For instance, today on the drive home from school – where in less than ten minutes, DD managed to find herself grounded until next week. Actually, hang on – let me backtrack. It actually started yesterday morning…

Yesterday, during our morning drive to school and BART, Mr. Man brought up how he would like to play horseshoes – or maybe croquet in our yard once the weather warmed up. Now – in fairness, I’m not terribly interested in playing croquet either, but DD’s reaction was, shall we say, less than desirable. I don’t remember everything she said but I do remember it started with some quips about Stephen King’s The Shining and ended with her comparing it to golf with big clubs, and all the while she appeared to be completely clueless to the fact that she was being incredibly rude to Mr. Man, who was getting more and more frustrated with her. If she’d been paying the slightest amount of attention she would have realized that it obviously was important to him and that she was (badly) mishandling the situation. Although Mr. Man wasn’t helping either, as his reaction to her little self-indulgent attitude came very close to the “over” reaction line.

Since we dropped her off at school first, I made a stab at trying to talk to Mr. Man about his (over) reaction to her little teen ‘tude-fest. But she’d managed to so completely wind him up that I wasn’t able to get very far with that before we got to the BART. Which is no mean feat, actually. Mr. Man is usually one of the most calm and even tempered people I’ve ever met. Having not gotten very far in that endeavor, I opted to confront DD  after school and get her to see reason instead – thinking that perhaps if she apologized for being a little poopy-head, then maybe Mr. Man might apologize for over reacting, and everyone could be happy again.

So for about an hour, I go round and round and round with her. Trying to explain why it’s important not to disregard someones feelings and how even if you are not interested in something you should be polite and how she should pick up on verbal ques and recognize when someone really cares about something and yadda yadda yadda. Her defense? Well he overreacted too. And Croquet is stupid, so there. When I FINALLY managed to get through her thicker-than-thick skull that she was, actually, in the wrong (the shock! the horror!) she STILL didn’t see why she should apologize to him, since he was in the wrong, too. At this point, I lost patience with the discussion and told her in no uncertain terms that she needed to make good with her Papa, it was the right thing to do, it wasn’t a big deal, she needed to do it and that was all there was to it. When she continued to argue past that point, I told her fine. She didn’t have to apologize if she didn’t want to. But she was grounded* until such time as she did. (Which went over well, let me assure you.)

*A little caveat about grounding. I hate grounding her. I honestly believe that the only person who hates her being grounded more than she does, is me. Underneath my strict exterior is a warm, gooey, softy interior that really, really hates to punish her – especially grounding, since it means that not only does she not get to do fun things, but I can’t do fun things WITH her.

Fast forward a few hours to evening. I’m laying down in the bedroom, working on the second Anita Blake book (I blame you Crystal!). At some point, Mr. Man comes in and there’s the sleeping and the getting up and the morning-which-always-comes-too-early, etc. Which brings us to this afternoon. I pick up DD from school and, in retrospect I probably should have scented the coming storm on the wind – the cursory answers to my gentle inquiries about her day – the snide way she made a comment about someone we drove past, but I wasn’t really paying close attention – since I was busy plotting how best to surprise her with the super-awesome Hollister Jacket I’d picked up for her from the Mall after returning the holiday gifts that she didn’t like/want.

I’m not sure what it was – but something reminded me to ask about making things right with Mr. Man. So I asked her if she got everything sorted out with Papa. “I think so.”

My eyebrows raise – “you think so? You talked to him about croquet?”

“Oh, I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure?” Incredulous.

“I don’t know”

“Well you either did or you didn’t.” Getting annoyed.

“I don’t remember.”

“What do you mean you don’t remember?” Definitely annoyed.

“I don’t remember!”

“Well, you either did or you didn’t. If you don’t remember then you probably didn’t!” Annoyed and well on my way to frustrated.

“Well I guess I didn’t then!”

Pause and remember the grounding. Uh oh. Sigh. “Did you watch TV last night?”

“I watched Papa playing Video Games.”

“So you watched TV.”

“Yes.”

