"My" life

I'm so tired that I couldn't think of the word "vicarious" when I wrote the title - and I'm so busy, that I'm not going to edit at all.  I just want to remember this time.

L. just dove into high school life, and I'm incredibly proud of him.  I love his enthusiasm.  He belongs (even though he's never been an "in" kid).  This week is spirit week, and every day of the week he's gone all out with a costume - (on mismatch day, he even took about 7 miscellaneous bits of clothes to school so that any classmate who wasn't "mismatched" could get a point for the class).   Today was famous person day (or superhero day).  We didn't dedicate a lot of time to his "costume", but I did manage to scrounge up black pants, a green "tank top" - or at least a green t-shirt with the sleeves and neck cut off - boots - and a headband with a bit of black smudges on his face.  He was a barely recognizable "rambo."

But, the point of this isn't to talk about spirit week.  It's all about WHAT this week has been like in general... a week which culminated in a kind-of meltdown this morning at 6 a.m.

Yesterday he had after-school "soccer practice", but at 8 pm he hadn't gotten back home and I began to call around to look for him.  Reached one of his good friend's mother on her cell, but she wasn't even in town.  Ended up being a complicated chain of calls between her, her ex-husband, another mother, and I.  The JV soccer team had gone to the varsity soccer game (on the bus) and then had come home to BEGIN practice at 7 p.m.

Friend's dad offered to bring L home; it was around 8:40 at this time. - -Instead of coming home though, L called (friend's phone, since he doesn't have a cell phone) a few minutes later to say that he was going to CHOIR practice. This is a choir that he didn't even KNOW that he was in until YESTERDAY during school.  He auditioned for it on Monday.  So... finally around 9:50 pm, he's walking in the door to have dinner.


He showered, then I feed him two burritos (LARGE).   I'm trying to get an idea of what sort of homework he has during dinner, and whether there is any way I can help him get through it.  They had had a lockdown during school that day after a suspicious backpack was found, and he had missed two classes, which made his homework situation a bit less clear.  But, apparently only history and biology had to be done.

The bio homework was a big deal because it involved a pre-assignment for a test to be taken and he did poorly on the first test.  He had to fill a page with notes, to turn in on Thursday and which the teacher would give back to him to use during Friday's test.  I encouraged him to work at the kitchen table (don't lie down... in other words) but he migrated in steps to the inevitable laptop on the bed.  Sigh... He just got a very old laptop that was left over from a project at dad's work - and it is so slow to work with, plus printing is a huge hassle (since it won't connect directly to the printer blah blah).  In short, I knew that I was going to have to be up later than him or before him to help him get this on paper.

So, between about 10:15 and midnight I let him work - although at first I tried to give him advice and I warned him that I was going to shut him down around midnight.  The test wasn't the next day, but the day after that - so, an all nighter could easily end up turning into two all-nighters.  No, he just can't do that.  He's still a minor, and I put my foot down. 

It's a little bit of a digression, but, part of how exhausted I am is my interaction with L, where I "give advice" which I know could help him, but which he won't listen to.  I struggle mightily to not let it become a power struggle or a fight.  It's stressful to watch him ignore me.  Sigh... if I were working, he would just have to figure it out by himself - and he would survive.  Double sigh... The advice I gave him boiled down to very concrete things about how to prepare this exam "cheat sheet." 1) Sit at a desk rather than lie on your bed (ha ha); 2) Don't use a tiny font to fit millions of words on the page.  3) Put enough on the page to remind yourself of what you know.

A few minutes after midnight he had filled a half page with one solid paragraph of information typed from his text book (I think he'd covered about 1/4 of the textbook pages in question).  He still had a page and a half to go (if he continued in this vein).  I managed to get the laptop from him, said I'd get it printed out - He did NOT want to go to bed, but said he'd set his alarm for 4 a.m. to finish it.  I said ok, figuring that if he was really exhausted, he wouldn't hear the alarm anyway. (As it was, he wasn't in bed until close to 1 a.m., I think).

At 6 a.m. this morning I woke him up.  This was when the real melt down happened.  Although to be fair, he never LOST it.  He needed maybe 15 minutes to pull himself together enough to just do it (I hate that nike stole my phrase).  During that 15 minutes, though, I got a lot of "disaster" type talk and some tears.  Naturally, there was some blaming M E partly because I insisted that he go to bed at midnight but also for other things.  For ex. I had typed his half page into the desktop - from which I can print directly.  I'd cleaned it up - took out some repetition and some unnecessary words (no info.) and used larger fonts and highlighting so it would be easier to find the info.  This was really awful according to L.

All this is why I know I need to try to let him figure these things out in general.  At the moment, however, the most I could do was leave the room for a little while and TRY not to answer so he could focus on the task.  He got going.  I brought him hot chocolate (made him dictate to me for the 5 minutes while he drunk it).  I left him again, but (how pathetic is this?) fifteen minutes later, I fed him a banana with peanut butter as he worked (no time for breakfast).  
Bottom line, however, was that by 7:25, when he had to get ready for school.  he was almost done.  There were about 10 empty lines to fill on his "cheat sheet."  He asked me if I would do it, and I said I'd wrap it up, print it, and drop it off at his school for him to pick up at lunch.  I agreed to help him with the last few things if he promised to sit down with me to think about what could have been done better (I don't want him to plan his school days around the expectation that he'll be pulling all nighters.)

He got his rambo clothes on - and was in a better mood again.  As he brushed his teeth, he asked me, "Would you be upset if I got a couple of Bs in the first term."  I TRY so hard to answer in a way that doesn't BLESS this Plan B, so to speak, but that accepts that he is learning a lot and that life is more than those grades. He doesn't bother to ask for rides to school - I think he realizes that walking to school helps him get mentally ready.  Plus, we're so close...(At the beginning of the year he was asking, and I put my foot down).

Wait, today he has whatever homework is still hanging over his head, after school he'll go to a meeting for "Model UN" THEN I have to meet him at school to drive him (and his friend) to the soccer game.

Tomorrow, he'll finish the week with this important bio test (he did badly on the first test of the year which is why it became more important than it had to be), go to soccer practice and then go to a dance at 7:30.  Apparently he asked a girl but this is TOP secret.... So secret that I don't even have the official word - just rumors through the good old grapevine.  So, I'll wrap up with a shout out to my spies and minions.


Damn, gotto look up directions to the school where he'll have his soccer meet.