Back to School Nite

This is my son's school's back to school nite. The night you shuffle from room to room with a few hundred other parents and listen to the teacher's class rules for 12 minutes and then shuffle to another teacher's room. I go every year and tonight will be the final "Back to School Nite" for me.

It is funny that it is also the night you scope out other parents and see how they have fared for the year. Have they gained weight, changed their hair, gotten skinnier, lost more hair, gotten a paunchy stomache. Its human nature to measure ourselves against the current society we are in.

I of course will be sporting store bought hair and less eyelashes and eyebrows. I will have to find a great lipstick color to contrast.

I will be reflective tonight. Thinking about all the past "Back to School nites" and thinking about my son going off to college and how the whole dynamic of the family will shift. I hope I wont feel useless and put aside. I take all these "mommy jobs" pretty serious.

Thank goodness for technology and Skype and texting and cell phones. I dont know how our parents did it when we flew the nest. No contact. Just pay phones.

I wont miss "Back to School Nite" and all its scoping out of parents and teachers and snickering and "looks" but I will miss the feeling of purpose and connectivity I feel when I go scope out the "other home" of my son for so many hours a day.

*sigh*

10 Questions

I'm full of it today:

1. Is it me or is Paula Abdul looking younger and younger with every episode of American Idol?

2. Is it me or is it not getting harder and harder to cook full on meals every night? Cooking healthy has taken the wind out of my cooking imagination. I hate cooking now and I find myself making the same 3 chicken dishes. How can I stop making fast dinners when I m starving and so tired?

3. Is it me or are teen girls not bigger chested now than back when I was their age?

4. I have no predjudice in my soul about sexual orientation so this next question is very open hearted and honest. I have noticed that my son has many bisexual friends. Mostly girls. What is that all about? If you go to his MySpace list of friends and read their orientation, the majority list "Bi". I say its a stance, a stance for leaving all the options open. But my son is confused and asks me questions. His own gf says she doesnt care who knows it; shes 'bi' and likes it. Dont you think this is just faze? A "liberation" stance if you will; or do you think there can be THIS many bisexual teenagers? Is bisexual like 'swinging'? A recreational fun choice for now?

5. Is it just me or is it getting harder and harder to parent?

6. Is it just me or is there more and more homework being given every year? I'm beginning to be against homework, summer schooling to get that extra credit or two and all this pressure to BE "AP" or "IB" or whatever is the latest hardest and most impressive. What happened to the old fashioned quest for learning? LEARNING, not just high scores. Showy course loads? For having a kid be a dang kid? My good friends son is in 10th grade and so freaked and stressed right now that I actually butted in and talked to the mom about how stressed their son is with his work load. ummmmmmmm, now THAT relationship is strained and I am so not appreciated now. They feel their kid SHOULD be this pressured to get into Harvard as straight A student in IB courses. I say OMG your kid looks like he's 40 and needs to have some Prozac. HE IS 15 YEARS OLD for cripes sake. Does anyone remember what it was like to be a kid? To be facing a long lazy summer filled with popsicles and lazing around in shorts? Not planning the itinerary for the summer course load and a new college course being offered high schoolers to get ahead on college credits...........WTF? What happened to just waiting for all this stress when we are 30 and have 2.5 kids a dog and a minivan, why the stress at 14,15,16? What will their life be at 30?

7. Is it me or is time going way way too fast?

8. Does anyone else with teens missing sitting on the couch with a good Disney Movie back when their kid was little. I think this is my most missed part of being a mommy of a little tot besides the lap holding.

9. Is it just me that doesnt like the new earing style? I dont want my son to get his ears stretched. How can I tell him it makes me kinda gag to think of him visiting me when he's 45 and he has big holes floppin around in his ears?

