What to do when you know you are being played

Okay, so I really mislead you by thinking I had the answer to this.  I don't exactly.  But I might be on to something.

First thing to remember...if your child is over the age of 13, he/she already thinks he/she is smarter than you and intends to leverage that to his/her advantage at every (EVERY) opportunity.  I know it is not fair, but if you really think that life is or should be fair, this is probably not a good blog for you anyway.  

Second thing to remember...there is always an agenda.  It may be a simple one, like they want to get out of working or school.  Or it may be a little more devious, like they want to spend some "private time" with their boyfriend.  If you have a daughter, they tend to be more complex creatures.  Daughters know how important being a good mom is to you.  If you let them, they will flip you on a dime using the "Sword of Guilt".   If you watch them too closely, you are not a good mom because you are overprotective and smothering.  If to take your eyes off them for a week or two, and in that time three of their grades drop to a C or a D then it is because you do not care.  When you do get back on their back you get the lecture "Don't act like you care now mom!".  The question begs, what is their agenda?  Usually power or freedom, both of which they have no business having at their tender age.

Third thing to remember is that everything that they do is working toward that agenda.  Crying, being ill, acting hysterical, picking a fight with a girl at school, picking a fight with their father are all TACTICS.  All steps to give them some kind of an advantage or leg up on a future battle or to leverage you to make a decision in their favor in the future.

For example.  A daughter who has been ranting and raving from Monday and Tuesday probably wants to improve the leverage situation with mom before the weekend.  So on Wednesday she will become sad, reflective, perhaps even self-deprecating.  Mom and Dad ask her what is wrong.  Why are you so sad?  She will say its the boyfriend who is treating her like wallpaper or its the bitchy girls at school and the fact that she "has no real friends" to share her feelings with.  But in truth it is probably none of these things.  It really is just a football game she wants to go to on Friday, that she knows she better do some super fast damage control or she will be in the house for the weekend.  She knows the direct approach of saying "okay, I have been impossible, let me know what I can do to fix this, or work I could do around the house to help so I can avoid a weekend jail sentence" will usually include some kind of work or effort on her part.

But a full blown sympathy cruise with mom and dad is so much easier and effective.  Thats right, she will act so forlorn, so depressed, so on the verge of suicide or cutting on Thursday that Mom or Dad will do anything to see their precious baby happy.  So when a "new friend" appears on the weekend horizon (i.e on the way to school Friday morning) and she says this friend is so much nicer than all those awful girls on the volleyball team and she is someone mom would just LOVE to meet, then mom buys it because YES YES YES, I want my daughter to have a better peer group.  The idea of a girl with good Christian values whose parents are engaged in her life and who go to youth group at church is so much better than the misery that existed in our home up until last Tuesday that as a tired and manipulated parent you take the BAIT....and you not only let her go, you give her $20 so she will enjoy herself on that trip with those "nice girls".  You don't find out till later that these girls were just as bad, if not worse than the vball girls, and in fact most of them have already had sex, have their naval peirced, and have sent nude pics to her boyfriend.  Oh and btw, that $20 went to a new push up bra from Victorias Secret.  One that you would search her room every day for the next week so that you can take it from her.

The trick is to know that there is an agenda.  And when you feel yourself being played (and you will if you slow down and listen to what is really being said) you can always say STOP RIGHT NOW!  I am getting off the crazy train.  Oh and btw honey bun, you are not going anywhere this weekend.  Just make sure you say this right after you seize her cell phone.

This is my mommy motto....pass it on!

I could have used one of these years ago!

Wait, I could have used one today.  Okay I'm done talking, no means no...ok you have left me no choice but to tranq your hostile a$$.

Unappreciated Taxi Driver

This is a shout out rant for all of those "taxi" moms who are unappreciated and who spend  countless hours driving back and forth to school and other extracurricular activities for their offspring.  Many hours can be tallied up that we should have never had to waste while due to miscommunications or just plain ignorance of the situation.  My last week had three such events, and it has left me with a desire to hang up my taxi license entirely.

