Life With a Teen and a Small Update

I would say that at this point, Nico is harder than Gia. Maybe normally they are tied but on this day, he is harder. He has an orthodontist appointment today at 2:20 that I have to pull him from school for. Then I have to take him back to school for basketball practice. I was supposed to have my doctor's appointment and since it is Wednesday, my big night out at Barnes and Noble. Leo drops a bomb on me that he has to go to Boston for the day and won't be back until late. Nico tells me last night at 9:00 that either I have to give him cash (which I don't have on me right now) or take him and two of his friends to Party City to find props for his Social Studies project. So I have to cancel my doctor's appointment to take him. Then, I am thinking it is a few things that will be inexpensive and easy to find but noooooo....my brainiac child with his self-absorbed teen brain tells me, "It's no big deal. I just need a pilot hat, pilot goggles and a pilot jacket." What?! I asked him what he was going to do when Party City didn't have that stuff and he said, "Find a store that does." So in that self-absorbed brain of his, he thought it was perfectly normal to drag his little sister to as many stores as it takes to find stuff for his project during the time she normally eats dinner and gets ready for bed, knowing she hates the car. Wow. I told him to wear swimming goggles and he said, "Are you serious? I'll look ridiculous." I, feeling the vein in my head start to bulge, asked him how long he has known he needed this stuff and he said since last week. I was furious. I explained how this would have been a lot easier to do over the weekend when his dad could have watched Gia or I had cash then and he could have gone with another mom and I love that he thinks I am willing to spend however much it costs to buy all of those props. I told him that this was unacceptable and that for one, he was paying for this stuff with the money he was going to ask for this coming weekend and two, his social life is about to take a dive depending on how tonight goes.

This is the part of parenting that sucks and it is especially the part of being a mom that sucks. Do you think Leo, on his way to Boston right now, is thinking about how to help Nico find props for his Social Studies class? No (and if you are saying to yourself, have him ask the pilot for some stuff...haha) but I am not thinking about the meeting that he has in Boston either so I don't begrudge him for it. Call me a bad mom but I don't care about this project that he is working on (from the sounds of it, for a day) and I don't want to drive all over the place looking for things that he will never use again (maybe I'll make him go trick-or-treating as a pilot as punishment). I am irritated that I have to cancel my doctor's appointment and am afraid that they are going to charge me for it anyway in which case, I'll have to try and make it and then take the kids after which means it will be Gia in a store past her bedtime where her little head will turn all the way around while screaming at the top of her lungs. Oh, and did I mention that Tommy has football practice and Belle has cheerleading?

Update on the switching classes: I am so impressed with the way Isabella's teacher handled it. I sent both teachers an email expressing my concerns stating very clearly that I didn't expect them not to do it just because my kid was upset but that this was what was going on and maybe not just with my kid. We exchanged many emails (I never heard from Tommy's teacher) discussing both viewpoints. I said I appreciated his taking the time to discuss it and he said he appreciated the "behind the scenes view." He said he was going to, along with Tommy's teacher, talk to both classes to resolve some of the things going on. He told the kids that it wasn't about skill level. It was about practice and that each of the classes were practicing different things. I still don't like the switching but Tommy and Isabella were okay with that explanation and hopefully the other kids that were feeling bad were, too. Tommy no longer felt like he was "dumb at math" and I appreciated that it was handled without it being a big production. After dealing with some of the teachers I have had to deal with lately, it was refreshing to deal with a teacher with an open-mind.