And How Was Your Week?

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I spent Sunday night cowering in the corner of my new sofa, under two blankets and whimpering.

I read a book to distract myself from the fact that the sky was falling.

In the pitch black howling madness, our little overnight storm whipped rain horizontally, uprooted trees, flooded and eroded everything, and made me pray for the dawn.

I’m sorry to report that the rest of this week has been about the same.

If you replace rain with the boys’ school projects, spats of hail with Hubby’s work load, and wind with the level of general stress in the house, there’s no wonder I could hear occasional slammed doors, moaning around the corners and whimpers over impending doom.

As a seasoned mom, I’ve weathered worse, but when Wednesday night rolled around and I had had to personally talk down my menfolk from abandoning ship, my radar told me to look a little closer into things.

Somewhere, the sky was about to fall.

“Mom,” said a son, “I’m not going to school on Friday.”

“Is it written on the calendar?” I asked, not skipping a beat, “Because unless it is, oh yes you are.”

So he went over and wrote it on the calendar.

His spiel was something about a class project that his group needed to pull together or his grades were ruined. Forever. He didn’t know where or when or how…but could I find a pop-up canopy, a table and four folding chairs, a collection box, and oh yeah, can I drive him around on Friday morning?

Because grades trump all other life activities, including, as it turned out, bathroom breaks.

“Here,” I said, looking deeply into his eyes, which was not easy, because his eyes did not want me to look into them, “Let me just stop the planet from spinning while I tend to your business.”

Upon further investigation I discovered that this was a “student-led” activity.

One where – you guessed it – students were in charge of everything.

Well there you go.

Does it mean my fourteen-year-old gets to write his own off-campus pass, his own attendance note, make up a day off and drive himself to Starbucks for a good grade?

My other son stepped forward.

His list included signing up for the SAT (“like, yesterday, Mom”) and the tutoring that came with it, a class he needed to prepare for his church group, a major essay due Friday, a major project due next week, and both boys had two basketball games and a team dinner to squeeze in.

I reached out a hand, and stopped my spinning planets. I started rolling up my sleeves.

“Well boys, brace yourself. Incoming life lessons starting now.”

I spent yesterday gathering supplies, filling out online registrations, proofreading essays, collecting permission forms, washing uniforms, going over notes, blocking out my Friday morning, and putting gas in the car.

It’s very rare for me to be involved in the kids’ schooling anymore, and as much as I’m in favor of independence and learning the hard way if you need to, once in a while, I rise from the couch and remind them who’s in their corner.

I talked them through each step of the process, they took the next thing off the “to do” list then I did, and so forth until things began to fall into place.

I spent this morning at a dog-friendly park, watching my son (from a polite mom-distance) pull off his school project all by himself.

Because the other kids in his group, perhaps, had failed to mention this project until *sigh* today.

Who knows.

He spoke to everyone passing by about the plight of pit bulls, raising money and awareness for their non-profit organization, Villalobos Rescue Center. You may be more familiar with the show, “Pit Bulls and Parolees”.

He had a very good response and has some donations to turn in, and I imagine will get a decent grade on his project.

The Friday weather is beautiful today, clear skies, sunshine, gentle breeze.

We’ll enjoy the calm while it lasts.