Nothing good ever comes from the full name

Nothing good ever comes from answering my phone and hearing my formal name. Professionally I use my maiden name, so the second I pick up the phone to, "Uh, hello, Mrs. L... ," I know, no good awaits. It could be a discipline issue. It could be the umpteenth request for a volunteer gig. Sometimes it's the school nurse reporting that someone's braces broke. It's not that I wish orthodontic ill on my kids, it's just the nurse's voice doesn't raise hair on my neck like the principal's.

The boys changed schools this year and all appears to be going swimmingly. The IEP's seem to be adhered to as best as any school I've heard of, friendships are being forged, grades have been good. "WOW!" I thought last night when looking at the upcoming teacher conference schedule, "I'm kinda looking forward to this for once." And then this morning, it happened. "Mrs L....? Uh, good morning." Groooaaan. Why don't I keep a flask at work?

"Oh alright. What did Son1 do now," I fretted. My 12 year old is a continuing source for school calls, so his Social Studies teacher on my phone was unwelcome, but not a surprise. Five minutes into telling me how many homework assignments he's been skipping, I blurted out, "but we just met with his IEP case manager and none of this came up? How could (Son1) have 5 zeros and we're just hearing it?" (insert confused labrador head turn) "Um, no, I do not teach him. I teach (Son2)." This was about the point where I felt like Mother of the Year AGAIN. For not only did I jump to the conclusion one child pulled a stunt only to be surprised, it was clear to the Social Studies teacher that I didn't know my kid's teachers' names.

I could hear his mental tsk tsk through phone line. Give me a break pal, we're all getting used to the new school, and the hubs saw you on back to school night. We were among the massive group of 10 parents in the room. I'm involved. It's just Son1 has been the source of over 70% of this blog. The mind leaps. I tried to chalk it up to that annoying habit of flipping kids' names while speaking, the way I always call Son2 by Son1's name, or my husband reverses his daughters' names. I even chuckled about calling Son2 by the dog's name. He either didn't care, didn't think it was funny, or had 13 other parent calls to make. Or all three. After I got off the phone and reflected, I had two valuable takeaways:

1) Trust no one
2) Learn caller ID for individual classrooms vs. the office

WTH do those have to do with the above? Well, for starters, Son2's been skating I realized. He bats those big blue eyes at me and I'm so mesmerized by the lashes I would never have that I believe what he says. I'm much more skeptical of his brother who has the iffy reputation from school years past. "Is your homework done?" "Yes" (So I check, and it is.) But that only works if the homework planner is written out. It seems Son2 has decided homework on elections, is, in and of itself, elective. NO. Trust no one to fess up to selective homework, even when so cute you'd think they'd never lie.

And what of the fancy schmancy online interface the school has to post everything from lunch menus for the next six years to tonight's homework? Trust no one when it comes to schools actually enforcing procedures. In an attempt to show this man I was not a totally detached mom, I went on line while talking and saw, YET AGAIN, there was no homework posted. Nothing entered = nothing displayed (does not) = no homework. No, it just equals a teacher who shared with me "yeah, I don't really use the homework page. I've been teaching a long time, and my students have always had it posted on the board, so I don't use it. I wouldn't bother looking there." Can you think of EVER saying this to a boss, a client, a colleague? Thanks to NJ's teacher tenure laws, the district stands zero chance of enforcing that teachers use the tools. But I digress. Son2 has no tenure protection. And for this morning's "trick or treat" phone call, Son2, be afraid.

As to the caller ID... There's a pecking order in parent phone calls. Had I known the number was not the office number, I may have eased a bit. When you go from teacher call to Vice Principal, there's an uptick in subject matter. Bump to Principal, and you have a definite escalation. Get a call from the Superintendent, and you're at parental DEFCON 5, war game buzzers tripping on your cell phone. I think there's an app for that. Had I known it was but a lowly classroom, I would have felt a little better. I would have listened, but without the palpitations. Homework lapse or test bombs may be waiting, but generally, nothing that ends with the phrase, "in the next occurrence, law enforcement may be called."

So from now through, oh, the end of college I suppose, I will not assume poor effort from Son1 and great effort from Son2. I'll be on guard for Mr. Social Studies-skipper. And I have a plan for the phone # screening. Election day is coming next week, and I'll have the chance to be in the school. I wonder if they'd notice me going room to room to test call my cell? Armed with all those incoming numbers, I could easily prioritize the calls to take. Maybe I'll bring donuts and pretend to hand them out to the teacher, VP and principal to get to their desks. You know, I'd be all, "job well done, Mr. Whoever the Hell you are!"- then quick stealth call. It could work.

I Guess Passing Notes is Passé

You'll recall just a few weeks ago, I was worrying about Son1's entrance into the hormonal Shark Week that is the 7th grade dating scene. I honestly, truly, and naively thought he was driving headlong into his first crush, first romance, and sadly, first heartbreak. What a jackass I was. I forgot. I'm raising a boy. I'm coaching for the other team now, and seeing 7th grade through the head of a 12 yr old boy. You know what? They're goddamn idiots. This only sounds harsh to those of you who have not had a 12 yr old son. To my horror, I'm not watching a replay of my adolescent heart break in my son. Hell no. I'm watching it as a replay BY my son.

To an outsider, Son1 may seem as cold as any boy my friends and I agonized over every school day through sleepover night. That would imply an ounce of forethought, or any thought. But they just don't think. In hindsight, I wish I knew all along that all boys weren't cold, heartless pricks. Nope. Just clueless, emotionally-immature, morons. They're tall children. They're not young men, not fully teens even. I now see them as the children they are, merely strecthed by a couple of good growth spurts under their belts. They weren't methodical adults trying to hurt feelings, if Son1 is any indication. They were just bulls in acne-rich china shops. They'd still whale each other with light sabers in a heartbeat. But these poor girls won't see this for many years to come.

While this makes me feel better about my own past boyfriends, it makes me feel horrible for the girls cast off before they knew what hit them. Boys used to have to call you (on *gasp* your parents' phone), wait for you after school, or send a note through a friend. As bad as it was when we were kids, today's crew is used to an immediacy that it startling. It renders teen heartache with a steely efficiency of a CIA drone over Taliban strongholds. Today's teen boy has a weapon of ice so fast, so decisive, so stinging, it would make Dr. Evil drool. He has texting. And this, my friends, is where all hell broke loose for us this weekend.

It is with head hung low and heavy heart that I report that my beloved Son1 crushed a girl BY TEXT this weekend. I was horrified that I am morally and legally responsible for a person who would do this. Break up by text? In 3-three word phrases? Hello- Paging Mr. Cold Miser. I am in charge of raising one of the clueless baffoons that thinks, "yup" and "kk" are acceptable, well-parsed replies to any query.Yes, I am raising a cold-ass-text-breaker-upper. Go ahead, take my mother of the year tiara, and un-follow me now.

I did not exactly come off as a super supportive mom advocating for him. He seemed a little taken aback by that.  It all goes back to: they just don't think. To the girl in question, if she would like any comfort, she should know I read his text, went off the deep end reading how hurt she was and seeing his quick one-syllable-only bursts. She should know I then laced in to him for her... for me... for my jr high, high school, college, and post grad friends... for female family members... and for any woman who was ever a smitten pre-teen. Fear not, sweetie, when all is said and done, Hell really has no fury like a woman scorned, 30 years removed. I had your back.

While I know this is very much about this girl, who articulately and in language much more PG than I mustered gave him a piece of her mind, this is also about me. I don't mean the heartbreak part. I've come to terms with my childhood breakups and put the voodoo dolls away years ago. Mostly. But there is the thought about how it reflects on me as a mom. It raised that fear as moms that we will be judged by the crappy things our impulsive tall children do. (BTW-If I keep calling him tall child I will not affix every horrid ex-boyrfriend tag on him, so humor me.) Yet, I know my son, and I know the bubble of unseen consequences that he travels in, and I know he wouldn't willfully hurt someone. I'll readily admit to having visions of her parents watching her cry thinking, "What people would raise a boy to do this?"

Son1 is now intertwined in a love triangle spanning the 6th and 7th grade, and has gotten himself into quite the sticky mess. While trying to woo this girl to a dance for his friend who liked her, he truncated and abbreviated one word too many. He kept asking her if she was going to the dance, and in the digital crossfire, she accepted going with him. Not the friend. Oops. It could have been like every Three's Company episode, based on an overheard/misheard/misunderstood snippet. But then he was a little flattered she wanted to go with him, so he double checked (ok, quintupled checked) with his buddy if he really really really liked her. "Ya know bro i mean like like hr." "Uh yeah." (Shakespearean, isn't it?) So then not wanting to hurt his friend (see he really is a good boy), he came up with the hot idea to tell her they had been joking all along. Because each girl wants an older boy to ask her out as a joke. That went over well. Package this all with the incessant need of Son1 to sound like JayZ in text messages, and it did not play out well. The whacky sitcom morphed instead into a "very special Full House."

So now, we've laid out some thorough ground rules for the use of text, like don't ask out OR break up via text. They each deserve a voice. Don't assume the role of gangsta when chatting up girls. You're a lacrosse-playing child in a Lily Pulitzer-laden section of Morris County, NJ. It just looks stupid, like when Ralph Lauren tried selling saggy jeans and puffy jackets. And lastly, keep out of someone else's relationship. Fiascos are assured.

I think for now we've put the kibosh on text break ups. Young ladies (and their protective parents) of NJ, rest assured, one clueless guy habit at a time, I've got your back, and I'm trying to put the kibosh on those too.

September 1980 All Over Again

Just prior to seventh grade, my parents decided my brother and I should switch schools. I was pretty happy about it, being miserable in the junior high I attended. Yes- I said junior high- because it was the 80's so the societal "must call it middle school" crossover had not hit NJ. But I digress. This isn't about society, it's about me, in seventh grade. As eager as I was to change, I was nervous like any new kid in a school. By seventh grade, it wasn't just about being the new "kid" in school. Adolescence had set in, so there I was now "the new girl." The pressure to befriend girls but also enchant boys snuck in. Somehow, within one marking period, I had the cutest boy as my first boyfriend, my first kiss, my first puppy love. Then, my first broken heart rushed through in that pre-teen whirlwind.

When I look back, I feel like I was kid until sixth, then(BAM) a young girl nervous around boys in seventh. There's a clear line between kid and dating drama that is drawn in my memory at the "September 1980" mark. So here's my problem: Son1 just started a new school, and he entered seventh grade. He's girl crazy~ September 2010 is his September 1980. Holy crap, I am SO not ready for this!

Thirty years on, I'm still licking my wounds over why the cutest boy in seventh asked ME out only to move on in 3.873 weeks, give or take. I'm not ready for Son1 to try to sound romantic in that dufusy 12yr old boy way! And Good Lord does he sound dufusy. I love him to death, but it can be painful. Did my puppy love sound like such a goof ? I was too busy swooning to notice. But there's also the fact that I'm not ready for him to have that seventh grade heartbreak, either.

(Ok, I'm now flipping to the less correct "7th" form vs. seventh or I'll never finish typing.)

Son1 has a cell phone far more advanced than his social skills, so I do monitor the chatter. It also helps me see who's up to what. You know, like the way the CIA keeps tabs on terrorist chatter? Yeah, that's me with Son1 and his friends. Though I doubt Osama & Co. are all "like OMG U R 2 cute LOL" to his "shawtie." Whatever the hell that is. I will say 7th grade girls are clearly more advanced when it comes to verbal social skills. That's no urban legend. They can each forumlate sentence after sentence of dialogue, fit into Twitter-esque snippets. And then the boys reply, "k." Or, "kk." Then the girl goes on for 6 more sentences, then the boy replies, "Yep." Four more sentences, followed by the heartfelt boy reply, "Uh huh." (Do you notice this pattern? It will continue through life for male-female relationship interaction. But read it in text and it's like a coded transcript.)

What I don't understand is why the girls keep texting him back. He is a good looking kid, from a good family, with a stunning mom and two nice dogs. That part I know. But he opens his mouth around a girl and I cringe. His thumbs fly through a text and I groan. He sounds THAT "un-smooth." But yet, here come the girls, back for more scintillating "kk" banter. They really are that hormonally charged that they are beguiled by Son1's attempts at suave. Part of me wants to pass out. Not because because my son is old enough for this all, but that he's that bad at it all. But it doesn't stop the girls. They're like moths to flames. Even the AXE doesn't drive them away.

Son1 has now gotten himself to the girl-crazy point of complete focus on having a girlfriend. While this may not bode well for his Math and Social Studies instruction, it's not just the teachers that should be concerned. You'd think the girls in school should be alarmed. He's going to be throwing his inner-James Bond into hyper drive to charm you, ladies. But this is where I begin to get a little uneasy. They're falling for it. And then they're sacheting their short short tushes his way. If our recent trip to the amusement park in PA with my friend and her 13 yr old son is any indication, I've got a long road ahead of me. That day, our collective Sons1 were under surveillance with a subtlety not seen since Peter Sellers starred in a Pink Panther movie. The girls were circling like swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano... or vultures over Death Valley.

Well, there you go, right on cue as I wrap this. That infernal bleep/ring heralding a new text for him. Yes, there goes the really dumb wide grin across his face. Yes, he's a 7th grader, and yes, he's fresh meet for the boy-crazy girls. I can see the replay of my very own super-speed tween soap opera occurring any day now, and I know. I know I am not ready for this... simply not ready.