best way to handle it or if I should just let them work it out themselves but the volume of bickering was starting to disturb my peaceful morning. Now they've crossed to the middle of the street, shook hands and negotiated rules.

This morning our dog (# 2 of 3) relieved himself in my bathroom and closet. I thought one of the boys had failed to flush...Puffy (i realize that some might consider this an effeminate name, but his given name is Puff Doggy and he is quite secure in his masculinity-even though he's a eunuch) took a piss on the corner of a stool and the pee had spread through all the grout lines like little rivers and streams. As if this wasn't enough, he, or possibly dog #3 (the geriatric beast, age unknown, who is vision, hearing and cognitively impaired) took a poop in my closet.









I haven't perfected my turd identification skills so with the absence of DNA testing, I couldn't determine who dropped the 2 desiccated turds. So, they were both cast outside. I suspect it was all the little, middle dog as he is too scared to walk down the hallway leading from our room to the back door. We put one of those buzzer discs under a chair near the path so he wouldn't get on the chair but he's too dumb to realize that his collar wasn't even on his neck. That and I watched the old dog take a poop outside this morning so I could better characterize each dogs' poop. Old dog's poop is more of an orange hue, a bit bigger in diameter and not so dry.

The funny thing about the dog collar alarm system is that whenever one of the batteries goes low in a smoke detector and starts to beep, the dogs freak out. It's psychological torture because they think it's the big dog alarm in the sky. Even though their collars don't buzz, the noise must be the exact same pitch as the dog alarm noise. In a sick an sadistic way, it's kind of funny....

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Waiting

I'm sitting in the UT Aquatic Center at another water polo extravaganza. At the end of the day we'll know if our oldest kid has been selected to continue to the regional games. This is very nerve-wracking stuff. I'm trying to be all zen about it, but mama bear doesn't like it when her bear cub is being evaluated. Regardless of the outcome we are proud of him, but I really, really hope he makes it!

Athletically, I am not a competitive person, so this concept of trying out for a team is not intuitive. Maybe because I was the fat, slow kid who was always picked last I shied away from team sports and competitions. I remember the sting of "not being good enough" and I don't want that for my kid. Of course I'm transferring all my own crap onto him and I'm pretty sure he doesn't wrestle the same demons I did.

I met a nice mom and we talked for a long time this morning. I think that at these kinds of things parents are either too nervous to talk or they don't want to get friendly with the competition. Her son is one of the young ones, like mine, trying out for this thing. We were like minded in many of our parenting theories. Also, talking made me less anxious.





I know I'm gonna chicken out and make Lee be the one to be here when they announce which 14 out of 18 kids get to continue. Every time they blow a whistle or point or say something to my kid or if he's waiting on the side of the pool, I'm a freaking nervous wreck, reading all sorts of things in to it. And there is this little Asian female coach who is a drill sergeant. I don't know about my kid, but she scares the poop outta me.

Okay, gotta watch now. He's in. Keep your fingers crossed...more for me than for him!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Good Intern

Yesterday was a good ER day. The patients weren't all that interesting and most of them didn't need to be seen in an emergency room. The residents, student and I saw a lot of patients in the 12 hours we were there and that is always good from a revenue/RVU generating point of view. It was a good ER day because of the people with whom I worked. Working with learners is a tricky business, especially in the ER when you have 12 hours out of a 3-6 year training period to teach something and/or make an impact while simultaneously trying to keep patients alive and keep up with all the electronic documentation. When evaluating these kids, the students and the residents, unless they have committed some egregious errors, they get the equivalent of an A+ from me even if they've really only performed at a B + level, mostly because it's hard work and just showing up and doing your job gets you a B and if you have some enthusiasm and a good attitude, then you get pushed over into the A to A+ column. Very rarely, I have a C student or resident and recently I had my first ever F resident (and I'm still reeling from that one and have yet to formally document her poor performance). Yesterday I had some genuine A+++ individuals.

One kid, in particular, really had an impact on me yesterday. At the onset of the day I thought I might be working with a couple of duds. They were both kind of quiet and one was a urology intern and the other a family medicine intern so automatically they were suspect for laziness (urology) or dumbness (family medicine). I fully admit that I'm an internal medicine snob. As the day progressed they proved me and my prejudices wrong. The family medicine resident was smart and hard-working and had the air of internal medicine elitism, which I appreciated. But, it was the urology intern that has kept me up most of the night thinking. It's his story to tell and I don't have his consent to disclose it, but he was remarkable and it was not because he was really, really knowledgeable or really, really accomplished. He was remarkable in his ordinariness, decency and humility. This kid seems to have had humble beginnings and then a series of adverse life circumstances and despite this he has extracted all the character developing aspects of the situations and moved on without anger or bitterness.

