For Sale: 12 year old - CHEAP

He's been in trouble for awhile.  The past two months without exception, he has spent most of the weekend working on homework.  And by 'most' I mean, for example, eight hours on Sunday.  Which means none of the weekend was spent doing something fun with his mother.  Which means his mother did nothing that was considered fun.

He was grounded a week ago.  Could not go to bonfire night.  Missed out.  Even had reading for pleasure taken away to make sure the grounding was severe enough to fit the crime.

This week he still proceeded to procrastinate.  He wasn't forthcoming about things and he spent 8 hours, let me repeat that, EIGHT HOURS working on an essay to have a sum total of 77, let me repeat THAT, SEVENTY-SEVEN words.  Total.  

There has been much yelling by his mother.  I was peeved to say the least.  Two months of my life I have spent my weekends waiting for him to finish his homework so we could play a game, go for a walk, see a movie, DO ANYTHING and here I still sit.  Regretting every single moment that I signed him up for this blasted gifted class.  Although I know it's not that he has too much homework, he doesn't have any more than any other average 7th grader, he just doesn't do it until the last minute and even then, he'll spend hours and hours and hours and hours what should take 20 minutes to complete.  He will not complain about it.  He's not upset.  He won't grumble or complain or whine.  He'll just spend the entire weekend in his room with me checking in periodically, HOPEFULLY, to only find that he is still stuck, or he's still on page one, or he still isn't sure where to find the quote he's looking for.  

Tonight he had a birthday party to go to.  An overnight party.  And while he did not for one single minute deserve to go, I let him.  I forced him.  For two reasons:  One, of the five boys attending, I know of four and they are good, smart kids.  Kids I want LM hanging around with.  Kids I want him socializing with.  And since LM never invites friends over, never has friends spend the night and rarely gets invited over, I wanted him to go.  It was a big deal to me.  And two (and frankly even more importantly) I promised Birdy we would do Girl's Night tonight and I wasn't about to let LM's procrastination ruin a fun night out with my niece.

So, Birdy was dropped off and we took LM to his party.  And as we searching for the right house, I see another car pull up to the drive and figure we must be in the right spot.  Until I realize the person walking to the door of the house is a girl.  And I say to LM, "well, maybe this isn't the right place, that's a girl."  And LM says, "That's Jordan.  Girls were invited, too.  They are only staying until 9."

MIGHT THIS NOT HAVE BEEN USEFUL INFORMATION TO TELL YOUR MOTHER?!?

And perhaps more importantly, might this not have been useful information TO PUT ON THE INVITATION?!?!

These are 7th graders.  And this is the first boy/girl party LM has ever been to (well, ya know, except for cousins and classmates when he was like...TWO)

So, on top of all the homework issues.  On top of being the King of Procrastination for the past nine weeks, on top of using the computer for eight hours over the past three days (when your mother would really like to be typing her NOVEL) only to have 77 words to show for it, on top of all of this, he knew there would be girls at a party and he didn't share this information with his mother.  Uh huh.

It's a darn good thing that when I pick him up in the morning we are headed straight to church, because let me tell you, that boy has a death wish and he might not survive the day.

Want to bet the sermon tomorrow will be on patience?!?!

(On a good note, Birdy and I had a fantastic night out and it was wonderful to spend time together!!  I am thankful that someone out there wants to spend time doing fun things with me on the weekend!)