When I became a mother, something inside me changed. Something went a little left. It’s like a secret code was activated and now inside me lives a fierce warrior. When pushed, she pushes back. Hard.

What good is being a warrior when there is no war?

Oh, but there IS a war raging. Ask any parent who’s ever tried to get a child birthed, raised and out on his or her own in one piece, capable and ready to take on the world for themselves. It’s battle after battle getting a child to adulthood…some internal, some between you and the child, and some between you and the world.

I screw up left, right and center, all day long and half the night as a mother. If I got started trying to list all the ways I’ve failed my children, I’d be sitting here still typing this time next week, at least. But that has nothing to do with me being (and recognizing) the fierce, warrior mom that I am. I fight for them much more than I fight with them.

When I look back over the last 6 years or so, my experience of mothering Second Son is vastly different than my experience mothering Oldest Son from 12 to 18. Where Second Son has been willing to listen, to consider maybe, just maybe, I had some valuable insight to offer, Oldest Son knew every damn thing already and gave me zero air time. Where Second Son allowed me to not only know what was up with him (only after extensive inquisition – he wouldn’t say shit if he had a mouthful), but to advocate for him when necessary, Oldest Son stonewalled me at every turn.

I’ve long maintained that somewhere between the 11th and 12th birthday, boys just lose their natural minds. I’d say it was the onset of puberty, and maybe that’s exactly what it is, but hell – I’m a girl, the first of 4 in my family – what the hell do I know about the onset of puberty in boys? Not a damn lot, even now, I assure you.

Don’t think for a minute Second Son didn’t lose his mind back then – he did. But how it has shown up has been drastically different. As the second child, and no doubt helped by the fact that the older sibling is a full 6 years older, Second Son had (and capitalized on) ample opportunities to watch his older brother and decide, “Uh yeah… that doesn’t look like it turned out all that well…I think I’ll take another path when I get there.”

And take another path, he did. Jesus Lord.

Maybe the underlying difference has been the fact that Oldest Son has me, his father and his stepmother all chiming in with parental wisdom, while Second Son just has me. Maybe having a plethora of parents gave Oldest Son room to flagrantly discount us all, whereas Second Son figured he better not shit where he eats. I don’t know. What I do know is that being summarily dismissed by Oldest Son made me redouble my efforts at “righting my parenting wrongs” with Second Son. In short, the warrior mom heard nothing but the battle cry and went a little left herself.

None of this bodes well for PDD. She just turned 12 last month, and I already see the signs of her natural mind going out the same window her brothers’ did. But she’s a girl, and I delude myself into thinking I know what I’m in for with her. Having been a teenage girl eons ago, myself, I entertain the delusion that I am prepared. But the warrior mom inside knows better. She thinks because I think I know more, I am now accountable to do more.

Given the fact that PDD is saddled with the feckless father, I’m afraid the warrior mom is right. Something tells me I will be grateful for every minute of the last 12 years of preparation her brothers have provided.

Pray. For. Me.

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

It’s nothing short of a miracle to me that this kid is graduating today, and a true testament to the power of deciding you’ve had enough bullshit in your life and you’re not going to let it keep you down.

Two years ago, had you told me I’d be going to his graduation today, I would have been mighty skeptical. He got ZERO credits for second semester of his sophomore year.

Last year at this time, I had almost no faith that we’d be going to graduation today, because he got ZERO credits for his entire junior year. But, the madness in his life had calmed down by then, and he told me, “Mom…I am so ready to get out of high school and graduate. You watch what I do this year. I’m graduating in the spring!”

And so he is. This afternoon. 3pm.

In the space of one school year, this kid did whatever it took to catch up credit-wise and grade-wise and I am so proud of him. It’s been iffy, right up until this week as to whether he’d really pulled it off, or not. But he’s had a great lesson in perseverance, determination, and staying the course that will serve him well the rest of his life.

This morning, I am acutely aware that the real value of his high school diploma is that it serves as a tangible reminder of his ability to climb up out of a very deep hole he’d dug for himself and overcome what I’m sure quite often looked to him like completely insurmountable odds of getting to this day.

Learning what you’re capable of is priceless.

Update: I think this picture says it all.

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

I just did one of the hardest things to do as a mom: I pushed my baby out of the nest.

Oldest Son came back to live at home, yet AGAIN, this past July. When he came home, he had a job, a car, a driver’s license, and car insurance. Gradually over the months since, he lost all of those. In addition, he lost his sense of autonomy and somehow lost track of his potential. Add to the mix his volatile temper, low self-esteem and erratic, self-medicating behavior and oh, can’t you just imagine how much fun it’s been at my house?

When you attempt to help someone, but your help becomes a hindrance to their growth, you’ve got to stop ‘helping’. When it’s your kid and that happens, you’re not only not helping, you’re hurting.

I could have nagged, jumped up and down, acted like the freaked out, scared-for-her-son’s-future mom, but instead, I decided to treat him like the adult he is. I gave him 30 days to get a job or find somewhere else to live. He did neither, and yesterday I stood my ground and he packed and left.

Because I have extended myself to and invested myself in my friends, I was not alone in this. I had, still have, incredible support from – literally – all over the globe. I am loved, and from that love, I draw strength. My friends hold the vision with me that my son will find his own strength, determination and resolve, that while he may stumble and falter, eventually, he will find his way and fly.

I took a leap of faith. My job now is to keep faith. Faith in my decision. Faith in him.

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

All those times, I was generally amused, but didn’t really “get it”.

Now, I do.

Look at this nonsense:

Mmmm…hmmm…

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

A friend bought me Bill Cosby’s book, Come On, People for Christmas. A line, early on in the book, hit me between the eyes:

But as much as mothers love their sons, they have difficulty showing a son how to be a man.

Intellectually, that makes sense to me. But in practice, it doesn’t. I might not be able to show my sons what it means to “be a man”…but I sure as hell can (and do) show them what it means to be responsible, caring, accountable, loving, generous and strong.

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

He’s had an interesting time of it this year because he’s fighting to catch up in the general sense, and also in the more specific sense because he got a bad case of gastroentritis in late September that kept him out of school for a 9-day stretch, and a couple additional relapses since have his total number of days missed up to around 15. When you’re carrying a full, 7-hour load of college prep classes, missing that much school in the space of six weeks really sets you back.

He’s sixteen now, and one of the other goals he’s working toward is getting a driver’s license. Being the mean mom that I am, I have set conditions on when he can even go take the test and try: when he has a 2.5 GPA. Not unreasonable, in my estimation. And he was really looking forward to progress report time to show me that he had achieved that, and then some – and then the gastroentritis hit.

Throughout this catch-up process, I have made myself available to assist him with homework, and we’ve covered everything from neural transmitters in Physics and Anatomy to allegory in English III to ecosystems in his Environmental Science AP class. He’s made comments about how smart I am, always with an element of surprise in his voice, but also a bit of resistance to the idea that he might, too, have those kind of smarts because that would be entirely too geeky for the jock persona he’s cultivating for himself. (And, let’s not mention the accountability issues…)

But the other night took the cake and, in the process, he made my day.

He was working on Geometry, and like him, that’s one of my least favorite subjects. I can’t to this day tell you the names of the concepts taught, or show you a congruent angle to save my life. But I can work the shit out of some geometry problems by applying simple logic.

Here’s the problem he was trying to solve:

He had to determine the number of degrees in angle A.

So, I asked him what he knew about the angles in the diagram. He just kind of looked at me, like he was thinking, “Look at the diagram, Mom – that’s what I know.”

So I said, “Angle A is 32 degrees.” (Admittedly, I wanted to impress him.)

Incredulous, he looked at me and asked, “How the hell do you know that?!?”

And here is the Geometry-according-to-a-middle-aged-mom-living-in-the-real-world answer I gave:

“Ok, son – here’s what I know when I look at this:

The corners of the outside rectangle are right angles which mean they are 90 degrees.

The lines creating the 4 triangles in the middle of the rectangle meet in exactly the middle, and if this were a perfect square, that would make angle A 45 degrees, because it’d be exactly half of 90. But this isn’t a square, so it’s not 45 degrees, it’s probably less, because just from looking at the diagram, angle A looks more squished than the one that, when added to it, makes up that right angle in that corner of the rectangle.

