That shit paid off....now when is summer vacation?

Its' been 2 short months since I went on my major rant about Big Red and how she was going to fail 6th grade.  Although, if you ask her she'd probably tell you it's been 2 VERY long months.

We've changed things up a bit.  She now stays with me Monday through Friday night and with her father every weekend.  She also spends every morning and afternoon with her dad as well.  (Come summer vacation that shit flips...I get weekends and he gets full weeks....I'll be on a 3 month VACATION!) 

Anyway, I've failed miserably at sitting back and letting her fail and learn her lesson - and that shit paid off! 

I am the homework Nazi.  Every night, all night until it is done.  It's been frustrating, and mind numbing, and funny and even enjoyable at times.  We've both cried and screamed and laughed and actually learned how to work together (sort of).    Some nights she drives me bat shit crazy and some nights I think we would both like to sell the terrorists, but we suffer through it together. (Well mostly, some nights we're close to scratching each others eyes out and Derek steps in to help with homework instead of me...I think he's mainly saving his own sanity, but she likes him better anyway...)

Night before last I was out of energy and she had 2 assignments left to do.  She begged me to let her do them in her room and didn't have the energy to hover any more.

Holy effing mother of balls!! SHE COMPLETED THE ASSIGNMENT!!! AND TURNED IT IN!!!
(I of course checked it first thing in the am, but the fact remains - she did it)

Every night I still schedule all of her assignments and check them off one by one, every night I still check her daily calendars.  Most nights I find one that she has "forgotten", but we get it done.
She rarely whines or complains anymore.  We finally have a routine.  Thank you baby Jesus!!!

On top of it all...that kid who managed to fail nearly every class last quarter has ALL A's and B's.  I nearly had a stroke when I looked at her grades.  I didn't know whether to kiss her or offer her a freaking beer in celebration.  (God knows I had one)

I will be framing this report card...it feels better than making my own A's in school.

Way to go Big Red!!! I am so freaking Proud of you!!!

(you want a puppy or a goat or something? We'll sneak it into your dads house....)

6th Grade ~ Round 2

I've already written a few posts about Big Red and her stellar grades and school work ethic so this one might not come as a surprise...

I've decided to back off and let Big Red fail 6th grade.  (She'll have repercussions of course.)
It's not that I don't care, I'm just not dragging her through the school year anymore.

I've written emails to teachers.  I've tracked down countless missed assignments and arranged for her to have extra time to turn them in.  Once I get her caught up she shits it all up again.  Maybe she's not developmentally ready for 6th grade.  Maybe she doesn't care.  Maybe it's the fact that there's never been a major consequence.  I honestly don't know what it is but I do know that everyone in Big's life has gone over and above for her and she doesn't try to help herself one bit.  She doesn't seem to be bothered by F's or being grounded for 3 months.  So I'm going to let her fail.

What amazed me about all of this has been the teachers responses.
When I brought this up to Big's teachers they offered to give her extra credit and extra time.  One teacher actually just excused all of the missing grades!!! 

I was disappointed, but I wasn't shocked.  I've spent 6 years pleading with teachers to hold my child accountable and do what it takes to make her learn and grow as a person.  I don't care if she has to miss recess or has to do extra homework or is embarrassed; so long as she's learning and not just being pushed along to the next babysitter.

The last teacher I met with told me that Big has the ability to do well but has no motivation and they're not sure how to motivate her.  My response was "wanna motivate her? - embarrass her.  Make it known when she doesn't have homework, call attention to her when she's goofing off."

The teacher looked at me as if she was waiting for the punch line.  I have to say it's not the teachers fault here.  Us as parents have thoroughly fucked the education system and our kids in the process.  We've pushed teachers into a corner and don't allow them do do their job.  We're more worried about them upsetting our children than we are about them teaching our children.

I've seen it happen in my in my own circle of friends.  Parent's bashing their kid's teachers in front of the kids.  Parents "not standing" for the way their kid is treated in school.  
Little Timmy comes in last place in  field day and doesn't get a ribbon and mom's on the phone raising hell because Timmy doesn't feel appreciated.  Susie gets yelled at in class for not listening and mom is on the phone demanding action against the teacher.