I think I may add to this post as events arise....

THE VAGUELY SCHEDULED PRACTICE:
Yes, if you have a kid in sports it is not the games that kill you, its driving them every stinking day to some practice somewhere (God knows where) to "practice" or "scrimmage" or to a "tournament" that doesn't really count for anything anyway.  Doing this with two kids at a time and with the cost of gas off the hook, and traffic at rush hour gridlocked, I feel like an LA commuter on amphetamines.    We have Soccer Practice, Volleyball Practice x 2, Softball Practice, and Church on Sunday and Wednesday.

This particular day my HS age daughter told me upon dropping her off that morning that due to the fact that they were going to have a team dinner practice would be getting out "early".  Normally it goes to 5:15.  This translates into "I tell mom it ends at 5, but then she shows up at 5:05 and we really don't get out until 5:25" And that is only after mom comes inside and in front of the coach points at her watch and puts her thumb toward the door.  I guess coaches don't really respect us moms either, a matter I could expound on at length...but again I digress.

Apparently "Early" to her (and most SANE people) means around 3:30 and they would go to an early supper and be picked up around 4pm.  So she tells me to be at the school to pick her up at 4pm.  I get there at 4:02.  I wait.  And wait.  And wait some more.  I see NO cars anywhere so I start to think that something strange is going on (why do I do this to myself?).  I start to text other moms on the team to see if they know what time they were going to be released.  No one replies.  I try to go to the door, and it is locked.  It is now 4:45 when my daughter "strolls casually" out to the car with a big smile on her face.  I am not as jovial.  I don't even get a chance to ask "So wth were you sweetie?"  when she said "oh I didn't know you were here...I could have gotten a ride with someone else on the team.  Now can you take me to Jimmy Johns?"  I just about puke at this point.  What ??  Are you kidding?  I thought you did that already?  Why was I here?  She said "I don't know".   What?  Maybe that was someone else who told me this morning to pick her up at 4pm.  She said "that was if I wasn't going to Jimmy Johns.  But since you gave me money, I guess I can go right?  The fun part was that after dropping her off to eat lunch with her team she said "pick me up in like an hour".  So I went to get her younger sister from practice which ended around 5:30.  I was in the lot waiting for my MS kid about 15 minutes when the phone rings and its HS kid.  She says "we are done, can you come get me?".  I am feeling like a human yo-yo about this time.  I let her know that I will wait till her sister gets out then go back and get her.  That is just so inconvenient for her.  So she has her GF drive her to the school and drop her off.  She is in such a great mood, I almost hate to tell her what a total PITA she has been to me that day.  But I do anyway.

Jimmy Johns aside, wouldn't she think to tell me that the pickup time had changed?  And as 4pm passed with her still in the gym, don't you think she might maybe think about her poor mother who is probably outside?  Nope.  Not a chance.  And that was only Monday.  Now on Wednesday....


THE EARLY RELEASE:
Our school, in an effort to "better educate" our teachers (i.e. give them time off without pay and save money) has started what many districts are implementing, the "early release" day.  Some schools I have heard have even reduced the school week to 4 days, so since we have not gone that far, we are all supposed to like and enjoy having to pick our kids up at 1pm every other Wednesday.  I myself am of the parental "old school" mentality, and I already think our kids need to be more challenged, both on the difficulty of the coursework and the measly 6 hours of the school day, so this really ticks me off but I digress....

Anyway, it is a challenge to have any meaningful existence outside of the home with this kind of schedule, but we do what we can to make sure our kids are not the LAST ONES picked up after school...God forbid they should suffer the scorn of the forgotten child!   So last Wednesday, knowing that my Middleschooler gets out at 1:10, and my HS teen gets out at 1:20, and that after that they both had either volleyball practice, volleyball games, or soccer games, I knew my day was shot when I woke up that morning.

Keep in mind that my kids, being well fed, well cared for, loved and respected by their parents, are the LEAST appreciative of the insanity this kind of schedule puts on another human being.

