My parents are out of the country...

The one single day that my oldest son decides to attend school this short week was today. I am at a loss figuring out what is the method to his madness when deciding when he will go or not. Apparently it is a combination of how much sleep he was able to get in the previous 48 hours, his mood, the weather, the cleanliness status of his laundry, the condition of his hair, plus some kind of impending social interaction decision with his piers. Ironically you might think this is funny, however, it is completely real to me. If any one of the above five parameters is not within the tolerance that he has mentally created as a "pass" criteria, odds are he will not be going to school that morning. If two or more of these parameters are outside of his conditional approval, chances are he will not be able to adjust for several days, such as it happened this week. Call me a bad parent for not being able to enforce his attendance, but I know much better to even try anymore. A nagging or stiff parental attitude of my part to his unwillingness to comply has never done much more than create havoc on his mental decision process and decrease the odds of success for an even longer period of time.

Yesterday he requested I wake him up at 5:30 a.m. the next day. To provide him with an alarm clock of his own only results in having to listen to the buzzer or music play on until it disables or resets itself. Later too, he will then blame his not rising to the occasion on me saying that I was not willing to wake him up and that nothing else is capable of doing so. So of course, in an attempt to avoid further complications I set my own alarm to this early time even though I will not be able to make it to work myself for at least another three hours tending to my morning fatherly duties.

I did not think he was going to get up this morning but somehow he did so. I offered to make him some breakfast knowing that if I don't he will then leave without eating anything at all. He accepted my offer and just like I mentioned on a previous post I made a little extra food in case the fifth factor in his decision process decides to show up hungry before taking the short walk to the bus stop. They left and I did my customary quick room inspection to clear some of the leftovers, dirty dishes, half empty drink cans, and trash out of his room. As I completed the short work detail I closed my eyes for a second before leaving his dungeon and said a little prayer for him.

My younger son is with me this week, so I completed a much shorter and sweeter version of the above process which entails simply reminding the young man to put on some deodorant and brush his hair before leaving the house. Sometimes I also have to do a quick tour of his room, but he is more likely to take out the undesirables from his room on his own. Breakfast for the young fellow and a ride to the corner from school to keep him from having to walk instead. This is always time well spent, we share a little and I find out if there is anything impending or due soon on his end for school. Open house tonight, not much more.

It had not been more than five minutes and only two sips of my morning coffee before the assistant principle from my oldest son's school called saying he was in the office for texting on his cell phone during a class. When asked to give up the phone he refused giving some crazy story about his parents being outside of the country at the moment. Don't I wish this was the truth! The administrator wisely called the phone number on file to ascertain the truth of his dramatic tale. He is currently on probation because of last years walking on the freeway and arriving at school intoxicated event. Refusing to give up the phone would mean suspension and at this point expulsion from the mediocre school he is currently attending. I asked the familiar voice on the other end of the line to please allow me to talk to my son, and reminded him of the most likely outcome to the predicament he was putting himself in. He handed over the phone and that was that.

I am writing during my lunch break so the day is not over and I am not certain of it's final outcome. To be totally honest to you, it really does not matter at this juncture. What would seem to most parents as a reason to go bonkers and ground the child, for me it is just one tiny little drop of reality that falls into the ocean of my son's life. If he is expelled, nothing really changes other than the physical location of the upcoming worries and troubles. If he is not expelled, then all we are really doing is benefiting from the momentarily grace of God that will allow me to continue on for another day while waiting for His celestial move which seems to be way past due. Who am I to tell when it should be the right time for some miracle to come our way and grant us some true change in our son's life? All I really know is that nothing short of Divine intervention is what we need and constantly pray for. I would not mind one bit if you prayed for us too.

Dad