Saturday, May 15, 2010

Adventures in High School Studies

I was talking to a couple friends of mine last week about my son and his high school career.

The first friend and I both have children in the class of 2012.  We often commiserate about their at-times lack of focus.  We share about the missed assignments, the triumphs of an accomplishment, and the overall trials and tribulations of high school.  And we reassure each other that they will be juniors next year and hopefully we won't have to feel like we are back in the hallowed halls of adolescent knowledge.

My other friend hasn't even been to kindergarten yet with the kids.  They are still in the oooh and aaah stage of child rearing, the most stressful thing is getting them to daycare in time for their busy careers.  This friend told me that I shouldn't have to hourly monitor my son's studies because I'm not the one in high school.  I silently laughed and said, oh, just you wait, your time is coming.

We, my other high school parents and I, monitor our children's progress and study times because we know how easily they can be distracted with all the things vying for their attention.  We also understand how crucial it is and really, truly, how fast the four years of high school zoom by like the trains that cross the middle of Kirkwood.  It is only a blink.  I have a son who is in the Navy in Japan and I remember him sitting at the dining table trying to keep up with his demanding schedule to maintain his 3.5 GPA.  It can all come crashing down in one semester if the kids do not stay focused and ready for the assignments.

So it is this knowledge of how important it is that keeps us moving, going, and drinking a lot of caffeine along the way.  We set up study sessions for finals, check in with the teachers, provide study aids, and lots and lots of paper.  Their journey is only beginning and since most of my friends and I have advanced degrees, we also know that it is crucial they set up good habits now.

My friends and I comment about how different it is now than back in our day.  I mean, my sophomore son is taking Algebra II and Honors Chemistry,  classes that were not part of our radar screen until senior year.  The stakes are higher, it seems, for them to take the Honors and AP courses to get into college.  We are not those parents that write their child's college admission essay or hound the Harvard admissions counselors, but we are parents who want the best for our children and want them to be able to have options when May 2012 rolls around.

I remember being in school and my parents' evening ritual of reporting.  Each of us had to speak about our classes, our grades, and our activities.  It was check-in time.  Grade reports and research papers were placed on the dining table between their spaces.  My dad and step-mother read everything and demanded answers from us as to why we got a C.  If we were truly giving it our best (I was not that good in science), then they gave us encouragement.  But if we were just slacking off (Ds and Fs were not acceptable under any circumstances) then we were reminded about expectations.

My house was filled with books and the Encyclopedia Britannica.  We also had medical dictionaries and yearly updated volumes about the world.  There was never an excuse to not do well on a research paper as they gave us access to their friends who read and critiqued each paper.  I guess, we are doing the same thing with our son now.

My son sometimes feels like we are too hard on him and too much in his space, but I secretly believes he appreciates it.  He has the dedication of both his parents.  He has access with me working at home and he has the benefit of parents who place a high priority on learning.  His father often sits with him until 1 o'clock in the morning while he is plowing away at some chemistry calculation or editing another version of his English research paper.  Both of us are in email contact with his teachers and take advantage of the high schools Pinnacle system that gives us an hour-by-hour update of his assignments and grades.

High school is foundational.  That is why we sit with him.  It is why, even with the car breaking down twice in the rain, I am sitting in the quiet room of the library, watching him study, silently giving him assurance that it all matters.  He is working away on some calculations and giving glances to the table of snacks.  And in the end, it will all be worth it.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Seemingly Random Thoughts That Really Do Come Together


So I can probably say I am having one of those days that can be termed "free flowing."

Well, not actually.  I mean, how free flowing can it be when your newly minted sixteen-year-old woke up at 4:30am literally spilling his dinner in the bathroom sink?  That was my Tuesday morning. Said kid cleaned it up (hey, if he can drive...NOT...he can clean up after himself), took a shower, and stumbled back to bed.  Only to get up an hour later and do it again...this time hugging the toilet bowl. This went on all day Tuesday.

Then Wednesday, that is today...right...?  I spent most of it driving around picking up assignments for said kid who was still getting sick as late as 7:30pm Tuesday.  Oh, and did I mention that my husband was gone because Tuesday was the university's graduation and today he is gone on a one day (meaning, late, late tonight) trip for a professor to receive an award?  Yep, he missed out on all the excitement...and the mounting laundry.

I vaguely remember said husband waking me up to tell me he was leaving.  "Um...yeah,"  My head hit the pillow like a thud.  I had just been up at 5 o'clock in the morning with the six year old.  What is it with the kids who end in six keeping me up???  And it was too early for caffeine.

Today has been a racing day, one of those that feels like I still have a mound of work (and laundry) to do before the weekend.  And just as I was looking at the sink full of dishes (Soooooo unlike me), I thought about all the things I thought about today.

I wasn't able to sit still long enough to reconcile my receipts so I threw them in an envelope, raced over to my office to have just missed the business manager.  Left him a note and the kids waiting while I added everything up...ten minutes tops!

Then I raced across town to beat the janitor locking the door so I could get the said recovering teens French II binder and Algebra II assignments that were taped on the class office.  We made it.  Another ten minutes.

When I finally made it home, yep, did pick up the eight year old in time, I set out the things for dinner.  And the kids ate cereal, peaches, and toast, lots of toast.  So I gave up on making dinner.  Got back thirty minutes.