“When you were grounded.”

“I forgot!”

Now – if she had not been such a little poopy-head with the whole “I-don’t-know-I-don’t-remember” bull, this might have gone a little differently. Because, as I said, I really really really hate grounding her. REALLY. But she was, she did, and I’ll be honest – I was frustrated. “Okay – well, since you watched television while you were grounded, you’re going to get ungrounded tomorrow. Assuming you talk to Papa tonight of course.” I think I was being fair. One evening for one evening – especially since she wasn’t even going to be able to talk to Mr. Man until he got home from work anyways, and tomorrow morning would mean that she could still maybe have a friend over on Saturday or whatever – it was still plenty of time to have a good weekend.

Of course, that was all in my head in the second or two before the volcano exploded. “WHAT! THAT’S NOT FAIR! I FORGOT! YOU CAN’T GROUND ME FOR FORGETTING” and on and on and on. I point out that it’s her responsibility to remember. At which point she starts to blame ME for not reminding her. First by just blaming for not reminding her and then in the guilt trip way of “well if you really wanted me to make up with Papa” way. I was unmoved by either. My hopes of her being quickly ungrounded the next day were fast evaporating.

Then comes the she-shouldn’t-have-to-apologize-anyways-because-papa-was-in-the-wrong-too argument. And the best part? Her fevered, frustrated and upset adolescent mind seems to have forgotten half the conversation from the previous day. The half that came out of my mouth, of course, not her half. She starts insisting that I said that Papa was in the right and that she should apologize because Papa was in the right and how I never ever take her side and OMG the DRAHMAH! When the truth is, I never said he was in the right (although I didn’t say that he was in the wrong either – we’re still parents and whether or not I agree with how he handled the situation, we’ve got to back each other up) .

Keep in mind, by the way – that this entire conversation took place in the time it took for us to drive the two or so miles from her school to our house. So yeah, as we pull up in to the driveway she’s saying that last little bit. And that loud boom you just heard? Yeah, that was the nuclear explosion in my head. I raise my voice and tell her in no uncertain terms that I shor’-as-hell-did-NOT-say-that. So much for unveiling surprise-coats-from-hollister anytime soon. Sigh. She grabs her backpack and storms in to the house, yelling at me for being unfair, not listening, causing cancer and killing puppies, etc… Double Sigh.

Still hoping against hope that I’m not going to have to ground her for longer than the one evening. I grab the bags in the trunk and make my way inside. In my best firm-and-slightly-raised-but-not-yelling-voice, I tell her in no uncertain terms that if she ever storms off in the middle of a conversation like that again that she will be on full lockdown* grounding for a week.

*We have two types of grounding – type 1 is your basic no electronics, phone, or friends. Type 2 is where there is no Dana, only Zuul. It’s type 1 + all chores or parent designated activites, all the time.

This warning was my one, last, great hope for getting out of this situation without having to go any further. Unfortunately, the next thing out of her mouth burned that last hope to a cinder. “Well, I don’t know why you don’t remember telling me that Papa was right and I was wrong – you’re either a liar or your having mental issues.”

And I’m done. Thats it. In ten minutes flat she went from kinda-being-grounded-until-Papa-got-home to full-lockdown-level-2-grounded for a week. I think that might be a new world record.

I have a daughter. She’s almost a teen. And if, Gods forbid, she ever became pregnant while underage – I believe that she would talk to me, and that we could work out a solution together. But I know that I’m a lucky parent. A parent who is able to have a close and meaningful conversation with my daughter. However, if we weren’t able to talk – if we had a strained relationship, in which she felt like she couldn’t talk to me about being pregnant – I believe she should be safe, should she choose to have an abortion without my help or input. I don’t want her going to a back-alley butcher because she’s too afraid to talk to me.

So for all those teens out there, who can’t vote for yourself. I will be voting for you. I will be voting No on Prop 4. Abortion should be a last resort, definitely – education and prevention are paramount to ensuring that it remains a last resort – but it should be safe and available to those who need it. There is no need to return to the age of coat hangars in the dark, of fear and babies abandoned in dumpsters, of babies being born without proper pre-natal care, because their young mother didn’t know what to do.

