February 07, 2007

Honey, I'll Be Back...

I am just going out to get a gallon of milk.  The scene now is 20 years later and that gallon of milk never made it home.  I know that feeling. I know what it means to want to walk away.  It started Monday and has not ended yet.  Monday night I have a group with some friends that meet with weekly for fun.  This past Monday was a special night because one in the group was having a birthday.  The festivities began at 6 pm.  I get a call at 5:15 that I need to go to drug stores and pick up mediation and then go the office supply store and get modeling clay, rubber cement and green cardstock.  All before 6 pm because the stores would be closed by the time my party was over!  Can we say livid? 

I tried.  I really did.  I thought it out, called my group and told them I was not coming.  They convinced me to just come late.  I reluctantly agreed.  I was livid and upset as they know that I have plans on Monday and Wednesday nights.  I cant run errands in between.  There is not enough time.  I get off work at 5:30 and I have traffic to contend with.  I tried.  I really did.  Do you think that there was any modeling clay with a 100 mile radius?  Hell no!  What about rubber cement?  Hell no again!  There must have been a run on rubber cement because I went to 8 different places to get it and no one had it.  (3 grocery stores, 1 drug store, 1 dollar store, 1 Big Lots, 2 office supply stores)  I just saw empty spaces on shelves that said temporarily out of stock  of just an empty space  with a $1.99 sign there were the rubber cement would be at home. 

Finally I became so desperate that I went to my local Kinkos and tried to talk them into having a jar of theirs that they have for customer use.  They have none to sell.  They refused.  I found the only box of modeling clay at an out of the way art shop after going to 4 places to try to find it.  Well, it was 8:30 by the time I had those packages all delivered to my family.  I was mad enough to spit nails.  I missed my Monday party.  I never got the rubber cement.

Then yesterday another ordeal begins. This time with the rubber cement again.   It is needed for a project due Thursday.  My child wants to turn it in early so she is trying to do it all last night.  I was livid.  She had 2 months to work on this.  She had weekends to work on it and all these weeks and weekends I was like a broken record.  Are you working on that project?  You had better go get started on that project. Do not wait until the last minute to work on that project.  Well what does any 13 year old do?  Wait till the last minute.  And of course who does she ask for help.  Mom. 

Murphy’s Law took over.  The printer would not work.  I had to still go out again for rubber cement.  I found a gallon size tin of rubber cement for $10 that I had to buy.  Then the printer really would not work.  She needed pictures printed out so I had to go to another location to print those out and I told her I would have them in the morning.  All we would need to do was slap on pictures and she would be done.  She was to do all the other stuff last night.  She ran into problems with printing and then discovered she needed an excel graph which I had to do.  She called me and I told her to send me the info and I would try to print it out.  Well over came 6 documents, excel spread sheets, she needed folders and wanted me to make graphsall within a 30 minute time period before I had to leave for work.  Livid all over again! 

Since there was simply no way I could to that in the time allowed, I gave up.  I called her and told her to get on the bus.  The project is due tomorrow so again tonight is the night before.  She has youth meeting tonight.  She is not going.  She will be staying home and working on this project.  No TV. No music nothing!  I am so thru with her.  I cannot begin to tell you how often we have discussed not waiting till the last minute to do all these very involved school projects.  Why cant she get that through her head? We go through this over and over and I end up saving her every time with my computer skills. 

 I think I need to stop stepping in to save the day.  I need to let her fail and see that her way is not working.  But what mother wants to see her child fail?  No mother does.  Yet she cant seem to grasp the importance of advance planning and not procrastinating.  I do not know what else to do.   

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