Surgical interns have a tough job. Despite new duty hour restrictions that are supposed to put limits on the number of hours an intern or resident can stay in the hospital, the supervising surgeons and the surgical programs often ignore these rules. The interns, who are powerless, are subject to the whims of whomever they may be assigned to for the month. This intern had been assigned to an esteemed surgeon but one also notorious for abusive behavior towards his interns and residents. He shared a few stories of his month with the supervising surgeon and I wanted to cry and hug him and he wasn't trying to garner sympathy. After about his third day on the service with this supervising surgeon, he realized he had to just take his knocks and move on.

What I want to do is find this kid's mother and tell her, "job well done. Despite all the shit you and your family have experienced, this is your real treasure standing right before you. If I could fast forward 10-15 years from now and see that my boys had the character, humility and humor of your son, then I'd know it has all been worth it."

I don't know if I'll ever work with this kid again and I certainly hope that 6 years of a surgical residency doesn't alter his character. I don't think it will because I think he has a rare trait called resiliency. I'm not sure he learned anything from me. Maybe I demonstrated to him that not all supervising physicians have to be assholes to prove they are in charge and it is possible to treat your residents decently and humanely (both residents were amazed that I let them leave before check out. I saw no point in them staying there. They had finished their work and I had to stick around anyway and they are the ones working the 60+ hours a week for minimal pay). I certainly learned volumes from him.

Mom 2

Lately, probably because of all the heap, I've been introspective. This self-indulgent pastime is a contact sport. As you may recall, in my texts with my mom, I stated that I'm always trying to prove my worthiness and I know this is rooted in deep-seeded insecurity. The human condition is such an F'ed up thing. Why, at the age of 44, am I still rearranging the puzzle pieces of my life?

So this is it. Illegitimate. If you look up the Merriam-Webster definition in the online student dictionary it says; 1: born of a father and mother who are not married and 2: illegal. The regular dictionary gives you this definition:

il·le·git·i·mate, adjective \-ˈji-tə-mət\

1: not recognized as lawful offspring; specifically : born of parents not married to each other

2: not rightly deduced or inferred : illogical

3: departing from the regular : erratic

4 a : not sanctioned by law : illegal b : not authorized by good usage c of a taxon : published but not in accordance with the rules of the relevant international code

with following synonyms: baseborn, bastard, misbegotten, natural, spurious, supposititious, unfathered


What if you are 19 years old and it is the late 1960s? Do this word and its synonyms have a negative or positive connotation? If suddenly you find your situation described as "not legitimate" by your parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents and community how do you feel about yourself? What if the setting is a deeply Catholic and traditionally Mexican small town? What kind of vibes do you unwittingly pass off to your adorable little bundle? Especially if everyone is playing hot potato with you and your tiny little baby? At 19-20 years of age, you are probably conflicted by all the negative energy that is swirling around your piece of the universe. You love your tiny baby and think she's awesome, but people keep sending you mixed messages. "Your baby is adorable, but you are a f-up. And we need to send you away and pretend this never happened." Even if they aren't saying those exact words, this is all you hear. Everything gets filtered through the lens of condemnation. Kind of hard to recover any shred of self-esteem from this situation and to move forward in a positive, constructive manner. Fast forward 44 years and look back at those texts from yesterday. That 19 year old is the same kick-ass lady who is sending me those positive affirmations. More to come...sorry to put you all through this...this online, literary version of dissecting a garbage disposal, but I warned anyone who might read, this is not for you...it's for me (and maybe my kids someday. If they care)

Mom

Are you ever tired? Bone tired? Not just today or even this week, but deep down, every fiber of your being tired?

I had a text message exchange with my mom today that was simply lovely. I forget how fortunate I am to have her in my life.






















- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Projects

My husband said we need to start our own business called "Third Grade Projects Done in an Hour; Guaranteed to Look Like a Third Grader Did It!"


This is our interpretation of what our daughter's Lincoln Memorial project would look like had she actually done it herself. I think she'll take at least an 89 on her lack of effort.

Lee and I must be the worst parents on the planet. She's been telling us about this project for weeks. Lee even texted about 37 different photos of the actual Lincoln Memorial from their recent trip. All along we had planned to photoshop a picture of daughter's face onto the Lincoln statue. We had it all planned out except for the actual execution.

At 9 o'clock while we are laying (lying?) in bed she suddenly freaks out. "Oh my God! What day is it?!"

"Sunday," I reply.

"No, I mean the date?" The full on girl hysterics complete with waterworks and hyperventilating are about to begin.