Yes, pregnant teens should talk to their parents, but we can’t legislate that. Protect teens. Friends in California – Please Vote No on Prop 4.

So; when my daughter and I went to her school to pick up her schedule prior to school beginning, we were a tad dismayed that they didn’t have her schedule ready. Especially considering there were only a few days until school started to get it sorted out. Okay, fine. Whatever. We talk with the scheduling coordinator, and get electives chose and whatnot and then we have to decide on a Math class.

Algebra or Pre-Algebra. Hmm. DD has always been excellent at Math, and had the added benefit of some extra algebra tutoring during the summer. I hem a little bit and ask the coordinator what she thinks. She says that it’s better to place in Pre-Algebra, and then move up to Algebra than the reverse. From my point of view, it’s ass-backwards, because I would think it’d be easier to move back to a lower class than move up to a higher class. So we go back and forth for a little while, and finally the coordinator says “Well, they do assessments at the beginning of the year, so if we place her in the Pre-Algebra class and her teacher thinks she can move up, it’d be easier from a scheduling standpoint, because there are more students in Pre-Algebra than in Algebra.”

Ugh. Kill me with scheduling rhetoric. Fine, I accede with grace to her being placed in Pre-Algebra, and wait for results back of the assessment.
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and wait…
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and wait….
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and in the mean time, DD is getting homework that she’s bored with and saying it’s too easy. So I give up and after nearly three weeks of school, I send an email to her math teacher asking about the results of the assessments and whether DD should be moving up.

And what I got was essentially a blank look and “Assessments? We don’t do assessments.” That noise you hear? Yeah, that was my head exploding under the pressure of trying to be nice while pushing back a desire to throttle this woman. “Excuse me? I was told there would be assessments – in fact I specifically REQUESTED assessment for her, based on the fact that we weren’t sure which class she should go in to.”

Teacher: “Well, I really wish you’d talked to me about this sooner.” At this point, I’m imagining picking up one of the Pre-Algebra books and slamming it in to her face repeatedly. Because – *I* was trying to be nice, and let the teachers get settled and do their testing and such, it’s MY fault that she didn’t get in to Algebra? When I was told they would be doing assessments?!?! GRRRRRR!

Squelching my desire towards doing the teacher bodily harm, (I’ll save it for the scheduling coordinator instead) we discuss how we should proceed. DD will be taking a couple of trial classes of Algebra to see if she can catch up, and was given a workbook to try out. It will probably take extra tutoring the next couple of weeks, but I think she can make it. It’s just unfortunate that she’ll have to work harder to catch up at something that she should have already been doing.

I’m still waiting for the Scheduling Coordinator to return my phone call.

I already had the fabric – leftovers for making her message boards (I’ll post a pic of those later). First I cut a piece of polkadot fabric to be slightly larger than the top of her box. Then I used Spray adhesive and carefully positioned it on the lid of the box, smoothing out any wrinkles. Next I folded over the edges and smoothed them down. Then I took some pink ribbon, and using spray adhesive, I laid it along the edge of the polkadot fabric, wrapping it over itself at the middle of the front of the box. While the adhesive dried, I cut the loops off the back of these adorable buttons I’d found at JoAnn’s, and using C-clamps and PVA glue (Cuz thats what I had on hand), I glued the buttons over the seam of the ribbon, and clamped in place to dry.

I had considered putting fabric over the rest of the box, too – but I didn’t quite have enough fabric, and I didn’t want to build up the sides of the box too much, since that would make getting the lids on and off harder. I think they came out really cute! Perfect for storing pens, pencils, doo-dads and what-nots in.

(I know, excuse the lame drawing… you get the idea…) I’m thinking a vintage-50′s-swing style dress. Something suitable for a growing young lady (re: Modest!), but also fun enough that she’d feel hip and cool in it. I have to learn to sew one of these days. In the meantime, so begins my quest to find a seamstress… wish me luck!

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