And today, I pack....

I'm going to San Francisco next week, therefore I must begin packing now. I LOVE to pack. Packing is like a zen fest for me - as long as I'm not being hurried. I like to pack and prepare for trips weeks in advance.

We went on a cruise a few years ago, the first cruise with kids. We were travelling with 3 other families on a Caribbean adventure and we all got together and planned our big excursion 6 months in advance, and yes, 6 months in advance was when I began packing for that trip.

I don't like to overpack, so it would seem that packing so far in advance would lend me time to accumulate too much stuff, but it works the opposite for me. If I have enough time I can plan out every possible scenario and then plan the easiest, most compact way to deal with it. This is the part that I love so much, trying to think of everything, and then trying to be prepared for it. It sounds OCD, but I'm really not. I like to be in control, but I'm not obsessive about it - most of the time. It is more of a challenge to have everything I need, or to know exactly where the closest retailer is, so that I might purchase the item of necessity.

I think this stems a lot from being a mother. I absofuckinglutely hate to see a kid having a melt down or throwing a tantrum. I do NOT agree with giving a kid a reward in such a behavior, so NO, I'm not packing cookies for my screaming child. I fully believe that my kids fear my tantrum & wrath much worse than their own, therefore they learned to behave. BUT, I did always have things on hand to be prepared to steer around situations which could lead to a meltdown. Most kids go nuts because someone waited too long to let them rest, eat or be comfortable. And then some kids are just spoiled rotten piss heads. I can't remember a time when I had to deal with either of my kids for a public meltdown. We had a few at home, but that was mostly due to me ignoring requests for help (mom of the year!!). We are WAY past those years now, but I look back and have memories of my extrememly well behaved children. And I do not look at the world through rose colored lenses, so I'm pretty sure my memories are accurate. My kids are well behaved and polite, and anyone who knows them will agree......*cracks the whip*. I also suffer back pain from the back of tricks I constantly carried around. :) My oldest daughter loves to proclaim that I am the most prepared woman on earth. I like her the most.

I remember the days when I carried diaper bags. I had a different diaper bag for every occasion and the sole reason was so that I could rePACK a damn bag every.single.day. I got so much joy from neatly tucking little things in pockets and flaps. I special ordered several bags because of their compartmental attraction. I had everything that my baby could possible need. I was prepared!

So, I'm beginning to pack today, and I actually feel a little behind because I'm leaving in 5 days. I'm usually farther along by now!

Anyone in San Francisco? I'll be solo for most of my journey as Hunk will be working and entertaining. I'm so very excited to be going, if I didn't have a fear of earthquakes I would move to SF tomorrow. Of course, can you imagine how FUN it would be to pack an earthquake preparedness kit. OMG!

Sink or Swim

I'm so mad right now that I can't stand it. My 11 year old did it, again. They say that the two's are terrible, but I'm having a much harder time with 11. I think that something ate my child's brain. She habitually 'forgets' things that are pretty important because she is so wrapped up in whatever else is more important at the moment. She almost never thinks ahead and I'm finding it quite annoying. It is most annoying because she used to be much different. This is completely new territory for us. She used to be the kid that I could ask her where anything was and she remembered exact locations - of everything, hers or someone else's. She was very observant of all around her, yet that seems to have been lost in the shuffle. She's starting to act like a ditzy teen (but she's only 11!!!!). If this is a preview of 13-17, then people, I'm screwed. Let's hope this is a phase.

The latest comes about 11pm last night. Apparently, her conscious got to her so much that it jolted her out of sleep...."HEY, TOMORROW IS THURSDAY, remember....". She stumbled into our room to inform us that she almost(?) forgot that tomorrow is the day for her to do a cooking demonstration for her speech class. Blink. 11 pm. Blink. The day before.

What makes me the most angry is that we talked about this demonstration 2 weeks ago. We brainstormed, we came up with ideas that would be easy and ones that would really wow the teacher. We decided on something that would have an interesting story behind it so she would have good 'chat' material while demonstrating the recipe. The schedule for demonstrations was not set, so we had no date. I also asked her to speak with her instructor to make sure that she would be permitted to do what we had planned. I asked her a few times over the course of the past two weeks if she had gotten permission, etc., the last inquiry from me was Friday. She had no new information. I'm guessing she probably got the go ahead and date on Monday of this week, but failed to let me know.

Since we only had half the ingredients necessary for this project I had to get up two hours early to go to the grocery store and get what she needed, then we had to practice and time the speech and make her note cards. All on the day of the demonstration.

The worst part is that I absolutely could not enjoy doing this project with her. It started out great with the ideas and decision making. I had anticipated having a lot of fun with this, but I could not get past my anger - at 5:30 a.m. no less. The entire morning just completely sucked ass and I pretty much just helped her do enough to 'get by'. She was concerned that it would not last as long as it was supposed to and instead of being a great mom I said, "well, I guess you're grade is just screwed then!".

I'm wondering if I would have been better off to just not help her at all, to just let her tell her teacher that she was unprepared and see where the chips would fall. I might have been a lot less angry at the whole situation and I might have been a better parental unit. The jury is out, I think I would still be mad that she let the grade go, but maybe I would have been a bit less vocal to her about it.

Sometimes it just sucks to be the grown up. Would you let them sink or help them swim? I probably did more harm by helping her throw something together, than to let her just fail and learn from her mistake. Considering that this was a large percentage of her grade, would you knowingly let your child fail a class to teach them a lesson? Where do you draw the line? Failing a class is different (to me) than screwing up outside of school.