My mom was a superhero (and I was an ungrateful little prick)

I was raised in immaculate surroundings.  Spotless floors, dustless fans, sparkling windows… even the inside of the damn refrigerator sparkled.  Everything had its place.  Everything was wonderfully organized.  Everything was perfect- always.  And the older I get, the less I understand how my mother did it.  Seriously- it blows my mind.

My parents had “traditional roles” until I was in high school, then my mom went back to work.  My dad took care of the yard, the cars, repairs around the house, etc; and my mom handled the house and the kids.  Both roles were maintained so flawlessly that it looked to be the work of magic.  And even when she went back to work, the housework didn’t falter an inch.  Not one fucking speck of dirt was to be found.  And keep in mind, my folks were raising 2 boys and a girl who was messier than the 2 boys put together.  I pig-penned all over my mother’s beautifully kept house- but you’d never know it to look at it.  But not only did she keep things so clean that you could easily eat out of the toilet bowl without worry, but she was on point when it came to holiday cards, birthday cards, thank you cards, all other social pleasantries, AND making sure that  we kids had our after-school time appropriately filled with sports, music lessons, scouts, and any other fly-by-night interests that we were currently embracing.  3 solid healthy meals a day, a spotless house even with 3 kids dead set on messing it up, every social grace in place, running 3 little arguing brats all around town to soccer, piano, dance and ice skating, and while working.  Again, I have no idea how she did it.

Kids have a tendency to be self-absorbed assholes.  It’s part of their job requirement.  Growing up, I never even noticed how perfect everything was.  But now that I’m an adult with my lone child and house that’s much smaller than my parents- I am slapped in the face by just how much my folks were able to accomplish in a day… and it’s making me wonder if my parents were unnatural superheroes, if the times have changed so much that my generation of parents are just much less organized/efficient, or if there are truly less hours in the day.  Or maybe I’m just a totally crappy parent.

I gave up on “social pleasantries” when Sully was 2.  Thank you cards, birthday cards, holiday cards, etc… I just stopped trying to keep up.  Hell- the  invitation to me and Brad’s wedding was sent out via email if that gives you some idea of just how far removed I am from my mother’s wonderful social graces.  My house is always clean- but I can’t really get on top of it.  I vacuum twice a week, do dishes every night,  scrub the bathrooms every weekend, everyone in my house does their own laundry, I try to enforce everyone picking up after themselves- but at the end of the day I want to lay on my floor and scream at the top of my lungs because there’s still clutter and dust and kid-stuff and Brad-stuff EVERYWHERE!!!!!   Running from work to Sully’s school to the grocery store to Sully’s karate to home for homework to making dinner to doing more work from home and trying to get to bed before 2am leads me to ulcers and sleepwalking.  How did my parents do it with 3 kids?!  And so effortlessly?!?!  It truly blows my mind.

Tonight I channeled my mother.  I borrowed a crazy high-tech rug cleaner from a neighbor and tackled our area rugs.  I scrubbed out the refrigerator, and am moving onto my office (which looks like a tornado hit it).  There’s such a wonderful calm that I feel when I visit my parents house- and I want some of that in my house.  I know that the majority of that calm comes from the fact that my parent’s house will forever be “home”… but it also comes from the fact that when I’m there, I’m not surrounded with chaos.  The beautiful organized calm that my parents house radiates does wonders for my OCD, and I can actually relax when I’m there.

Is it pathetic for a 34-year-old married mother to want to move back home and live with her parents?  It probably is.  Good thing I abandoned my shame years ago.

Thanks, Mom.

Me vs Pre-teen Apathy

This could alternately be titled “My son is making me want to throw myself in front of a bus”.

Let me start by saying that I adore apathy… when it’s appropriately placed.  There is something wonderfully freeing about just not caring about things that other people stress and drive themselves mad over.  Religion?  I don’t give a shit.  What other people think of me?  I don’t give a shit.  How many women David Letterman, Bill Clinton, or anyone else screwed when they “weren’t supposed to”?  I truly don’t give a shit.  Is my car clean?  I don’t care.  Are the holes in my shoes?  Don’t care.  If I keep eating sugar in such large amounts I’ll be diabetic by the time I’m 40?  Yawn… so what.  Did I just cut you off in traffic and now you’re screaming and flipping me off?  That’s actually pretty funny.

It’s when apathy is misplaced, and put where it can do serious potential damage to your future- that’s when it’s a big problem.

