LM

Oh, my dear LM. What a week. We’ve been focusing for several weeks on making sure homework is a) complete and b) legible. I’ve tried various tactics to encourage him to double check his work before handing it over to me and none have been all that successful (even charging him a quarter just made him broke, but not reformed!) Wednesdays are rather crazy at our house as I have 20 minutes from the time I walk in the door until we need to leave for church, which leaves us little time to eat dinner, go over homework or make corrections until 9pm. Last Wednesday was no exception. I reminded LM before I arrived home to do homework before trumpet, just in case homework took longer than usual. When I arrived home, he hadn’t practiced trumpet at all, because he thought I said to skip it. When I looked over his homework it was sloppier than anything he’d done in the last month and wasn’t finished. He also had a project assignment handed out that was due in two weeks. Over dinner, I helped him map out a timeline for working on the project, showing him how to work backwards and give himself extra time. I wrote the time line, saving us a much heated battle and the opportunity to write and eat at the same time. Before we headed out the door, I had LM grab extra lined paper so he would have it handy whenever he worked on the project.

While I was practicing with the handbell choir, LM worked on re-writing and finishing his math homework and then was set to work on his project. At 7, when choir is done, LM heads off to church youth group and I usually run errands and then head home before picking him up at 8:30. When I arrived home and looked over his homework it was still unbelievably sloppy and he still hadn’t done the last question on the page. I looked to the project notes and saw that despite step one stating “On a separate piece of paper,” LM had written his notes on the copy that we needed for the final draft. Steam came out my ears. When he arrived back home, at nearly 9pm, I had him sit down and re-do the math and we talked AGAIN about the steps for the project, including using the separate paper that we had included.

Thursday LM forgot his trumpet at school, so instead of being able to practice extra for Wednesday, he was now two days of practice behind for the week.

On Friday I received an email from his teacher saying it had been a rough week with LM. He had been speaking out without raising his hand (something we’re working on) and had been disrespectful to her and to other students to the point where she had finally on Friday made him stay in at recess and write her an apology. I didn’t say anything to LM when I called to check in on him after school, but it was then that he informed me he had forgotten his trumpet at school AGAIN. With the weekend upon us, and the trumpet (which I already have $500 invested in) sitting outside his classroom, in the school hallway, I decided I’d better try to get my hands on it so that it might not be stolen over the weekend. I left work early to race to school before they closed the doors and picked up his trumpet.

I arrived home about ten minutes earlier than I normally do and heard a whole scurry of activity as I came up the stairs. LM met me at the top of the stairs, out of breath and looking surprised. He said, “You’re home early” with a tone that told me all a mother needed to know. I told him to have a seat and to skip over the “lying to Mom” part of the conversation and just cut to the truth. He sat down, dropped his head and said, “I’ve been watching TV.” Television is completely off limits after school. LM has homework, trumpet and one chore every night to keep him busy and responsible until I get home. He has never been allowed to watch much TV at all at my house, but NEVER has he been allowed to have it on after school. Not even when all his jobs are done. I calmly inquired, “How long has this been going on?” “About a week” was the reply.

I sat very still on the couch for a few minutes, thinking over the past few days. I realized that the reason his homework had been so sloppy was that he was either a) doing it in front of the television or b) rushing through it in the few minutes left before I got home. I remembered Thursday night when I had arrived home to find him still working on homework that should have taken only 10 minutes to complete. I must have commented four different times that I wasn’t sure why it had taken him well over an hour to get his homework done that night.

I waited a few minutes before I looked him in the eye and said, “and is there anything else you want to tell me about today?” hoping he’d talk about the troubles in class with his teacher. “None that I can think of,” he said. “Really. Would Mrs. B. have something to tell me about today?” His head sunk even lower. “I got in trouble in school today for talking back to Mrs. B.” I told LM he needed to go to his room and just sit (not read) because I was far too mad to discuss anything at the moment. He headed to his room in tears and I left him there for over an hour while I stewed.

I alerted his father through email what was going on, as he was to pick LM up at 7 for the night. When he arrived we all sat together and talked through the issues, discussed what changes needed to happen and made sure we emphasized that LM wasn’t a bad kid, he just wasn’t making good choices. He left with his dad and I breathed a huge sigh.

LM returned home on Sunday for church and all seemed to go well. He worked on his project and practiced his trumpet and tried to kiss up by doing extra chores around the house at every opportunity.

