Ah the Morning has Not Lived Up to My Expectations

I blew it this morning. My tinnitus was bothering me and I awoke at 5:30 a.m. about half an hour early. I lay in bed trying to decide whether to get up or not. In the end I just lay there and waited for the radio to come on. Sometimes the only news I get is from the first 3-4 minutes of National Public Radio’s morning edition. No real news today, just more of the same.

When I got home last night I spent the entire evening cleaning. Pine needles in the arch of your foot suck. All the Christmas decorations went to the basement, the floor was swept and the furniture was put back into place. The kitchen was organized. We have shifted to a closer to vegetarian than not diet and I was looking for something, I am not sure what but I could not find it. An hour and half later and the cabinets were organized. After all this and after the first full day back at work I was tired.

Foolish me, later on last night I had made Secundus recount his grades to me. Abysmal would be putting it mildly. A child with immense talent, a child who used to have spark has changed. His sole purpose now it seems is escaping into his computer. He was sent off to read a novel.

Next Secundus came down to assert I was tormenting him because the main character in the novel had no backbone and was filled with vacillation and ambivalence, Secundus’s words. He then accused me of making him read the book to torment him with a character that was his double. I told him I asked him to read simple to show he still possessed that skill and that all of his mental function hadn’t been shifted to allowing his fingers to tap, tap, tap on the arrow keys of his computer not to confront him with a possible future like one of Dickens’s Christmas ghosts. Oh the book is Richard Russo’s Empire Falls.

When he came down for breakfast he didn’t want what was being served so I made him his druthers, toast, jam and egg over easy. But then it became a confrontation over the minor things and that grew into a confrontation over bigger issues.

My cool was lost very quickly. The lunch bag ripped not his fault, nor mine either. Also there is a plumbing problem and due to my external hard drive having died I don’t have my good plumber’s number. Finally both of my kids who had all of Christmas to do some remedial work on their plummeting grades did nothing. This of course resulted in a communication from school yesterday about where some assignments were.

Weekly counseling, constant questions about assignments, nothing seems to bring about a change. Yes I want to be accepting. Yes I want to be compassionate. But dammit there is such a thing as personal responsibility.

Sorry to vent but I am only human. I am one with the universe. I am one with the universe. I guess this means I am the proud parent of teenage boys.