10. Is it just me or is this Presidential race already getting on your nerves too?

Sunday

Today was such a PERFECT day! One of which I have not had in a loooooong time!
My son broke up with his girlfriend once and for all. She was a cheating skank, spoiled princess, brat and conniving and obnoxiously rude to me. She was controling, jealous and a sneak. Oh and did you catch on that I didnt approve? She was also predjudiced and a pretentious snob. I dislike all of the above in a person so I have had a hard 7 months dealing with the fact that my son chose to like this person. Of course he didnt see it at all or if he did he chose to ignore it. She cheated on him and he broke up with her last night. He already has girls waiting for this opportunity and is going to another ska concert tonight and meeting one of those little girls in the wings there!!! I am relieved and happy today.
Today was the towns flea market. My son and I go every year. It is "our' thing. My husband detests them. Therefore it was a carefree day digging through cool stuff other people didnt want. I scored some cool stuff and so did my son!!
We finally went to this antiques yard I've wanted to go to for 3 years and I took my son down nostalgia lane with me, everything was either from my parents age or my age. No real ancient antiques, it was cool how facinated he was with everything and how much I forgot, like fabric wrapped cords with their huge ends. There was an old Coke cooler like the stores and gasoline stations had outside and an old lunch box JUST like the one I had, he was just facinated with it all and I had fun showing him stuff.
Perfect perfect day!
Now I take him to his ska concert and my husband and I are meeting for dinner!
I am feeling better too, my antibiotics are kicking in. I had an ear infection and bronchitis...the flu gone bad.
Also...............we managed to suprise the freakin pants of my son on Friday with a suprise birthday party at his favorite sushi restaraunt and 23 kids showed up and yelled suprise when my husband brought him, it was the crowning shining moment of motherhood when I had a gleeful joyous moment watching him during his birthday lunch.
Also, final thing crowning today? My house is clean, my laundry washed AND put away and my life is enjoying a turn for the better, ummmmmmmm I mean; the smoother.

The B movie would Enchant me..

You know.............it would almost be worth going through the whole goddamn hassle of having another kid at my age just for the chance to watch kid movies again.
I loved settling down to a good kid movie....I feel like I'm missing "Enchanted" "the Bee Movie""Horton Hears a Hoo" and countless others that have slipped by while I'm stuck in teen whirlwind mode..........
And just for your information in case you even care; I miss "Little Bear" ,"Sesame Street" ,""Franklin", "Puzzle Place", :Sponge Bob", "Cat Dog","Rocket Power", and the whole Disney Movie Channel. *sigh* The anticipation of a new "Zeenon" movie or a new "Holloween town" movie. The whole Nickalodeon commercial break addins and game shows.
I miss it all.
I miss the baby routine of lunch with Mr. Rogers and then naptime. I miss the excitement of another Harry Potter movie and gathering all the friends for a movie date and then going out after..........
Now.......
Now I drop off and pick up at the theatre.
I'm not invited.
They go to thrillers and scarey movies and then talk all during them and then when I ask how the movie was they shrug and say 'It was alright".
*sigh*
I miss the snuggling on the couch with an appreciative 6 year old with bowls of pop corn and anticipation all over thier face. I miss the excitement and the wonder and the fun of a good family movie........
*sigh*
**double sigh***


And going to the new Rambo movie with my husband is fun and all; I mean; after all we ARE together and we ARE holding hands and there IS popcorn after all.
Popcorn, a big pickle, AND hand holding..................... But just between you and me?

I'd rather be with a 7 year old whose whole world is Star Wars and the new movie is about to begin and he's just humming with anticipation, his eyeballs are wide and shining and he's smiling bigger than the cheesiest grin you ever saw.........

Raising a Teen with love and ska

Oh My God I cant believe I logged in!! I havent been able to log into this account for so long! whaooooooooooooooooooooooo It didnt reject my email password combo making me doubt myself, my handwriting in my notes as to what password went to what. I've tried countless email/password/name combos over the course of the past few months and it was driving me wonkers.
I was giving it one more whirl before I created a whole new one today. I'm a happy camper right now..........ok......more like a happy blogger.

Ok what I was going to name my new blog that I thought I was going to create was "VENTING" and put a disclaimer at the top that any whining and complaining I do or did about my family was not to say I was a hater, but I was just venting. So many blogs I read sound like hatred or anger but I know its all venting.

I've been reading many blogs of late. Clicking randomly on other peoples lists of blogs they read. I didnt find one that dealt with raising teens. Lots of them deal with cute babies or toddlers. Lots of cute baby stories. Lots of rants and ventings. THere are even a TON of homeschooling blogs that do mention raising teens but none with what I was hoping to find. If any of you read a blog about raising teens I'd love to read it.
Please recommend it.

I have a 14 yr old male that I'm raising. He's an only child so of course this puts a different spin on raising him too. He gets the best and worst of Mom and Dad. Too much attention to his trivia.
Poor guy.