Monday came along and we had to re-do homework again because it was too sloppy to read. He hadn’t written down his assignments, so I had no idea what he was even supposed to do. I wanted to bang my head on the counter, but I tried to remain calm and yet stern when I talked with him about how this still seemed to be a problem. Tuesday night was a Dad night, so I didn’t see LM after school.

Wednesday night was crazy again. When I arrived home, LM informed me that he couldn’t find his math worksheet that he was supposed to do for homework. He must have left it at school. I was screaming inside, I swear. I told him that was his problem, he’d have to talk with his teacher in the morning and stay in at recess to get it done. We headed off to bells and youth group, having a discussion in the car about how he needs to behave at church, that he needs to avoid one particular child at youth group who gets LM caught up in bad behavior and how he needs to demonstrate respect for his teachers. We talked about HOW to demonstrate respect, including attitude, tone of voice, saying “Yes, Mr. S” etc.

When I picked LM up from church, he climbed in the car and said, “I should really learn to avoid K (the kid we had talked about before church).” With steam already forming in my head, I said, “What happened with you and K tonight?” Oh, as it turns out, they chose to SCREAM the songs instead of sing them, and they were running around the classroom like “crazy squirrels” instead of paying attention, etc. I just didn’t know what to say. I reminded him that we had talked about all of this Right.Before.Church. He said he knew, he just forgot. When we arrived home, I sent him to bed. I was too angry to even have a conversation with him.

We talked it over in the morning, discussing how he had already gotten himself grounded for disrespecting his teacher, how he had lost his TV privileges because he had lied to me for over a week (and it came out that it MIGHT have been more like two weeks) and that he was still not giving his best with his schoolwork. I told him that I didn’t know what else to DO to make the point clear to him. I had allowed him to go to youth group on Wednesday because I felt like he needed lessons from God even more so, but now I wasn’t ready to let him go next week if he’s going to give his VOLUNTEER teachers such a hard time. I told him he’d have to earn the right to go back.

Yesterday was Thursday. As LM was getting his coat and backpack on to head to the car before school, I debated about whether or not I was going to remind him that it was band day and he needed his trumpet. I decided I’d better remind him, I didn’t want to waste a trumpet lesson just because he wouldn’t remember on his own. “LM, don’t forget your trumpet this morning,” “Yes, Mom.” No less than 30 seconds later, LM was running down the stairs, slipping his shoes on as I stood at the top of the staircase just staring through the back of his head trying to see if he was actually going to go out the door without the trumpet. With his hand reaching for the doorknob, I said, “Um, TRUMPET?” “Oh, yeah.” Back up the stairs he came to grab his trumpet.

That evening, I had expected to have a rushed night so I could do some consulting work, but that was canceled, so we just had our usual routine. When I called home to let LM know that I wouldn’t be taking him to his dad’s office as planned (his dad would just pick him up as usual at 7), he informed me that he had FORGOTTEN HIS TRUMPET AT SCHOOL. I said, “it’s time you figured out a new place to leave it after band so that you might actually remember to bring it home.” If I had left my mouth open any longer I would have screamed for the gypsies to come right.that.minute. I told him to do his homework and chore, and that I wanted his chore to be cleaning his room because it was a disaster. When I arrived home, I was immediately overwhelmed by the smell of Pledge dusting spray. I tried to keep my mind from jumping to conclusions, hoping that he hadn’t ignored my statement to clean his room, and had chosen to dust the house instead. When I got into the kitchen I just stood for a moment trying to get a grip on how suffocating the smell of Pledge was. I hate the smell of dusting spray and have often had to comment to LM when he dusts the house that he only needs to spray the rag once or twice, he doesn’t need to spray every single surface that he dusts. Trying not to lose my cool, I said, “What chore did you do today?” He said, “I cleaned my room.” I said, “Why does it smell like Pledge in here?” He said, “I dusted my room.” I said, “This smell is just from the dusting spray you used to dust your room?!?” He replied, “No, I kinda sprayed it around the house to freshen it up a little.” It was at that moment that I lost it. The whole week just came down upon us and I said, with a bit of volume and tone, “Does it say AIR FRESHNER on the can?!” “No,” he said, dropping his head. I had him light some candles to try to help alleviate the smell and save us all.

Today is Friday again. I am hoping that somewhere between Dad’s house, school and my house, LM will FIND HIS MISSING BRAIN and will get it reattached before the weekend. If you happen to see a 10 year old boy’s brain lying about, could you send it over? Or if you happen to have an extra one, I’d love to borrow it until we can find his again.

Also, if you know where the gypsies have been, could you PLEASE send them my way? I’m afraid by the time they get here, LM won’t bring me much in way of a selling price.