Squishy Ball Parenting

This parenting thing is hard.

And time-consuming.

I could slack off and get selfish. On occasion, I admit, I've taken a parenting vacation. I think, They're old enough now to study for tests on their own. Or, They know that every single weekend they have to wash their laundry - they don't need me to remind them this time. I think, I'm just going to sit here and read this book. Or start a business. Well, those little parenting vacations come back and bite me in the butt. The kids' grades slip and they wonder why they don't have any clean clothes to wear to school. So I get back on the job, nagging guiding the kids so they can get through their childhood with grades somewhat intact and wearing clothes that don't smell.

And now I have three teenagers. They're so awesome at this age - no diapers, no naptimes. Great travelers. Talented in ways I'm not. Really hilarious at times, too. And they have interesting takes on life. That is, when they're around and when they feel  like talking.

Have I mentioned that they're three teenagers? Yeah. So I can't predict when they feel like talking. When that kite sails past me, I just grab on to the tails and see where the wind takes us.

So a couple of months ago, I experienced a rare moment when my teenage son spontaneously spewed forth a soliloquy, and I was his captive audience. Outside, I tried to act all cool about it. Inside, I was jumping up and down, giddy and shouting, He's talking to me! He's talking to me! He'd been away for a week. (Well, technically he had been home all along, but he'd had such a busy social life that he might as well have been in another country.) And when he returned, he had much to say. For an hour, I sat and listened to his stream-of-consciousness philosophies.

Among his spewings were his thoughts on children who make the wrong choices or disobey their parents. I was shocked to hear him say that kids should be punished when they act up or do something stupid. "Like, throw a squishy ball at them," he said.

M'kay. 
 

 











Since then, if he acts like an obnoxious teenager, my husband and I joke that we're going to go find a squishy ball.

We've had lots of squishy ball moments around here lately. (The squishy ball philosophy has caught on around our household, but too bad we don't actually own any. We just invoke the squishy ball name, and the kids get the point...)

There was the time my son refused to take the food I offered him to his cross-country meet across town, and instead left that morning with very little money and no food. Then he called home, whiny and hungry, several hours later, asking me to come get him. What did he spend his money on? Coke and Skittles. Uh-huh. Of course I wanted to hop in the car and save him from his hunger pains. But what lesson did he need to learn: That Mommy will come to his rescue after he stubbornly refuses what I've offered? Or that he should be prepared next time? I told him I was throwing a squishy ball through the phone. (He survived. And yes, he took lunch to the next meet.)

There were the multiple days last week when I wanted to throw a squishy ball at my daughter's teacher, for penalizing my daughter for an issue that's documented on her IEP! (Young teacher. Very sweet and nice, loved by all the students. But she doesn't quite "get" my daughter's learning disabilities and memory/organization deficits.) Yes, I know she requires a little more from her teachers than typical students require. I do as much as I can from home. But c'mon. She didn't choose to have these problems, and she's not trying to make your life difficult. Let's help her, not penalize her. Squishy ball!

 



















There were the multiple tantrums that aforementioned daughter threw when I was being the best advocate she's got, spending hours and hours helping her to actually understand the novel she's reading for school. Yes dear, I know you have eyes. Yes dear, I know you can read beautifully. I just want to help you remember and understand what you're reading, that's all. Sometimes I feel like Rodney Dangerfield: I don't get no respect! Where's that squishy ball?!

Amid all these challenging moments, I often take solace that one of my kids can reliably run on auto-pilot, at least academically. She loves school. She's organized. If she needs help, she asks. She hates being unprepared for class, so she simply is always prepared. But sometimes even the most reliable ones can slip through the cracks. She slipped this weekend, and needed me to catch her, but I didn't notice until it was too late. So what did I do? I gave her a lecture, when what she needed was help and a hug.

Someone throw a squishy ball at ME.

Past Present Future

Stepping out of the shower, I thought carefully about what clothes I'd wear. After all, this was my first day at school and I wanted to make the right impression: for me, that means casual, yet put-together.

But I wasn't the student this time. I am the parent of a ninth-grader, and this was my first parent night at the high school. There will be many more school visits in the coming years, but the first anything is always a more acute experience.

(Of course, I got to drive this time. My last "first time" at high school, I was just fourteen and had to ride the bus...)

I was a little excited to be going to high school, this time as always: as a little girl, even as a teenager, and especially when I took that college course a couple of years ago. It's that anticipation of "what could be" and "what I'll be" along with, in my case, geeky love of learning stuff and taking notes.

So there I was, a parent among a sea of them, searching for my son's classrooms, navigating the crowded halls, balancing a look of confident indifference with eagerness to share a class with friends. (Aside: who thought it was logical to place room 115 not in between 114 and 116, but rather around the corner and 50 feet down the hall?! I really did look like a lost freshman...)

And as I completed abbreviated versions of all my son's classes, I realized that memories and hopes, of myself and for him, had been commingling all evening. Not only was I there, in my son's high school, thinking of how he will grow and change during the next four years and how daunting this building must have seemed on his first day. But I was also thinking back to my own high school days, which many of my classmates will be celebrating this weekend at our 25th reunion.

I thought back to my own high school years. Those awkward, exciting, hormonal, future-defining years. Personally, they weren't the highlight of my life. Eh, I was shy, lacked confidence, lacked curves (yeah, for some of us, those come later...). I just didn't know my style yet, didn't know I had something to say, didn't know it's okay to be smart and interesting but a little bit ditsy all rolled into one, didn't know I was interesting, didn't know my passions, didn't know how to laugh at myself, didn't know there was the real me hidden inside my own good-girl shell, didn't know how to embrace the body I had, didn't know to pluck my eyebrows.

So, part of me would like to go to the reunion. See old classmates and friends through the eyes of an older, wiser, more relaxed, self-confident woman. 

But this older, wiser, relaxed, confident woman is also the mother of three teens. They have busy lives and lots of weekend plans, so I'm skipping the drive to Columbus. I can wait five years till the next.

And in five years, I'll have a college sophomore and two high school seniors. Five years may seem like forever to the kids, but I know better.

When Lightning Strikes

Remember how I mentioned the lightning strike that decided to play a little prank on us just six weeks after we moved in to our new house? In one instant, lightning struck the house, caused a fire and a water leak, and zapped most everything that runs on electricity. {No people or pets were hurt in the fire, thankfully. It's just stuff. Still, it's our stuff...}

Six weeks later, we're still trying to get the house put back together. You know, with everything working. No holes in the walls. No charred parts.

Nevermind the new-house decorating! It's not even on my radar right now. For us, now, progress means simply having things working and looking they way they did on the day we moved in.

So, imagine my delight when my husband came across this little gem last weekend. It's a bottle of Coup de Foudre.

Know what coup de foudre means? I didn't either.

It means "when lightning strikes." Oh yeah, we had to drink this.

  

Yep. Says it right there on the label.

So, we invited our usual accomplices over to help us enjoy a bottle or six.

<clink clink> Here's to hoping lightning
never strikes again!

For those who are interested in an update, we really are on the road to recovery. The casualty list was ridiculously long. But most of the damaged pipes, cables, fixtures, and appliances have been repaired or replaced by now. We were fortunate to have had access to all the professionals who originally built this house just a few short months ago, so we immediately knew whom to call, and they already knew all the intimate details of what's hidden in the walls.

We have just a few things left to repair...

Our range, whose electronic parts now twitch like a nervous cat. Not to mention the persistent click it makes to remind us it's still there and still not working. I'm down to two working burners, from six. That's not horrific, but it is insufficient for most meals. And there are NO working ovens. This is hardest on the girls, who enjoy and miss their baked goodies!

It's difficult to capture the twitch and impossible to capture the
click in a still photo. But trust me, this range is fully personified.
Very creepy.

The vent cover, through which the flames emerged in their hunger for more oxygen and fuel. Instead, they were met by my husband and a bucket of water, thus extinguishing the flames before they could do much further damage. (My daughter and I walked in the door just in time to see flames and my husband approaching them with his bucket. That's when I realized that the smoke detector alarms were not a malfunction - this was a real situation.)

Thankfully, my husband was home at the time of
the lightning strike and was prepared to strike back.

The basement walls and ceilings that now indelicately reveal the the intimate details of our home. At least the firemen and, subsequently, the plumbers and electricians, made the best of the holes and cut out neat rectangles. They could have just hacked away indiscriminately, so we thank them for their tidiness.

This is just a sampling of our basement cut-outs.
Despite how this looks, there is good news here.
Yes, we had a wet basement. But upon examination,
the gas line had a hole in it from the lightning.
Turns out, the only thing that prevented the house
from bursting into flames once it punctured the
gas line was the fact that it first punctured the
copper plumbing pipe next to it, causing water to
shoot into the gas line (and elsewhere), and thus
diluting the gas. At the time, we didn't realize
the potential danger from within the walls.

There are yet a few other problems, which all seem minor compared with the past and outstanding damage.

And as we raise our coup de foudre to toast our good health, at least we have a funny story to tell about the summer we moved into a new house... Cheers! <clink clink>