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I’m sitting here killing time waiting for son to get home from his barbershop chorus practice so I can bust his little behind. I got an email from one of his teachers today…now that in itself it nothing new. I quite regularly get emails from his teachers. The kid hasn’t been able to control his behavior since he was oh, born, and he is usually in trouble for some physical outburst or sassy comment (in all fairness to him, he is getting so much better … I think it was November this school year before I heard from a teacher…a record…luckily kids do mature eventually). And nowadays, when a ‘prince needs to listen in class’ email enters my inbox, I usually print it out, put it on his desk and tell him I hate these things and would he shape it up because I’m tired of the teachers thinking I’m raising a bad child (yeah, if you can’t make ‘em stop using reason, opt for guilt…I’ve actually had marginally better success with guilt…who knew?)

Where was I? Oh yeah, so I get this email from one of his teachers today. I opened it thinking can’t they just handle him themselves (I pay them enough money to) and low and behold it wasn’t related to behavior. It was related to work that wasn’t done. Now I know it is a common thing…teenagers and pre-teenagers not doing their work but it is something I’ve not experienced. And I figured that was fair because I was stuck dealing with Mr. You Can’t Make Me Put My Shoes On all these years and my reward was at least the kid did and turned in his homework.

Seems the little prince has an essay that was to be redone and was supposed to be turned in before Christmas (like Dec 4th). Now duh on the teacher for not telling me sooner but she was trying to handle it herself. Seems little prince had been telling her it was on its way but it never showed up.

Little twerp. Also seems he needs to pass this math vocabulary test with an A and for two weeks he’s scored in the 70’s and was supposed to get the tests signed by me and naturally she correctly suspected I know nothing(he’s knows I’ll freak over a 70’s math vocab score. Heck, any math score less than an A will make me go a bit bonkers because they’ve pulled him and a few other kids out of the regular math class two days a week and are starting them in Algebra…this in 6th grade…so if he isn’t doing well in math it is because he isn’t trying and I’ve never had to deal with the not trying/working up to potential thing so I don’t know how).

None of this has me all that upset because it is small…very small in the overall scope of life. Even overreacting me gets that. And yes, 6th grade is the year to make these kind of stupid mistakes. Nope, this is all just fine. But what pisses me off is that over Christmas and every weekend since, I’ve asked him if he’s got any school work that needs to be done. No Mom, all caught up…everything’s done. And that, my friends, is almost like lying. Well, it isn’t really because I know him and every single time the teacher reminded him about it, he sincerely meant to remember to do it and then would forget the second he walked away. Why she didn’t have him write it down is beyond me but I’m not above slipping a little ‘seems like lying to me’ into the mix…just for grins.

It is almost like a sport.

But I probably won’t because he’s old enough to nail me …. I often forget stuff people tell me, oftentimes at the very second I’m told something. He knows it, too. Oh well. Looks like it will be the standard no t.v. and computer until you’re all caught up and maybe for an extra day because of the annoyance factor (me being annoyed at emails from his teacher).

In my next life I'm having me some low maintenance kids. You laugh but I am. I promise. (is there such a thing?)