"My project is due tomorrow!! What am I going to do!?!?!"

Obviously, we didn't have any of the instructions for the project/paper, but thankfully my friend bailed us out, immediately emailing over her kid's copy. Meanwhile, our daughter is wailing because she thinks that forgetting about a 3rd grade project is a tragedy akin to the sinking of the Titanic.

Lee and I had hoped that tonite might be the night we'd actually get to have a conversation, but we both just sighed as we talked our 9 year old down off the ledge knowing that our evening was going to be spent figuring out how to make a model of the Lincoln Memorial using duct tape and paper towel rolls. Between the 2 of us we have more than 20 years of graduate level education and here we are staying up late on a third grade assignment. I think I've pulled just as many late nights on elementary school projects as I did studying in medical school. Seriously. And if you did a side by side comparison of my grades in medical school against the grades my kids have made on the innumerable projects they've (I've) completed in the past 7 years, you'd wonder how I ever made it past the 3rd grade in the first place and you'd be glad medical schools don't ask for 3rd grade transcripts or require their students to do reports on the history of the cadaver with concomitant paper mâché models.

Now I'm sure that all 3 of you who are reading this are clucking and tisk-tisking about the bawdiness of my overt disregard for assignments and the honor code and self-sufficiency in children. And wondering where my daughter is going to land in 10 years if I'm rescuing her at this minor level. My response to all of you haters out there..."I have no frigging clue if I'm doing this correctly and I hope to God I'm not causing any kind of irreversible damage."

Oh yeah, she was worried that her report wouldn't be long enough because the teacher wants a full page. Guess how we fix that little problem? Increase the font size. Voilà! It's big enough for Helen Keller to read, but it's a full page!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Norovirus

Oldest kid is home with a wicked case of Norovirus, likely contracted while he was on the school trip. He's mostly on the mend, just needing some TLC.


His little brother thought he could capitalize on big brother's unfortunate turn of events. This morning middle kid was specifying his symptoms; nausea, belly discomfort, sensation of imminent vomiting. I had signed off on another absence and was assuring him of his likely need for summer school and I guess he decided he needed to throw in another symptom just to solidify his case. But, he picked the wrong symptom-shortness of breath. Mom, "It's hard for me to breath." At that point I knew he either was suffering from Ebola virus or he was full of sh*t. My pre-test probability for bullsh*t was high. It might have been reasonable for him to be coming down with the same highly contagious GI illness, but throw in respiratory distress and you either need an ICU bed or a day of school. After tossing him a Tylenol and a Zofran, we were out the door and suddenly he was cured.



Middle kid during President's Inauguration. The flag next to the pool of drool signifies his patriotism.

My friend is tired of helicopter parenting her college age child. I'm fairly close to the college student and friend wants me to inquire of student's progress acquiring a summer internship, review student's personal statement and advise student that he/she should quit relying on adults in his/her life to get things completed. Hmmm?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Truancy

Show of hands...do you let your 5th grader skip school to study for his 9 week cumulative math test? His father is advocating a day home from school (with me as the enforcer and coach of said studying). And apparently I'm rude for disagreeing and having an opinion. The problem is multifactorial; a) he missed 2 days of school last week because he was "sick" and too "sick" to study b) he is in DC for the inauguration this weekend and he legitimately hasn't had any time to review his math (his teacher graciously gave him an extension on completion so he can finish on Wednesday when he returns to school) c) he has no knowledge of what might be covered on the test and denies existence of study guide or any kind of review that might have been provided by the same gracious teacher who has twice postponed his tests d) no amount of cramming is going to fix his lack of effort.

My husband is nervous and doesn't want our kid to fail, which is admirable, but I kind of feel like the 5th grader has dug himself a pit and to rescue him at this point would be robbing him of a valuable lesson, which as my friend Vanessa calls, "getch yo head outta yo ass, son!"
Of the 3 children this is definitely the kid who requires healthy doses of tough love. Otherwise, charming as he is, he is prone to sloth-fullness.

The other issue is how to communicate with husband so he doesn't just here "screech, screech, screech" from the evil bitch mom/wife. Compounding his anxiety over our son's math test debacle is his overwhelming tiredness from chaperoning the middle school field trip to DC and his lack of preparation for his own presentation this Thursday. Wrongly, he assumed he'd have time to work on his power point presentation. He is the one who needs to play hookey from work this Wednesday so he can prepare his slides.

My biggest problem is timing and sensitivity. If I hadn't been such a bull in the china shop when he called, I would have responded differently to the exhaustion and anxiety in his voice and words. Instead I tried to discuss reason with an insanely tired man.

So, that's it for the night...survey says a) yes he stays home or b) he goes to school?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone