Real Mothers Never Give Up or Give In

Reading Cindy's blog makes my heart hurt because of her pain. Reading her blogs, I never doubt she will get up tomorrow and keep on keeping on. She's got God on her side and I know she knows it. But all mothers (even those of us who have the "perfect angels"?) get tired of the constant repetition of our jobs and the condemnation we often seem to get from our children we are so desperately trying to teach. Most of us want to teach them first and foremost, that they are loved and lovable. For Cindy, that's a big order since most of her children come to her believing love is the stuff of fairy tales and that if love were real, they would definitely not be candidates for it. But the quest to believe you are lovable is not limited to those with abusive/neglectful pasts. Watch any 2-year old and see them test their parents to see, "Am I truly lovable?" Watch any teen-ager, and much of their actions beg that they be told they are lovable no matter how outrageous or foolish their behavior is.

Today's reading at church was from Luke 12:

"I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already
kindled! "But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until
it is accomplished! "Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on
earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; for from now on five members in
one household will be divided, three against two and two against three.
"They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against
daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and
daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

This has always been a passage that has caused me discomfort...mother against daughter, daughter against mother. Not a comforting thought, but the priest today said that those who live The Truth will always cause discord with those around them. It made me think of how tired I get telling my girls, "No, you may not wear that." "No, I won't buy you that...it's not appropriate." "No, you may not listen to that music in this house." "No, you may not...." And I'm so tired because of the resistance they give to me, not once but over and over again. Maybe this is the daughter against mother?? If I'm doing my job, I will cause discord, unease in those around me. Whether or not that's exactly what is meant by this passage, I did take encouragement from this passage and felt like I could continue saying "NO" even though I often feel like giving in. I wonder, am I being too strict? Am I making them social pariahs? Today I answer, I am teaching them Truths. Better a social pariah than a heavenly pariah. God is on my side. So whatever my "battle," big or small, as the mother I can't give up or give in. I must continue teaching them truths and The Truth...they're all lovable.

School Choices

School is well under way now. The Imp has settled in and is basically okay with her classes and teachers. Her science teacher will be the thorn in her side all year, but hey, you can't have all your teachers be great.
The Singer came home from school the first day and exclaimed, "I'm never gonna make it through this year!!!" Trying to be sympathetic and not laugh at her dramatics, I inquired about her day. She proceeded to tell me that her classes were going to be hard. [This realization astonished me, as she's taking AP Spanish, Government, Calculus, and English; dual enrollment Anatomy and Physiology; Shakespeare; and Catholic Morality. I'm not sure how she thought her classes WOULDN'T be hard?] After more investigative work on my part (kids rarely tell the real problem outright), I discovered that her AP Spanish was the class really worrying her. Apparently she sat through the first class, not understanding most of what the teacher said. To keep afloat in that class would require extensive time, and she didn't see how she could give it that much time and still keep up in all her other classes. So Thursday she talked to her Spanish teacher and her guidance counselor and she's now taking Honors Spanish IV. She was worried about dropping an AP class hurting her chances of getting in to college. Of course, her friends fueled that worry with comments of "Colleges want you to take the most rigorous courses. Even if you get lower grades. You can't drop an AP class." Ugh. Thankfully, her guidance counselor told her graduating with 6 AP credits and a dual enrollment credit was fine. I know life has changed, but I didn't take ANY AP classes and still was able to get into William and Mary...go figure.
The college search is revving up. Hubby and the Singer are off to UCF for an official tour on August 29. Then the 3 of us (possibly the Imp, too) are head to FSU on Sept 10. We're hoping that these visits will help her get a feel for the campus and help her decide which she prefers.
While doing the college thing, the Imp is stressing over high school choices. And while it seems early, we've got to have applications to the Catholic schools and the magnet schools in by January, and if we decide on a Catholic school, registration payments (non-refundable) are due early March. So I'm praying for lots of patience and guidance this year.

Hubby's off to work already today. He'll put in 8 hours or so today. We've gotten spoiled with him rarely working more than 45 or 50 hours a week, and we don't even usually notice as he often works for an hour or two at home in the evenings. When he first started working for IBM back in 1988, a 50 hour week felt like vacation. In fact, he usually would work for 3 or 4 weeks at 70-80 hour/wk, and then the next 2 months would be 50-55 hour weeks, then things would pick up and a deadline would be coming and the 70-80 hour/wks would resume. I'm not sure how either of us survived that. He use to get up at 4:30 to be at work by 5:15 am. Then he'd come home about 5 to have dinner and spend time with me and the Singer, and then he'd go back into work around 7:30 and stay till midnight. When we talk about that time in our lives, we both marvel at the resiliency of youth.