You know what, maybe your kid is an asshole and needs to learn some respect. I know 9 times out of 10 when my kid is in trouble it's because they're being assholes and not because they have teachers hell bent on torturing my them.

I know there are some shitty teachers out there, but our kids need to learn to deal with those too.  Life isn't fair, not all bosses are fair either.  Life is sometimes shitty and if our kids don't learn to cope with that early on we've essentially fucked them too...

Anyway, back to my story.  I've decided to let it go and see where it gets us.  Maybe she'll pull her head out of her ass, but I'm not placing any bets on that happening.  What I am expecting is a major fight at the end of the year though.  I'll place money on it that I actually have a fight on my hands when I try to ensure she's back in 6th grade again.

Am I being mean and heartless here?  Did I miss the parenting memo?  I don't know any other way to get the message across.  I hope I'm doing the right thing, but I really feel like a shitty mom.

(I should note that she gets scored in the 90-95 percentile on all of her test scores.  She's not delayed in that sense.  She actually gets A's and B's on classwork and tests, she just refuses to bring her homework home or actually do it when she does bring it home)

On a positive note...she's a kick ass babysitter.  Maybe she can work in a daycare when she's older.

Scratch That...I am Completely Off My Rocker Crazy

So I lied - my last post I said I wasn't crazy..I was just a mom.
Apparently I lied, I'm absolutely, totally fucking insane (and it's all my kids' fault).  I'm talking about bent over sobbing into my knees in the garage praying for a cigarette to fall out of the sky kind of insane.

I remember years ago after I did something stupid my mom looking at me and telling me " I love you, but I really don't like you right now."  At that time I had no idea what she meant...how do you love someone but not like them.  That just didn't make sense.  I chalked it up to her being angry and saying crazy mom shit.

Not only did I utter those same words last night I now know EXACTLY what she meant.

See, I've got a 12 year old daughter who is intelligent, sweet, well spoken, beautiful, loving and hell bent on driving me FUCKING BAT SHIT CRAZY!  She's like an evil mastermind of making me loose my shit.  It's as if she's got a diabolical plan to actually find that limit that sends me to the crazy house.

See she doesn't look evil....

And it's all over homework folks.... I had dreams of her going to college and being something successful.  Now I just hope robots haven't taken over McDonald's positions in the next 16 years and she can find a job there.

To put this in perspective let me give you a run down of last night (and essentially every school night for the last 6 years) Kaitlynn gets home at 3:30 sits on couch with her thumb up her own ass not doing homework like we've asked her to do 3 trillion times.  Mom gets home at 5:30 and asks Kait to do homework.  Kait says she doesn't have much homework and asks if she can do it after dinner.  Mom agrees knowing in the back of her mind this is probably a really bad decision but hey she wouldn't just outright lie....WRONG.

At 6:40 Kait begins her homework.  She informs me that she has finished Math, and Reading and English and reports that she only has her vocab words left  to do.  Mom does a little happy dance in her head.  Maybe Kait is getting this after all.  (I should mention here that Kait has already been grounded for 3 weeks due to failing grades and "forgetting" homework)

• At 7:30 Kait begins her 12 vocabulary words.  
• At 8:00 I ask for a status.  She's still looking them up...
• at 9:00 I catch her watching TV.  I only slightly lose my shit and make her move to a different chair at the table so she can't see the TV. (Did I mention she's 12 not 2) 
• At 10:00 I again ask what in the holyfuckinghell is taking so long with the 12 vocabulary words. 

 Remember, she has an Ipad with a dictionary app to aid in this.  She doesn't even have to flip fucking pages!!!

• At 11:00 she hands me her vocab book.  I think it's a joke.  There on the back of the book are her 12 words .  Inside contains four, FOUR fucking definitions!!! FOUR DEFINITIONS!!! It took her 3 and a half hours to write and define FOUR words using an Ipad and dictionary app.  

This is the exact moment that I lost my mind, but I manage to recover and not actually scream the obscenities that are banging around in my skull. That's until I walk by her pile of school work and notice a worksheet that isn't done.  Not any worksheet, the same worksheet that she told me she finished 3 hours ago.  When I bring this to her attention she tells me that she wasn't sure if it was homework or if she was supposed to do it...WHAT?