The stove did not hold my attention and since hubby was traveling and teen was sick, the girls were easy to please, they had an impromptu "sleep over" with the requisite sleepover meal.  I promise, they will have a plate full of vegetables tomorrow.  At least little girl made some awesome lemonade that she declared, "I CAN do it all by myself!"  She didn't want any help (and it was pretty tasty).  I'm eating the peanuts the teen (before he got sick) picked up in our townhouse office basket on his way home from school Monday (was it really just a couple days ago?)

I looked up from this mountain of paperwork to read an article on Huffington Post that was exactly what I said a few years ago.  Give me Christ, but keep the Christians.  Don't worry, daddy, I still love Jesus and count Him as my savior, but conservative...nah!  I'm not and neither was HE!

The same thing about this economic crisis.  Jesus gave to the poor and did not care that much for the wealthy.  Hummmm, there is some validity to this having all things common.  Maybe more humanity will result from that.

Solicitor General Kagan.  Very knowledgeable about the race issues in the country.  And the media response to that?  To question her sexuality.  Ok, and so what does that have to do with if she would be a good justice for the Supreme Court or not?  Definitely way better than what we got during the previous administration.

And what is it with all the games and quizzes on facebook?  Are people trying to escape from reality?  Maybe it is all that time they sit at MoKaBees pretending to work?  Wondering....well, I didn't have time and my Sorority Life profile is neglected!

Sponge Bob?  That is still around?  My twenty-one year old loved it.  Now the six year old?  When will I get away from Bikini Bottom?  And actually go somewhere that I can wear a bikini bottom?  Ok, don't worry, I'm a newly minted forty-six-year-old and would NEVER wear one of those now...

I literally laughed outloud at a quick peak at a website that had adorable pictures of little ones getting in a lot of trouble.  I can so relate, even as I pick up the girls' numerous craft projects and moan about my broken wooden chair.

This was life. Really, sometimes the best thoughts come when we are too busy to...think.
And my last random thought...I think...why is it that some moms have so much time to contact all the other moms to give even more money for the teachers' gifts?  And make stuff?   Maybe they have a nanny, they do live on the "rich" side of town.  Simple enough, money in the envelope for tomorrow...as for a craft project by Friday...not happening!

Saturday, May 8, 2010

My Name is Mama

Tomorrow is Mother's Day.

I always have mixed feelings about that day.

My mother died when I was four.  

People may not realize the deep loss and impact that single event can have on one's life.  It certainly affected the lives of my younger brother and I.  

Anchor-less.  That is probably the way most motherless kids have described it.  

The mother is a certainty, you know you belong to her.  I do not have that knowing, she died before I could remember anything.  I was barely four, my younger brother was still a toddler and a newly minted three-year-old.  We were babies.

When I was growing up on 311 Gordon Street, I felt the lost most keenly.  I had a step-mother who claimed to love me and my brother, and perhaps, in her way, she did, but we certainly were not recipients of unconditional love.  She kept me alive when asthma would cause body-jerking spasms in my pencil-thin frame.  She taught me how to keep a house and prepare a dinner table.  I learned how to present myself as a lady and speak properly.  I learned manners.  Love?  Not sure.

Maybe that is the lfielong burning questions of people who lose a mother while they are still growing up.  

The mother is the one person who is supposed to love you unconditionally.  The one who nurtured your life while your were tumbling inside the pool of her womb, being sustained by everything she breathed.  She connected you to existence.

When I was growing up, Mother's Day was a big deal at church.  Carnations were the order-of-the-day.  People with living mothers received red, deceased mothers received white.  My brother and I received a white carnation lightly sprayed with red to represent biological mother and step-mother.  I have never worn a carnation on Mother's Day since leaving 311.  

Tomorrow, I know, my children will spoil me with their show of love and gratitude for my place in their life.  I am their mother, their center, their knowing.  My youngest daughter has been telling me, in her kindergarten voice, that I am going to LOOOOOVE her present, my sixteen-year-old son gets a quiet smile that signals his approval of my place in his life.  The older sons are adults now and perhaps more completely understand the sacrifices and commitment it takes to love unconditionally.

In my soul longing, I can say that God has given me women who nurture that need for unconditional love.  I do find myself jealously looking at my friend with her elderly mother, craving that touch, that glance that only they understand.  Then I turn away and look down at my two adoring daughters who want to do and be like me.  Even when I am escaping the noise and clatter of their messes, I am blessed at their presence.

My life has been filled with women who have shaped me.  My mama-sister with her wisdom and proclamations that I can put on my big girl panties now.  My friends who give me their warmth and acceptance.  My older women friends of another race who give me the unconditional acceptance and nurture their years have developed.  My daughters, both natural and a special one, of another culture, who is just as much a part of my heart as my own, all give me a hopefulness in tomorrow and the glow of expectant joy.  

Tomorrow is mother's day.  I will pause for a moment and consider Aloyse, my beloved mother.  I will smile and in my heart sing the names of my other mothers - eDali, Colette, Gladys, Diane, Jacqueline, Josephine, Cousin Barbara, Katie, Beatrice, Flora, Mae, Rebecca, Tresa, Billie - who poured into my life.  I will remember my friends who are mothers, my daughters who will one day be mothers, and then I will remember my name...Mama.

My beloved mother