But then! He also gets first pick at everything and our yesses out number the no's. He gets all the attention that I see lacking sometimes in his friends households when frazzled parents have to divide what little attention they have to give among many.

The latest household drama: Ska. Skanking. Punk. Drums. Interpertive dance.

Let me expalain; Ska is a type of music, you can google it or go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ska to see what it is. The written explanation doesnt do it justice because it is really from what I've heard more like jazzy punk music but little screaming. Punk has more screaming and way more cuss words. I'm not a fan of listening to the screaming into a mike. I'm sorry if that upsets you fans of the screaming part but there it is. It sounds like vomitting to me. I am a loud vomitter. It reminds me of me with the stomache flu with great music in the background.
I took my son to his first ska punk concert last night. I LOVED it. I truly did. I did not like the vulger word/screamfest that some bands did but I did like the punk music and ska music. YouTube it if you must have examples. I stayed and scoped out what it was all about. I refused to just drop him and his friends off.

I didnt like the screamo songs and when bands sing with lots of cuss words I laugh. The bands last night were local garage bands playing for local teens so of course the lyrics were a bit unoriginal and kind of imature. But it made me laugh out loud how often they swore. I giggled at them, it was like they put every swear word they could think of into the song so that they could live it up with out getting in trouble under the guise of "its just singing".

I'll give you a specific example just to prove I'm not disdaining the punk rock band just because they vomitted alot, I mean, sang alot of screaming songs. 4 of the 5 bands had a song called "I F***ing hate our town" or "F*** our town", and one band had a great vomitting Sex song all about "F***ing P***y" and it was more about the F word than anything because that is the only word I really understood in the whole song. Song? Did I just say song? lordy. But the band playing the music itself was great. Very good for a garage band, I just didnt like the screaming vulgarities.

I guess I'm just old fashioned that way. Just give me non screaming lyrics that I can understand that are missing the F word and I might, just might like the song.

It was in an old VF hall the bands rented. The most amazing part was not the gaggle of children with black rimmed eyes and skinny jeans out smoking weed behind the bushes far into the parking lot, no.........the thing that attacked my heart was the huge amount of teens and preteens SMOKING CIGARETTES. Lordy people! I remember kids walking home from school when I was a kid sneaking some puffs but these kids were devouring these cigarettes in a manner that showed they smoke PACKS not a few puffs!

The interesting thing about being short and rather young looking is that a teen my sons age came right up and asked me for a cigarette!! I stood there stunned like a deer in the headlights, my son just said 'nah we dont have any' and his friend behind me offered her some snacks she had. But it bothers me. Really bothers me. Do these parents NOT SMELL THIS STUFF ON THEIR KIDS???
Am I this naive to not know this about the preteens and teens of ours in the world today? It really really caught me by suprise. The drugs I kinda expected and stayed just to see how inhibited they were in this place, but they all smoked cigarettes outside like old people hanging outside the bar on a Friday night.

The other thing that suprised me? The sheer fun of skanking. YouTube it. Its a fun dance kids do with ska music, its not a mosh pit. It is just like a more elaborate two step dance I guess. I almost got up myself to try it. Almost. But then I remembered that I'm old and my son would have DIED if I did.

But it sure looked fun. I didnt appreciate the kids hitting or pushing the skanking kids, that part of it is odd but that is what they do. And they spin each other and drag each other and bang into each other and fall into a football like huddle laughing through the bruises. Its all rather advanturous to me.
I loved it. Watching it. Feeling the teens exhuberance and all that bottled up energy let loose. God I wish I'd been able to do stuff like that with all my energy when I was a kid.

And yah the kids were glad I stayed if you are wondering. My son is lucky, and we are lucky that he has a tight group of friends that dont do anything to hide from a parent so as resident parent, they were fine with me staying in the back leaning against that ol Veterans Hall wall. By the trash. Until someone hawked a loogie and I almost hurled. I moved. Against another wall. By two boys holding hands and whispering to each other. Then they started spinning each other and giggling. I think they were on something with their shiney eyes and googly smiles. I just sat tight. I was there to watch my boy, but it sure makes me wonder...........

Well that is todays venting.......I hope I can log in again soon and do this again. Heh.

He is still playing drums like a madman and now playing for an interpretive dance group at the college. On trash cans. And PVC tubes. And a car rotor.....Fun adventures ahead!