The girls are waking up and I need to go start my Saturday chores.

I Love Teaching

I'm off this morning to the Imp's school for the opening day Mass. It's the feast of the Assumption (all about Mary) and as the school (due to the Salesian Sisters) is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, it's a big deal. The principal is awesome. Traditionally, she'll give out free ice cream at lunch on big days celebrating Mary. The Imp now knows those days...what a great way to teach kids and have them associate Mary with good things.

After Mass, I'm off to St. Frances Cabrini Church in Spring Hill (about an hour north of here) to meet with the DRE (Director of Religious Education) since I'm doing a workshop for the catechists (teachers) there next Saturday. I love teaching teachers. I have a couple of 2 to 4 hours workshops I've written for catechists. The approach is a little different than "regular" teachers since the majority of these people are not educators by profession, but "just" volunteers trying to make a difference. The workshop I'm giving at St. Frances focuses on some of Harry Wong's teachings (he's an educational guru), and basic classroom management. I get to stand in front of a crowd and bounce around and get excited. I'm so glad. I really love teaching, period. The last few years I was in the classroom, it had so much about "appearances" and I spent way too much time defending myself to parents who seemed to care about grades and not necessarily learning. But preparing a lesson, the presenting it...that is a good day!


I typed the above in earlier today and had to run out to get to the Imp's school on time. I'm red-faced, as her school is NOT having Mass today (they have for the last 4 years! They're having their opening Mass NEXT week! Oh well, I'm off the St. Frances, and now have to figure out when I AM going to Mass.

Working

Three weeks into work and I'm loving it, and am very frustrated with it. I've spent 2 weeks trying to re-install all the programs that were on the old hard-drive onto the new hard-drive. Yes, I got to replace a hard-drive my first week at work. I would rate my computer knowledge about a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10, and as such, I am the most computer savvy in the office (kind of scary, isn't it?). So I've been dubbed, by default, our IT specialist. Huh? I didn't have email for over a week on the new hard drive, so I had to go to another computer to look up email. My boss expects email to be checked frequently as that is one way she communicates with us. I still haven't figured her out. Our office is comprised of 3 rooms plus a storage room and 1/2 bath. The total square footage may be 450 sq ft. It's small. So I'm not sure why she has to email me to give me information. I was wearing a step counter, and haven't been able to get over 700 steps at work (and that's even going outside at lunch!). It's about 10 steps to the bath and not even that from my desk to any other desk in the office. It's actually been fun having to use problem solving skills at work, however, I'm not sure my boss gets how much time it takes to work some of these kinks out. If the help desk tells me to turn off and unplug my computer and then wait 1 minute before plugging back in and starting up again, that's a lot of time. And sometimes, it requires doing that more than once before a problem is solved. I don't get the feeling that she has a good sense of time...how much time any one activity takes and so I get the feeling she is disappointed when work isn't completed on her time schedule. I've still got one more program to get loaded onto the hard-drive and then we'll be set (hopefully). Overall, I'm enjoying work and working only 6 hours is gravy!

The Imp started school and is miraculously in the homeroom she wanted to be in. At a Catholic K-8 school, much time is spent in homeroom: 15 minutes each morning and afternoon and a 1/2 hour before lunch for AR (accelerated reading) time. It is also the class you go to whenever the schedule is different and there's "extra" time at the beginning or end of the day. She is excited to be in 8th grade (big kid on campus) and is looking forward to high school where there will be a bigger pond to swim in. The Singer starts back tomorrow. So we haven't really gotten our "school year" rhythm down.

We had a terrible thunderstorm last night. The news said there were more the 1200 lightning strikes in 10 minutes. I believe it. It was the most intense storm we've had this year. Our pool filled up to the rim again, and we had to drain it and I hate doing that...it just feels wasteful. Our back yard is a swamp. But believe me, I am not complaining. It's wonderful to get so much rain. We're still under average for the year, so let it rain. My gardens are being invaded by weeds which grow so fast you can almost see them growing, especially with this much rain interspersed with heat and sunshine.