May 9, 2010
We all have those moments, when things slow down and we know that our next decision, the next words out of our mouths, will impact our futures.
At least I have those moments. Maybe I’m more evolved than others…self-absorbed, evolved, whatever! You know what I mean.
So the other night when I got home from work and spied my son’s backpack exactly where I had left it that morning, I knew he had not gone to school. I announced to the house, “Wes didn’t go to school today.” Surprisingly, my husband from the other room answered, “How do you know?” I say surprisingly because he should have been at work, but that is another blog.
I didn’t bother to explain to my husband that my momma-senses were tingling, more like giving me a headache.
Bill asked what we should do. I marched straight to Wes’s room and made him got off Modern Warfare immediately. Already I was establishing myself as the dominant figure in the discussion. I hovered over him while he remained below me, reclining in his leather lazy-boy. Yeah, but still, I was towering.
“Why didn’t you go to school?”
“Mom, it’s a waste of time today. I’m passing all my classes and nothing’s going on in any of them. Besides, I was tired.”
I wouldn’s say he was whining. No, I wouldn’t say he was pleading either. There was a high-pitched quality to his voice, something more like trying to contain amusement.
Why would he be amused at ditching school and getting caught? Well, I may have let it slip about the time I was in high school and spent the day in the sheriff sub-station for ditching school. Or that I flunked my first period class because I ditched every morning for an entire semester. I suppose it was difficult to take me seriously knowing my history.
And so the moment was before me. The defining moment. Do I resort to do-as-I-say-not-as-I-did or do I rise to the occasion and take the position of I-understand-school-can-seem-pointless-but-you-must-behave-responsibly?
Well, I am sharing, so obviously I went with the responsible argument. And I knew I had forever defined who I …. no, wait, not yet.
Wes then retorted with the I-am-responsible-look-at-my-grades-and-my-commitment-to-running argument. He had me there.
This is where I defined myself. I became possessed by the spirit, the spirit of Dr. Phil and began raising my voice, “Look at all these nice things you have and why do you have them? Because I go to work everyday, even when it seems pointless and I’m tired. I know. I’ll start selling your stuff so I can just stay home from work. I could probably quit my job if I wasn’t buying x-boxes and ipods and lazy-boys and…” well the list goes on, but I don’t want to embarrass myself .
I think I began spontaneously balding when I said, “So when you decide to stay home, I’m taking one of these nice things I bought for you and selling it so I can stay home.” Figures of my son sleeping on a bare mattress, but with perfect attendance danced in my head. I expected the studio audience to begin cheering me at any moment. Instead, the house was eerily quiet. I realized my husband had turned down his television so he could hear the exchange from the next room.
I took a deep breath. “No more missing school from now until June 9th!”
“Cool.” There was an awkward pause. “Does that mean I can ditch the last day of school? School gets out on the 10th?”
Being that I had redefined myself as a mother in this moment, I refrained from laughing and shook my head seriously.
I left Wes and went into the room with my husband.
“How do you like how I handled that one?”
“Great.” Awkward pause. “Only, could we just pretend to sell his stuff because it’ll cost us more to buy it all back later.”
This week I will know that acting like a mother is harder than it looks.
