Maybe this is the problem with the kids these days...

There's a story in our local news that really drives me bonkers. It's a little story about a 4th grade boy who was so distracted by his video game that he forgot his lunch at home. Even after his mother had reminded him to remember it, little Everett was so involved in his game that he forgot to bring his lunch.

Everett's mom decided this would be a good opportunity to teach him a lesson and emailed the teacher to ask her not to give Everett any food for lunch and that he would eat at 2:30 when he got home. Everett had been given a good breakfast of cereal and fruit and juice.

To make a long story short, and you can read the story yourself if you'd like, the school defied Everett's mom and provided him with a cheese sandwich at school.

Is it just me that thinks this is ridiculous? How are parents supposed to have any control if the child knows that the rest of the world is going to pull the rug out from under his mom's feet all the time?

From my own observations with our school board (which is the neighboring school board to the one in the story), it seems to me that these children are so babied when they're in school that they will in no way be prepared for the consequences of the real world.

Take Bug, for example. Bug is so very behind with his school work. Now, it is partially my responsibility to keep up with his homework and partially his responsibility. I have to rely on his honesty and my correspondence with his teachers to see where he stands. After he got out of the hospital he had a ton of make-up work to do, obviously. We got through one packet, but evidently he still had more to do that I was unaware of.

Until I got an email from one of his teachers. Immediately I was on him and went through all of his papers and found some work he had not completed. Bug had to be back on the grindstone again with his work.

Now, he's not an easy kid to get to do work. He whines, he complains, he tells me how tired he is, he is overwhelmed with the work. And understandably so! It's a LOT of work.

However, when Bug is a grown up and he has some daunting task in front of him, I want him to be able to complete it!

His teachers (he has two) don't agree with me. They believe that they should just take what he has completed, average his grades and start fresh for the new trimester (which starts on Monday). I think he needs an incomplete and he needs to finish his work. He needs to know he can get through it and it's totally within his capabilities to complete the work.

They worry that his self-esteem is plummeting because the task is so daunting. I worry that he'll never believe in himself if he never completes any challenges.

What do you think? And hey, what do you think about the kid not getting lunch?

Ah, the joys of motherhood and school board transportation

So we're getting back into the swing of things and Bug has been going to school for the past 3 days. Now, because Bug goes to one elementary school and Goober and Munchkin go to another I have to rely on bus transportation in the afternoons to get them all home. It's not an option to do it any other way since I can't be at two places at the same time.

Since Bug's ruptured appendix, he can't lift heavy things. It causes him pain and the doctor says he shouldn't do it anyhow. So I purchased him a rolling backpack. (I challenge you to find a rolling backpack in your town at this time of year. Serious, I challenge you!)

Every day when the bus drops him off I walk up to the bus and I help him bring his backpack down the steps. No big deal.

Today Bug's bus driver tells me:

"You gonna have ta do sumpin'! Bug cries evry aftahnoon cuz he caint lift dat heavy backpack up dees steps!"

So I basically looked at her like she was crazy and told her she needs to HELP HIM THEN. Seriously? Is it so hard for her to get up off the seat and help him bring the backpack up the steps? What the hell am I supposed to do?

I swear, if that woman bitches at me again tomorrow I'm gonna go postal on her.

/endrant

Just a quick note!

Bug was discharged yesterday! So we're home and getting back to normal. Thanks for all the well-wishes.

Better than a sharp stick in the eye... maybe.

So we're in the beginning of our 6th day here in hospital land and I can honestly say we're ready to leave. Too bad the doctors don't think so.

Every morning at approximately 5:30 AM our door opens and we are assaulted with a continuous stream of doctors and RNs and CNAs and residents and students and housekeeping and dietitians and people from the cafeteria. They smile and listen to his belly and listen to his lungs and take his blood and add more antibiotics to his IV and remind him to eat and remind him to walk and ask him how he's feeling and if anything hurts and what his pain is on a scale of 1 to 10 and ask him what he wants to eat (always nothing) and this happens over and over again for about 5 hours.

And I can't help but wonder who decided that 5:30 AM was an appropriate time to wake a 10 year old up (and his mother) and draw his blood? And who decided that 6:00 AM was an appropriate time to force a mega-ton of food down the throat of a kid who hates to eat? Hospitals don't seem to be much in the "waking up calmly and gradually" camp.

All of this is coupled with the constant sounds of crying children and incessant beeping. It's really enough to make a person insane. Last night I dreamed that I had to beat beeping machines with a baseball bat until they shut up. It was a game I couldn't win.

And the mom of the year award goes to...

The Spaz household has been a little out of sorts over the past week. Last Thursday night I took the kids to the South Florida fair with my parents and B1 and her family and the kids were fearless! Both Bug and Munchkin have reached the needed 48" to be able to ride most of the big rides and I was shocked to see them thrilled with all the whipping around. Even Goober got to go on some and he LOVED them! Combine all that up and down and upside down and cotton candy and popcorn and elephant ear and ice cream and I wasn't at all shocked to find that Munchkin woke up the next morning feeling a little under the weather.

All in the name of fun I thought, and I let her stay home from school just to catch up on some rest and relaxation.

By Sunday it wasn't just Munchkin with a fever, it was Goober, Bug, and even the Spaz, herself. Before long we were all coughing and gagging and wheezing and sneezing all over the place. The Man practically lived at work trying to keep himself from getting the funk, too.

Munchkin and Goober went begrudgingly back to school on Wednesday, but Bug was having a harder time kicking the funk so it wasn't until yesterday I sent him back to school. Now, I had warned him Thursday night that he'd be going back to school in the morning. Being the dramatic kid he is, I wasn't even phased in the morning when he told me his stomach hurt and he felt terrible.

"No way, kiddo. You've missed a week of school already, you're going today!"

And I packed them all up in the car and dropped them all off.

I wasn't even home before the phone rang at 8:05. The school nurse let me know that Bug was in the clinic and his stomach hurt but that he had no fever and otherwise appeared fine. The nurse and I collaberated and decided he could go back to class. So back to class Bug went.

Around 9:30 the phone rang again. Evidently when Bug went to his next teacher's classroom she sent him to the clinic, too. The nurse and I decided we'd let him rest a bit and then send him back to class. Both of us were sure that Bug was exaggerating and would pull out of it.

When the phone rang again around 11:30 I resolved that I'd need to run up to the school and pick Bug up. So I had him gather his homework from his teachers and I got in the car.

It was the way he held his stomach that alarmed me when I picked him up. He held it firmly on the lower right side and the look on his face told me he really was in pain.

So... to make a long story short... I'm posting this from the hospital where Bug is on IV antibiotics for his ruptured appendix.

Probably the worst parenting moment in history, you think?