I also know that because the lines cross in the middle of the rectangle, whatever angle A is, the angle that makes up the opposite corner of that particular triangle is the same number of degrees, whatever that is.

Finally, I know that the total number of degrees represented by all 3 inside angles of a triangle is 180, because if you rolled its three sides out flat they’d be a straight line, and the number of degrees in a straight line is 180.

So…180 minus 116 (the angle I know) is 64. And since the other two angles have to be equal, I just divide 64 in half….so…angle A is 32.”

Contemplatively, he took his paper back, turned to walk away, stopped, looked back at me and said, “You’re the smartest person I know.”

And with that, he made my day.

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

Let me rewind.

Monday morning, while PDD was getting ready for school, I was drinking my coffee and checking my email. I saw a PayPal payment receipt for a registrant for a teleclass I’m holding next week, so I logged in to my PayPal account to check it out.

Imagine my horror when I saw a pending charge for $174.92 from…get this…Build-A-Bear Workshop dated 10:21am Sunday morning!!!

In a roar that could be heard for miles, I called PDD to my office. She’s been harping on me to get her a Build-A-Bear ever since Christmas. She denied any knowledge of how such a charge could have appeared. Given that it was pending, not cleared, there wasn’t much for me to do but wait.

And I didn’t have to wait long. Tuesday afternoon, the FedEx truck pulled up in front of the house and delivered a Scruffy Puppy and not one, but NINE…count them: N-I-N-E outfits! All delivered Next Day Air to the tune of $50.90!!!!!

In the words of Second Son, “This must be one of those times that your kid screws up SO BAD that you can’t even get mad about it – you just have to laugh.”

Uhh….yeah.

Needless to say, my darling PDD and I had a heart-to-heart conversation upon her arrival from school Tuesday afternoon.

Thanks in large part to my parent coach (and HELL YES, I have a parent coach! I’m a single mom, for cryin’ out loud – I KNOW I need the back up!) – I have resisted the urge to kill her. So far…

I let her stew in her own guilty juices for a day or so before issuing any kind of edicts as to consequences and restitution.

All the other issues aside, I have to say I’ve got a pretty damn smart 9 y/o daughter. She managed to get through and complete 3 checkout screens, figured out how to upgrade the shipping to the quickest (and most expensive) option available, and completed her purchase using my PayPal debit card. Had she chosen another card, I might not have known about it until FedEx showed up.

Even Oldest Son was impressed. He said, and I quote, “Damn, Mom! She’s got bigger balls than either one of us (meaning he and Second Son)! There’s no way he or I would have had the nerve to try and pull off a heist like that!”

And let me assure you – that’s sayin’ something coming from him…

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

It’s programmed to cry, fuss, suck on a bottle, burp, poop, pee, and sleep (very much on it’s own schedule) and has sensors that detect pressure, gravity, movement, noise, rocking, patting, (and yes, blunt force trauma. LOL) There is a little sensor bracelet that Second Son wears which keeps him from pawning parenting responsibilities off on anyone else (including in the wee hours of the night), and when the little bugger starts it’s antics, he must “chime” the baby with this bracelet by putting the bracelet up against a particular spot on the baby’s back. When he does that, the baby makes a “chime” sound…hence the word “chime” as a verb.

He “brought the baby home from the hospital” yesterday morning before school (which means he picked it up from that teacher before 1st hour) and so started his 48 hours as the baby’s daddy. He returns the baby to the teacher tomorrow morning. As you can see from the picture here – the first 24 hours have been…well…just look at the expression on his face. LOL

He tried to get me to have the baby sleep with me last night, but I said, “Oh no, sweet pea…this is your grade, not mine.” This morning, he did NOT want to get up for school and when I asked how many times the baby woke him up through the night, he said, “I lost count at 6.”

Oh yeah…this is an effective teaching tool we’ve got here. LOL

I was asking him what his plan for tonight was if the baby tried to get him up as many times as last night, and that’s when I snapped that first picture.

Ohhhhh…did he pay for doing that!