My 11 year old son is brilliant.  I’m not just saying that out of blind parental pride.  He really is.  Actually, it’s fucking terrifying as to how smart he is (and some days, I wish he was a mouth-breathing drooler, because dumb kids are FAR easier to raise than smart kids… hands down).  He is hilarious, and creative, and one of those oddball ultra-brainy types that has a bottomless pits’ worth of trivia and knowledge to toss out at random….

BUT because he’s too smart, he also has the manipulation skills of an adult (and not just an adult… but his manipulation tactics could put the most devious junkie stripper to shame).  He has learned the art of lying- and will look you right in the eye with a smile and his brown eyes opened as “doe-eyed” as they can get and spin you tales of bullshit a  mile long to get away with whatever misdeed he has done.  He runs his teachers in circles.  He can turn a classroom into a circus within 30 seconds if bored.  He plays people as if they’re puppets (and sometimes actually is able to pull the wool over on me and Brad- which is astounding to all).  I never really understood how someone could be “too smart for their own good” until I had Sullivan.  I now get it…. all too well.

One of the problems with really smart kids is that they see through the “life’s rules” bullshit- and they don’t care to participate.  Sully is one of those kids.  Last year, they tested him to be in the gifted classes for junior high this year.  He barely tried on the tests, and had one of the highest scores in his school (and the only reason he tried AT ALL is because I asked him to “do it for mom!”. If I hadn’t said that, he would have just sat and doodled on the edges of the paper).  So this year, he has started off the year in the gifted classes.  The homework that is supposed to take the kids at least 2 hours to do only takes him 20 minutes.  When I give him practice tests at home for vocabulary (to which his vocab words are things like “Australopithecus”- and yes, I had to ask him how to spell that) or geography, he aces all of them.  The work isn’t too hard for him.  The amount of work isn’t too much for him.  He is fully capable of breezing through his classes in his sleep.

So why is it he’s making 2 D’s and an F?  Because the child doesn’t give a shit.  Oh… he’s making an A in gym, and a B in math… but his strongest subjects- Reading, Language Arts and Social Studies (all the gifted classes), he’s flunking.  He was reading at a high school level in 4th grade.  He’s been studying cultures and sociology at home in his free time since he was a tiny tot.  But these are the classes that he’s bombing out of.  And it’s making me want to scream and pull my hair out.

Because of these grades, we have a mandatory 2 hour homework time at home.  I don’t care if he’s done in 5 minutes… he has to sit there and read ahead or do extra credit for the rest of the 2 hours.  He is grounded from the Wii, and his computer, and any movies except our National Geographic specials until the grades are up.  And every night when proclaims “I’m done!” with his homework, I sit with him, go through it piece by piece, and make sure that it all is in fact completed.

So how, again, is he flunking these classes that are too easy for him and teaching him information that he already knows?  Because he doesn’t bother to turn the homework in.  Seriously.  He’ll take the time to do it and put it in it’s appropriate folder to be given to the teacher the next day… and then he just doesn’t turn it in to her.  Why?  BECAUSE HE DOESN’T GIVE A SHIT!!!!  He doesn’t care that his grades are crap and that he could get kicked out of the gifted classes.  He doesn’t care that because of his shitty grades, he’s no longer allowed to do anything but read and draw in his free time.  He just doesn’t care.  We can’t get a coherent reason as to why he doesn’t care, because he’s so manipulative that he’ll give us mountains of excuses and explanations that he thinks excuse the behavior, or he’ll tell us what he thinks we want to hear…. and if it were any other kid, those excuses just might work.  But we all KNOW that his excuses are nothing but stale and rank hot air… but he’s not giving up the truth.  Period.

He’s not openly rebelling, because he gets upset that we’re upset about his grades.  This isn’t an angsty pre-teen “fuck you, mom and dad!  and fuck your establishment!”….. this is just 100% apathy towards the results of his lack of work.  I’ve tried to talk to him about how doing well in school could open up alot of great things for him as an adult, and that it’s SO hard to get into the gifted classes so he should look at it as an honor, and all that bla bla “>bla bla parental babble.  But does that stuff ever really get through to kids?  Of course not.

So I’m at a loss with what to do with him.  If he gets himself kicked out of the gifted classes, I’m sure his father  will hop on a plane from Kansas so that Sully can actually see the rage in his eyes.  And I KNOW that the regular classes will be so boring for him that he’ll quickly make ALL F’s instead of just 1.  But I don’t know what to do with him.  I’m bending over backwards to help him, his teachers are bending over backwards to help him… but how do you make someone give a fuck about something when they’re determined to not give a fuck?