So I wait patiently for my MS kid, who comes out a bit late because she said she didn't know if I was coming to the front or the back lol---I have never NEVER been one of those crazy sheep parents who wait in an endless line of cars just to pick my kid up at the front door.  No sir I am of the ilk that if I can "find away around the current system without breaking the law" I will do it.  So she crosses a parking lot, climbs a hill and walks down a street to meet me where I wait with my car (among other more creative and albeit intelligent parents who also hate to wait) and can quickly whisk ourselves away down a catacomb of sidestreets away from traffic toward my next destination...whatever that may be that particular day.

But her delay has put me off schedule for her sister who gets out only 10 minutes later.  So I race (literally) to the HS so that I can get in line and WAIT for every single other child to walk out of the school and get into their parents car and leave.  Some "good" kids even go so far as to "WAIT OUTSIDE FOR THEIR PARENTS".  I know, I know, it is a really amazing thing to see those OTHER kids who actually respect their parents time enough to wait for them and not casually wait inside with their friends until mom is texting frantically "R U coming out? Been here 10 min!!"

My HS student is nowhere to be found.  Tick tick tick the clock is ticking in my head because driving me is the schedule I still have to fill....getting younger sister back home, fed, to her vball game, then soccer, then church later that night.

So I am forced to do the UNTHINKABLE.  Yes, I will have to GO INSIDE THE SCHOOL to look for my daughter.  It is at this exact moment that I really regret that I brushed my hair and put on makeup.  In fact I really wish I had stayed in my Pajamas and perhaps had a hair net on or something...anything to make this entire experience as painful to her as it is to me (well to my pride anyway).

But alas, she is not there.  But her best friend is.  Hi Mrs X!  How are you doing? She even ran (yes RAN) and opened the door for me with a huge smile.  (Okay so this is not my kid.  But for just this one moment I am wishing I could trade because I know the whereabouts of this child, and this one appears to be grateful to see me).  I ask about Elaina.  No one has seen her.  One girl says she saw her by her locker talking to ??? but didn't see her after that (how helpful no go back to talking to your boyfriend honey).

Of course I have already texted her 3 times, along with her boyfriend (yes she has a boyfriend, he is actually not that bad, and I will discuss this in other posts but not here) and called them both twice and NO ONE WILL REPLY OR ANSWER THE PHONE.  I am pretty sure that if the ten commandments were written today, that in commandment #5 it would say "Honor Thy Mother and Thy Father and REPLY TO ALL TEXTS!!!"  I mean is it so hard to say "Thanks" or "Okay" or "F-U Mom".   For all us unappreciated mothers think they have launched their text into a black hole of nothingness and they never got to their destination.  So if you get a text from your mom...please at least let her know you got it...okay now on to the rest of the story.

So no one has seen her, so with finality I say "So why am I here?  I am leaving she can find her own way home" but not before I send a threatening text to her father and BF "My daughter is MIA...the next call I'm making is to the cops!"

Well I get that creepy mom instinct that she may have split to go to spend a little alone time with BF.  I mean after all what are early releases for?  I am pretty sure that the pregnancy rate at our school will be found to increase with the implementation of the early release.  Oh he** no!  Not my kid...if that is what is going on...I am going to find her!  So I go by BF's house, but he lives in a townhouse and it is hard to tell if anyone is there.  But I notice that the blinds of the doorwall are partially open, and I am at least pretty darned sure that if anything nefarious was going on, they would have the good sense to close those blinds, so I drive home to make lunch for MS kid.   But I quickly call the mom of BF just to see if perhaps she has heard from her son.  It goes to voice mail.  I hang up intending to text her since who really uses voice mail anymore??  As I am texting my phone rings.  It is my first born.  She sounds really annoyed.  Not the best judgement on her part.  And to think I was expecting a compliant child.  A humble child.  A contrite child.