That baby started fussin’ and cryin’ like nobody’s business, and kept at it for about 45 minutes! Second Son was just about at the end of his rope when it finally quit crying and “went to sleep”. He looked at me with such relief on his face, I almost laughed out loud…almost. I told him he better take his behind to bed along with baby so he has a shot at getting more than three hours of sleep tonight. At first, he looked at me like I was crazy, but then it dawned on him that the trick to getting any sleep with a newborn is to sleep on their schedule when you can. He said, “Mom – was I like this? I mean, was it really this hard?”

I said, “Yes, you were like that. And yes, there were days that were that hard.”

“Wow,” he said.

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

Am I surprised? No.

Does the baby look like him? Well, sure, as much as babies generally look like anyone but themselves when they’re a week old. But so did Ex-Girlfriend’s first daughter the day she was born and for a long time thereafter, but he’s not her father. Hell, her 4 y/o son looks crazy-much like him, and he didn’t even know her 4 years ago. So what’s it worth to say she does or does not look like him when trying to determine if he’s her daddy? Nada, that’s what.

What I’m trying to figure out is why it matters so much to me? Apart from the obvious, that is.

Seriously, folks – I’ve had a parade of children come into my life calling me both “Mama” and “Grandma” in the last 15 years and I never once really cared if there was no blood tie between us. PDD’s Big Sis had her baby shortly before Completely Clueless and I split, and I’ve been more “Grandma” than he’s been Grandpa, and that’s his daughter, for crying out loud. And you’ve been introduced to Ex-Girlfriend’s older two kids here when they stayed overnight at Grandma’s.

So why now do I feel such a reluctance to invest? Merely because this one might actually be a descendant? Or because the others have been given and taken away, given and taken away so many times?

I feel for Oldest Son. All my questions echo his own, but he wants to just accept her as his and go on with life. Great! I’m all for it – except for the crazy Ex-Girlfriend, who appears to be not so much of an Ex at the moment. I mean, am I supposed to just forget Seriously Left of Center – Part 3? Actually, this all might be easier if I could forget because then I wouldn’t worry about my first little grandbaby being cared for by a crazy girl who uses her children as pawns to try to get what she wants. Eventually, she’s going to tell Oldest Son to get the hell out for the gazillionth time, and then where’s he with respect to having a daughter? No paper to show he’s Daddy, so no rights unless the crazy girl grants him some.

We – his dad and stepmom, his brothers and sisters, his grandparents and I – we’re all left out, unable to celebrate the birth of a new member of the family. Why? Because we’re not sure that’s what’s happened, and her knotheaded parents have no plans to find out for sure. Oldest Son invited me and his dad to pay for the DNA test if we want to know so badly – he doesn’t require a test.

Yeah. Ok. And we got who pregnant, his dad and I?

There is a huge part of me that is reeling at all this madness, thinking, “Ok – NOW I understand why others believe in no sex before or outside of marriage. These kinds of ambiguities don’t happen then.” And just that thought crossing my brain is enough scare the shit out of me. Do I really believe that?! Holy crap – NO! A missing marriage license is definitely not the problem, here. What this baby needs is some stability in her little life, and a marriage license for her parents is certainly no guarantee of that.

So, I guess I just have to get over myself and go with my fallback plan of being as positive an influence in her little life as I can with the access I’m allowed by her parents and circumstance. I’ll have to find a way to make that enough for me and my little maybe grandbaby.

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

They are both potty-training, and were brought to me with underwear and no pull-ups. So, my first act of Grandma-defiance was to get pull-ups for their little butts. No amount of cute makes up for peeing Grandma’s bed, sorry.

I pushed my bed against the wall and we all piled in like three bugs in a rug. Amazingly, they slept until 10am. But they were, after all, very tired from kicking Grandma all night long. And like most munchkins of 3 and 2 years old, respectively, they have no respect for the difference between the head and foot of the bed. They are, in fact, much happier sleeping sideways. Works for them…not so much for Grandma’s kidneys.

Then the most amazing thing of all happened: Oldest Son and girlfriend showed up by 12:30pm to pick them up! He’s starting to “get it”, that one…’tis much better to surprise Grandma by picking up grandkids earlier than expected. Tends to make her more likely to say ‘yes’ next time you want a kid-less night when you leave her wishing she’d had more playtime this time.

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,