Help?  Anyone????  Because I’m out of ideas.

Trying to pull myself out of hiding only to be met by vampires….

Things have been rough in the Ferrell house- so I’ve been hiding (something I do too well).  I have a love/hate relationship with isolation…. it’s my security blanket when things get sticky, and I fall into “recluse-mode” far too easily- but it makes me weird and jumpy and intolerant of society and the people around me.  I get too hyper-focused with myself and others (because I have nothing else to focus on because of  my removal from life’s distractions), and am all-around difficult to deal with.  In my experience, life’s distractions are necessary.  Ernest Becker (a cultural anthropologist and Thanatologist) theorized that we are all abundantly aware of our own mortality, and in order to cope with it we fill our lives with as many distractions as possible to convince ourselves we are immortal (I really love Becker… he was kindof super brilliant).  I don’t think I’m trying to escape the awareness of my mortality (because as far as my consciousness is concerned, I’ve very ok with it)… but who knows what’s really going on in our subconscious.  All I know is that if I don’t have tedious distractions and social outlets- I get creepy.  So as part of my multi-faceted plan to ward off the creepies, I’m going to write on here at least 3 or 4 times a week.  So you’ll be hearing alot from me in the future (and if you don’t, you’ll know that I’ve failed my plan).

So onto distractions…..

Sully got in his first fist-fight at school.  1 week into the school year, and he’s duking it out in the boy’s locker-room.  He has always been picked on and bullied by kids because he’s different and brainy and doesn’t give a shit about “fitting in” and is socially awkward.  These elements will serve him well in highschool and college when individuality becomes something to strive for… but in elementary school and junior high- they are bully magnets.  Apparently, he started an argument with another kid, and then the other kid decided to throw the first punch- and Sully kicked his ass so bad the other kid was crying.  I have very mixed feelings about this.  My “June Cleaver Parental Side” is frustrated that he started the argument, and also that he didn’t take the necessary steps to diffuse the situation or walk away because violence is no way to argue.  BUT then there’s the other side… the primal Mama Lion side that jumps up and screams “FUCK YEAH!!!  GIVE THAT LITTLE BRAT WHAT HE DESERVES FOR THROWING THE FIRST PUNCH!!!”.  Immature- I know.  But after watching Sully come home in tears for years after being picked on, and having to “suck it up” and tolerate the intolerance and cruelty of other kids… a part of me LOOOOOVED that he beat this kid down, and in turn showed all the other boys in the locker room that he is not a child to be fucked with.  He fought back when threatened- and he won.  Now, the responsible June Cleaver side of me gave him the appropriate lecture, and we went over all the ways that he could avoid fights in the future- but in my head, I was smiling. And when he and the other boy met with the principal, and the other boy almost got the police called on him because during this altercation he threatened to bring a gun to school and shoot Sully (idle childish threat- but one that school systems have ZERO tolerance for), and Sully walked away from the situation without any punishment… again, in my head, I was smiling.  I’m trying to keep those smiles hidden because I don’t want to give Sully the wrong message… but they’re so very there.

On another note… will someone PLEASE explain to me why vampires have such a stronghold on our society right now?  I went into Borders the other day, and there is an entire literature section dedicated to vampire stories.  Suspense novels, romance novels, and even a “Young Adult” section where vampire stories have become the new “Sweet Valley High”.  It’s creeping me the fuck out, and I don’t understand it.  Granted, I’ve never read the Twilight books (nor do I have any desire to do so), and I won’t even go near the “True Blood” tv show (which Brad secretly watches downloaded episodes on his iPod- but admits that it’s total shit, but addicting… kindof like fast food in the way that it temporarily satisfies, but has no nutritional value and fills you with guilt and bloat after ingesting).  The only worthwhile vampire story that I’ve seen since I was a kid and watched (and LOVED) “The Lost Boys” was this Swedish(?) film Brad turned me onto called “Let the Right One In”… and it is actually the sweetest love story ever that just happens to be “Vampire motivated”.  But aside from that, I would really really like for all this vampire stuff to go away for a while.  It’s just gotten out of control, and feels like 14 year old goth kids have taken over our media.

On that note, I’m off to make Sully do his homework, and work in the yard.  But I’ll leave you with a photo from my recent trip to Las Vegas for a trade show selling sunglasses for my day job (and if you’re curious as to where I work, you can see it at www.isunscape.com).  My lovely friend Jen came as my sales assistant, and we found the most beautiful restaurant in Caesar’s Palace where the walls are all aquariums.  Beautiful….

I hope your day is filled with lovelyness.