No way.  Wrong kid.  Not in my lifetime.  My daughter has at least two arguments before breakfast just to get her blood pumping.  She give no quarter.  Pretty sure she would arm wrestle Mother Theresa and brag about winning.  My daughter acts very put out.  She said she was in the library and hadn't looked at her phone.  Apparently BF called her when her backpack was next to her leg so she finally realized that there was a purpose for having a cell phone and she answered it.  BF told her to call mom right away "she is pretty upset".  So it is not surprising (knowing my daughter) that she called me with the attitude of "wth do you want, don't you know how busy I am?"

Being the insane mother I am, I explain the entire diatribe to her of what she has put me through.  Of course she doesn't listen and doesn't much care.  She says "Since when do you pick me up on the early release days?"  I  sincerely don't know what she is talking about since I have been doing this for over a year.  As blood fills my eyes and I ask "Hey how about a phone call?  Or a text?  Would that have been too much effort?"   Or how about just telling me when you got out of the car that morning that you didn't need me to pick you up?  As if....

Now this same girl, the next day will have her girlfriend call me at home and ask if at 3:30 I will make a trip up to her school (6 miles away in RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC) to bring her food because she was too busy straightening her hair to make an extra sandwich.   AGGGGGGGGGGG!  Fortunately I was canning tomatoes, so I didn't have much guilt saying "NFW babycakes!"

Biohazzards

This is just a small collection of the disgusting wasted food found in my teenagers room.  the great majority of the food you see here with packed into lunches with my own hands.  I found she ate less than half of the food I actually packed for her.  now ask me why instead of getting up to pack lunches for my daughter in the morning I choose to sleep in.

Getting the kids out the door for school...

If I am not up a full hour before my kids wake up and have read my bible and drank some coffee I am just not prepared to handle my two willful daughters.  And now I have an "adopted" neighbor son who lives across the street that I am carpooling to school.  Carpooling of course means I drive him every day, but I digress.   It was kind of nice today as my 16 year old was tearing me down this morning that this boy came to my defense.  He told her in his own middleschool fashion that she was being rude and didn't even deserve a ride to school if she was going to have a bad attitude.  At that moment, I just sort of SNAPPED awake at the wheel.

I took a quick left down a sidestreet and told Princess "Im all that" to get out of my car and walk the rest of the way.  No concern that she had a full backpack and a volleyball duffle bag.  It happened so quickly and with so much finesse, that even her Royal Highness was impressed enough to smile.   Or maybe that was because there were classmate pedestrians watching hmmmm.....?  Heaven forbid that she look like she isn't totally in control.

I called out to her "I love you, you ungrateful whelp!"  and drove away.  But not before a full onslaught of a game of gladiator ensued over the position of shotgun with the other two remaining passengers as contestants.  (See photo)

Sports Mom Trial Vol 1

Being a sport mom is no picnic.  Unless your kid is a stellar phenom, these moments watching your kid get overlooked by a coach, ignored by scouts, and benched for no apparent reason are so heart wrenching.  Then you are expected to pick up a huge bill for uniforms, shoes, equipment, bags, etc...oh and before you are done emptying your bank account, you are expected to drive 30 miles in the middle of rush hour for a 2 hour practice.  And if you are raising a typical teenage daughter as I am, she is probably not particularly grateful for any of it most of the time.

But down deep inside you know that if she wasn't doing sports she would probably be doing something either pointless...like hanging out at parks smoking cigarettes, or something dangerous...like drinking with the bad girls, getting tattoos and piercings and having sex.    She is so cute, someone would lead her into something equally awful.

Sure I am overreacting.  But I was not the best kid.  If I had actually had parents who were engaged in my life or future, then I would have drove them crazy.  I know what you are thinking, that my daughter is not me.  That is so true.  She is so much better than me.  She is saved, she is smart, she is confident.  As a teenager, I had none of those qualities.

Back to school....already?