Clearly it's been a few years since I've been in school, but in my day teachers didn't send home worksheets that we weren't supposed to do.  That's just fucking stupid.  I calmly explain this (that's a lie - I was on the verge of hysterics) and am given the response that the teacher just gave it to them at the end of the day without saying a word, so that's why she's not sure if she's supposed to do it. 
(Now I'm screaming that we both know that's a lie and a really bad one at that.) So, I inform her that I am going to email this idiot teacher in the morning and ask why in the holy hell she would just throw a worksheet at my child with no explanation.   This is what I get next...verbatim "Well, maybe she said something, maybe I forgot or I wasn't listening, It might be homework.  I'll just do it to be safe"

Really It might?  You'll just do it in case?
I'd like to give you my response back, but I honestly can't tell you what I said.  I know there was A LOT of  screaming and probably cursing.  I think I asked her why she was trying to make me crazy.  I know I told her "I love you but I really don't like you"

Then I walked out to the garage and sobbed.  I sobbed because I lost my shit big time with my daughter.  I sobbed because I realized that I have to let her fail this time or she'll never learn.  I sobbed because I meant what I said - I love that little girl, but I really didn't like her at that moment and that felt horrible.  I sobbed because I didn't have a goddamned cigarette.  And I sobbed because I know I have another 6 fucking years to go....

I've decided to let go.  She is 12 and can manage her homework and if not she is old enough to suffer the consequences.  I will be there if she chooses to ask me for help but I will not do it for her.

I'm also going to call my mom and apologize profusely for being such a dick head kid.  I know how it feels now.

(Shit....it just dawned on me - I have 2 more kids to go...I don't have 6 years left...more like 15 years left.  Mom's gonna need some good pills and a shrink.)

I better get a kick ass nursing home out of one of these kids...


***as a side note I feel like I should add that calling the teacher an idiot above was totally sarcastic.  I have worked with Kait's teacher multiple times and know she actually wouldn't hand any of her students an assignment with no explanation. That comment was made to get the daughter to fess up to not telling the whole truth***

You’re 3 missing assignments away from being a homeless crackhead!

Oh yeah…I said that.  
To a 6th grader.  
To MY sixth grade daughter.

I am mom of the freaking year over here. 
I totally lost my shit last night….  In my defense we were on night TWO of “catch up on the shit you didn't do while you were at your dad’s house because you knew he wouldn't check”.

Just to clarify; I’m not talking about 2 or 3 assignments.  I’m talking about a list of 9-12 different assignments!  Add to this that the child has a school provided I pad with daily calendars of what’s due and when.  SHE DOESN'T  EVEN HAVE TO WRITE HER OWN ASSIGNMENTS DOWN!  And she can’t remember what she needs to do.

This is how it all went down:  I take over the i pad and am going through the calendars and writing a list of what the child has outstanding, what she turned in and what she has no clue about.  At this point I have 2 items on the done list, 3 or so on the incomplete list and I’m somewhere around 5 items on the “I have no fucking clue list”  I admit I was already a little short tempered by the whole situation, but when we hit number five and she couldn't even tell me if she’d seen the paper before I completely lost it and went bat shit crazy.  I asked her if she actually went to school or if she even cared about school and being successful at all.  I then proceeded to tell her that if she kept up this attitude she would find herself working on a career as a homeless crackhead and she was about 3 assignments away from being just that.

She looked at me horrified. I’m still not sure if she actually believed what I was saying or if she could tell I was about to topple right over the edge of that crazy cliff.  

If I wouldn't have been so irate I would have laughed at the absurdity of what I had just said.  I did in fact realize how crazy I was beginning to sound so I called in  reinforcements (Derek), grabbed a beer and took it with me for a nice long bath (where I proceeded to drop my brand new phone in the water).

The only silver lining to this cloud…while I had to stay up till midnight helping Big with her homework I was able to Google and fix my water damaged sim contactor.  (It took a really tiny screwdriver, you tube, a q tip and lots of 4 letter words…but that’s a story for another day)


And here I am at work blogging instead of doing my “assignments”.  I better get back to it…we don’t need 2 homeless crackheads in the house….