new raspberry; �HATES technological I am sick to death of erectile dysfunction, pass the tampons please |
Armchair Quarterbacking Armchair Quarterbacking This would be one of my pet peeves. Especially when I am the target of the armchair quarterback. Nothing pisses me off more than leaving me to raise your nephew and then hearing you criticize how I do it. You remember me, don�t you? The lesbian? The evolutionary dead-end? The woman who managed to survive over 10 years of marriage to a man and not have children? I am the disciplinarian in our house. The hard liner. I am not a mom. There is not a lot of warm and fuzzy to me. I�m sure it�s in there somewhere, but that�s not how I was raised so I�m not real capable in the warm and fuzzy mom department. I know where loosey goosey parenting gets the kid and I�d rather not be raising another me, thank you very much. So I have a tendency to draw a line and pretty much stick to it. Ms., aka my better half is the touchy feely one in the group and I think that works well. I am strong where she is weak and vice versa. Ms., aka my better half is the bread-winner, which naturally means that the majority of the time The Kid is dealing with me. I do realize he is a kid, so I�m trying not to be such a hard liner and give him some breathing room and allow him to be a kid and screw up once in a while without making a federal case out of it. Something gets broken because he was careless, well I break stuff too. Try to be more careful. Something gets spilled, well I spill stuff too. Clean it up. But maybe let me know that the soda you spilled might have gotten inside my purse so I can take care of it rather than reaching in to find a sticky mess the next day� I think The Kid and I deal pretty well with each other. When he gets home from school I put aside whatever I am doing and while he has a snack and a drink I ask him about his day. How was your day? Any problems in math? Everything going ok on the bus�he�s had two warnings about bad behavior on the bus, one more and he gets kick off for 5 days. How are your friends? That sort of shit. If there�s any information we�ve asked him to get, this is the point where I will ask about it. And for the past two weeks he�s been supposed to ask his math teacher about a math problem that we�ve all been puzzling over. I�ve asked four times if he�s gotten an answer yet and yesterday was the last time I was going to accept �I forgot� as an answer. There was also a band concert he was supposed to find out about but I�ve only asked about that one three times. He doesn�t seem to be making getting this information a priority so I decided that it�s time to provide a little incentive. The electronics�computer, TV and stereo�are off limits until the two questions are answered. At which point he gets pissed off because he knows he�s screwed up and of course it�s all my fault. So he retreats to his room and I give him some space. Last year I probably would have followed him down the stairs and continued the confrontation, making point after point about how he�s the one that screwed up and he shouldn�t be mad at me, I�m not the one that screwed up, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah. But I don�t do that anymore because I recognize that if I just give him some cool down time, we can resume negotiations later when his initial rage at himself is gone. After 15 minutes he�s still pretty upset and I get the story that he didn�t have good day at school, something�s up with one of his friends and no, he doesn�t want to talk about it. I don�t press, I just ask what he wants from McD�s for dinner and go off to take care of Bonnie�s cats and pick up the food on the way back. Later after dinner is done, Ms., aka my better half calls from her business trip to check in. I explain the situation we are currently in and she starts giving me grief about the way I�ve handled the situation. I explain why I�ve done what I�ve done and she asks to speak to The Kid pretty much leaving me with the impression that she thinks I�ve fucked up. A couple of minutes later The Kid comes to tell me he�s sorry, that Ms., aka my better half said I was right to impose the punishment I imposed. I accept his apology and ask if he�s interested yet in talking about whatever it is that happened with his friend. He declines and I don�t press. Today she calls to check in and let me know her return travel arrangements. She asks if The Kid and I talked and I told her we did, but he still isn�t talking about whatever it is that happened with his friend. What she does not say is that she thinks I handled the situation yesterday just fine. I would like to hear this from her own lips, not just The Kid�s. What she does say is that The Kid and I need to talk more and I say we talk all the time, you�re just not here to see it. The only time you hear about it is when we have a problem, you don�t hear about the 95 % of the time that we get it right, because it�s not an issue, so don�t tell me that he and I need to talk more. And I also want to say�but don�t�that any time you want to haul your ass up out of that armchair and step into the huddle and call some plays in this game, you are more than welcome. Because this quarterback�s arm is getting tired and she�s down to the last few plays in the playbook and if I�m doing it so wrong than maybe it�s time to let someone else throw the Hail Mary�s. I don�t say this because we all know what happens when I speak my mind and Ms., aka my better half doesn�t like what it is that comes out. And I�m not even completely out of my last silent treatment. So I will just whine about it here and for now that will have to be good enough for me. But how much longer will this be good enough for me? Listening to: bowling for soup 1985 Smelling: sweaty teenage boy Reading: sara paretsky blacklistMood: well obviously I�m pissed off
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secrets pondering: Why the right wingers who want to keep the government out of their business insist on putting the government in my bedroom laughing about: It gets lost in translation crying about: bad habits: smoking totally ballistic about: amen sister: someone else�s take on childlessness regular reads: cactustree must see tv: |