Wow how the summer flew!  Kids have gone back to school.  Feeling a little guilty because I can't say that I am sad to see them go.  Not that I didn't have a great time with my kids this summer. In the midst of my very chaotic summer, we did manage to make some really great memories, and do some fun and interesting stuff together.  But with my kids taking on more extracurricular activities (sports), the summer was not very relaxing to any of us to say the least.  Volleyball alone required me to drive my daughter to school 3 to 5 days a week, sometimes as early as 7:30 am.  Softball Tournaments occupied most of our Thursdays, Fridays and non-holiday weekends.  Good thing I don't have a job right?   But that aside, I usually enjoy being home with my kids for the summer.  They are fun to hang out with most of the time, and they help me around the house when I can motivate (aka bribe) them to do so.  But it seems that as they get older, they enjoy time with me and Dad less and less.  And when they do "hang" with us, they are irritable and demanding.  They also "take over" everything.   My radio and television are not my own if you know what I mean.  And I know I am going to sound like my grandmother, but their music and brainless television shows give me a headache.  I long for those days when they still enjoyed my music and watching reruns of Little House on the Prairie.  I think to a certain extent that they still do, but right now it is their little secret.

I miss those summers where we went to the park and had a picnic and a play date.   When my girls thought that going out to lunch with Grandma or going to an art gallery or museum was SO COOL!   This year I felt more like a drill-sergeant/task master trying to keep my kids from either destroying my home or killing each other.  Don't get me wrong, it is kind of nice that they can take care of themselves more, and that I don't really have to watch over them every minute.   But I have been longing for the days when my kids thought I was interesting, and just hanging out together was a good day.  It would be nice to reclaim the warmth and appreciation that comes with them needing me more.

Event planning

Nothing is better than planning a last minute event and having your whole family step up and help you. Okay that's it I totally regret every bad thing I've said about them.  Okay this video is sideways, but I have no idea why or how to fix it.  Tried twice.  Stupid Iphone.  

My Theory...99% of teenage sex is about ACCESSIBILITY

Okay I am having one of those mom moments...it is 6 in the morning.  Have been up since before 4am.  I should be taking care of my bills, but my daughter has been on my heart and it's one of those days when I wish I had a girlfriend to talk to.  Today she called daddy some choice names and in his anger he broke her android.  Not a new story, I know, many of you have been there with the phones...they drive us nuts.  But what is a mom to do?  I hate not being able to reach her so she sort of has this lever on me.  But John laid down the law...I am not to replace the phone.  Period.  He wants to give her a tracphone...but knowing her she won't take it.  So I am ready to leave her to the Lord.  I just have to trust Him.  I have decided that if she wants any phone, she will buy one or take the tracphone (I am almost ready to let her beg for it if necessary - I just hope it will come to that).

In the meantime, my daughter stole my phone last night to text her boyfriend.  They went back and forth till about 3:30 this morning.  I am thinking that this is why I was awake when I was.  I am not the least bit psychic, but God has sort of given me this crazy intuition when it comes to my daughter that has proven quite useful in her parenting.  A sort of Spider-sense when she is doing something bad or lying that has served me well during her tumultuous teen years.

It went like this.  Wake up.  Pray.  Pace.  Open windows.  Close windows.  Pace.  Pray.  Turn on light.  Look for phone.  GONE!!!  I look on my bed...thinking I may have fell asleep using it (again) but no, it is not there.  I run downstairs.  Check her room.  Don't see it right away (should have looked under her pillow...but it turned out right anyway).  I ask her "Do you have my phone?"  She says "No...where did you leave it?" I told her I had plugged it in next to my bed.  She says I should go back to bed...she will "call it"...which she pretends to do, but obviously is faking this (what she is actually doing is attempting to delete the log of her recent activity).  A minute later she brings me my phone and tells me I must have left it on the credenza in the dining room (ridiculous...would never do this, as my phone is my alarm clock to wake the next morning...).   But I thank her and she goes back to bed.

 I look at my phone and it is charged at 98%.  I have an EVO (battery sucker) and the only time that it is at 98 percent is the first five minutes after being pulled off the charger.  There is no charger at or near the credenza.  So I open my phone and start searching my history (text, call log, etc).  There is no evidence of her texting from my phone in my usual sms application and the call log is clear.  So I go to my handy-dandy google voice account (love this app...lets me read text history from my laptop...it is actually really awesome on so many levels and this is just one more!) and there it is!  A complete log of more than 200 texts between my daughter and loverboy.  It is also on my laptop so forwarding all of this juicy stuff to daddy and probably boyfriends mommy will be pretty easy.  Life is going to get very rough for my little princess.

Yes the script was quite steamy...and since they are on MY PHONE...no guilt whatsoever in reading them.  Okay they were not actually "sexting" but just about as close as can be.  Lots of talk about touching and biting and taking off shirts....kinda made me sick.  Either way it is plenty enough to know that I will never let this girl go over his house to watch movies AGAIN! Any contact with this kid will be at my house.  Under parental supervision.  I really don't care if they like it or not.  Yes, in case you are wondering, I am that mean.

My theory is that teens need a couple of essential things to have PMS (Pre-Marital-Sex).  
1) A Venue
2) Time
3) Desire

Okay, obviously number 3 is beyond most parents control (unless you have medicated your child...which yes, I have considered).  But one and two are not.  If there is no place to be alone, and no time to "get busy", then number three cannot be entertained.

Okay it is not a perfect plan.  It requires that my kid is practically permanently grounded.  But if this cannot be managed, I am seriously considering buying a one way ticket to Colorado to go stay with badass godmother and step-godfather.   And if that happens this little princess will never be the same.

Seriously into the whole essential oil thing.  Use them for cooking, in cleaners, in my health and beauty regimen...maybe a business venture is just around the corner.  Just found this new website...and I love it!

Cooking with Essential Oils

lol...well in all honest this isn't necessary because I have had a hysterectomy.  But I bet Dad feels this way every time he gets into the car with those daughters of his.

Uggg. Hate paying bills

Am I the only one who hates bill paying day? Hate the paperwork, the keeping track of what I owe, what I paid, making phone calls, getting put on hold, arguing over balances.  Enough already.  I sometimes put it off till some of them are late just because I dread it.  With the economy the way it is here in Michigan, it seems like I am always robbing Peter to pay Paul, and worried about overdrafts.  With the use of electronic medium, I have immediate access to all my accounts...so I can't complain about that, but every account has a different account number, pass word, login id, sheeeeeeeesh!  I have to pull out a ton of file folders just to pay off 8 or 10 accounts.  I am sure there is an easier way to do it, but I so wish I had a money coach who would talk with me every week and I know I am going to sound pathetic, yes YES hold my hand and even nag me about my money.  Because the alternative is that I avoid this stuff altogether.  Then it gets worse later.  Okay I am sure that there is someone out there that hates this stuff more than me...so much in fact that they found a better way.  I am totally open for inspiration and suggestions in this area, so please please give me some advice (if you are judgemental and critical...this is the wrong blog baby!)

I watch Fox, and they are shamelessly conservative, so I don't see many Obama/Biden 2012 adds yet.  My friends in Colorado don't have cable, so they see them all the time, so I took the time to go out on the www and take a look see at the Obama campaign 2012.  Am I the only one who notices that it all looks to be a great big giveaway fest?  Would anyone be dumb enough to think he will even have enough money next year to keep 1/2 of the promises he has made?  Now some of these are actually really noble causes, things I would totally support under normal circumstances.  But these are not normal circumstances.  We are broke!! Here is a quick run down of the list of giveaways I saw after only watching 3 or 4 of his 2012 adds.
1) Increasing Veterans Benefits
2) Protecting Medicaid and Social Security Benefits
3) Covering Heath care for women at the same cost as men and including birth control
4) Increasing Funding for colleges
5) Writing off more mortgages that are under water.
6) Forgiving more college loans
7) Building more windmills and solar companies
10) Investing in more foreign economies (Brazil, Korea)

Please tell me...who will be paying for all of this?

This is the first official post to my meanmomUSA blog.  I have always enjoyed writing and have been encouraged by many of my friends to do something like this, but I guess I was afraid (?).  Lets see how this little blog does...or if it dies of loneliness.

MeanMoms USA