Don't be hesitant

Last night Maddy and I stayed up too late. I had been at book group and when I returned a little before 11 she was at the kitchen table, homework spread in front of her. In tears. Tears are fond of 11 p.m., have you noticed? Some of it was the new workload of high school honors classes, pace, and deadlines. Most of it was the elections.

Ninth grade elections. Is there anything more slippery and unpredictable than high school politics? Maddy decided to run for class president and is experiencing the full emotions of putting yourself out there: hope, betrayal, affirmation, doubts. Middle school maintained a come one, come all approach to student leadership so these are their first real elections. It shows. Apparently one girl is promising doughnuts to everyone who votes for her and that has been a very successful campaign strategy. Gotta love the short-term thinking of ninth grade brains. 

. . .

It's hard not to keep remembering my own first attempt at elected office. I know our children aren't necessarily destined to experience the same fates we encounter (and that it's not all about me!) but I can't help feeling this vicarious nervous feeling for Miss M. No question, those nerves are rooted firmly in my memories of that first election saga.

It was 1982ish. 7th grade? 8th grade? I was the oldest child in my family so I was navigating new, unfamiliar terrain at the junior high but I nevertheless decided to make a run for class president, coasting on the feel-good spillover from my elementary school years. When I look at this picture of myself from that year, I just want to hug her. Oh, Annie, honey. (This is the infamous beauty-school-student, old lady perm.):

In addition to giving a speech and making posters, we had to do a skit. I assembled as many people as I could and invited them over to my house for brainstorming and practice. Lacking any great ideas (I know, fantastic president material, right?) I went with my mom's idea: since my name is Annie, why not a skit around the musical Annie? (Are you feeling sick to your stomach with dread yet?)  So she helped rewrite some words to the music Tomorrow ("Vote, Annie! Vote Annie! Vote Annie for president. She's only your vote away") for everyone to sing.  Then I would come out in my little curly perm with a red dress on and give my speech. I thought it was pretty great.

The morning of the skit, I was really nervous in my little Annie getup. We were somewhere in the middle of the line-up and it became clear pretty quickly that the reigning theme was "cool."  As in: not trying too hard. Lipsynching Foreigner. Spoofing Saturday Night Live (did I even know what that was yet?). Sporting a rainbow shirt or izod. Not wearing a red dress impersonating Little Orphan Annie with earnest lyrics*.  When it came our turn, my posse just kind of muttered rather than sang. We made it through, though, and I am grateful that no one outright heckled.  And, hey, all the teachers seemed to really like it. 

During last period they made an announcement on the intercom. Under the stares of my classmates, I listened as the office of president went to Denise Kidm@n, a tall cool girl who had four older teenage sibling advisors on all things cool. I accepted the condolences of my classmates with a brave smile, burning eyes, and a red dress crumpled up at the bottom of my bag.

. . .

So, you see? I have election baggage.  I want to help but I know I have no idea what the formula is for achieving high office in this generation's 9th grade. Apparently it includes doughnut bribery. I am proud she is taking the risk, putting herself in the ring, and offering to serve and lead. Don't be hesitant, Maddy.

What say you? Do you have election stories? Any ideas or memories of a fun, memorable student election speech? 

*I do want to say: This was not my mom's fault. She was wonderful and supportive and helpful. She made the handouts. She fed the volunteers. {Thank you, mom.} It just goes to show adults really can't predict the recipe of coolness that determines junior high/high school election success. What worked in the 60s didn't work in the 80s. What worked in the 80s, whatever that was, won't work now. 

Waking mama bear

You know how parents always tell their teens "if you're ever in situation where you feel uncomfortable, call me and I'll come get you, no matter what"?  Yep, I got that call last week. Lauren had headed out with some friends to go to an amusement park a couple of hours away.  Within an hour, she started texting me:  

whoa, he's driving 115 mph. 

he won't slow down.  

wait, he slowed down to 100.

now they're making fun of me for wanting to go slower.

(at this point I want their phone numbers so I can give them a good verbal shaking but then I don't want them to talk on the phone AND drive over 100)

(or to call the highway patrol and get them pulled over)

(or--better yet--to actually shake some sense into them)

This is scary. But we're almost there. 

Will you come and get me so I don't have to drive home with them?

Well, of course. The mama bear in me roared and I went and got her, adrenaline surging. Glad she told me (and it was actually even worse than she had let on), relieved she was okay, and peeeeeeved with the risk-taking crazy boys who will--rest assured--never chauffeur my girl again.  I was so angry at their stupidity.  (And also? I have never had to retrieve her from anywhere when she was with her friends from school.  These were church friends. Sheesh.)

L kept apologizing on the way home.  I assured her that we would go ANYWHERE to make sure she was safe.  That's why there's a little mama bear cave in the heart of every mom, holding a protective and fierce creature whose first words upon waking from her hibernating slumber are DON'T MESS WITH MY CHILD.

Then I told her about the time I jumped out of a moving Volkswagen van when I was 16 (something about wanting to get out but the boy wouldn't pull over).  Silly teenage brains.

she's off!

During this Independence Day weekend I have been remembering that 4th of July three years ago when we watched Lauren's ponytail swing through airport security on her way to work for Aunt Sue in Ireland.

This week she celebrated her (semi)independence by getting on a plane bound for LA (where she met the rest of her group) and then heading to the South Pacific.

She's been planning this for 7 months, completed the AYS applications, raised money (thank you to you dear family and friends who contributed), wrote lists and packed in preparation for this long-dreamt-of adventure.  She'll be gone for 16 days, with a group of young people (ages 16-19) + 4 parents + 1 expedition leader. They will be building a library in Tonga, working on other service projects, learning, serving, discovering. And some fun thrown in there, too--they stopped in Fiji for a day of snorkeling on their way to Tonga, for example. Definitely working hard and playing hard.

. . .

I have been remembering, too, those pesky Braxton Hicks contractions that plagued me in the last part of my pregnancies.  Life has a way of warning us, of designing rehearsals into our systems so that we can gradually prepare ourselves for the real deal.  I've come to think of these adventures and field trips as another set of Braxton Hicks experiences, just preparing me ever-so-slightly for the time when she--they--get on the plane and fly away into a new life. Ever since their births, the leavings just get longer and more distant, more thrilling and bittersweet.  But it's what I signed on for and I have to remind myself that healthy, sprouting, + blooming independence is a thing to celebrate, not mourn. Right?

In the gloaming

I'm writing this from the hammock in our back yard--with wireless access!--and am feeling pretty decadent. Greg has fallen asleep on the bench on the patio, a book open and face down on his chest. Louie is keeping watch from under the bench. The kids are doing homework for tomorrow at the table inside the open door, the long weekend suddenly screeching to a halt as the realities of deadlines and assignments suddenly appear.  (School's not out until June 21st for us. Sigh.) We've made a pact to stay out here for as long as we can because once we go inside, the weekend's officially over.  Someone will want dinner or clean clothes or to talk about the 5872 things we have on the calendar this week as school slowly winds down with one recognition assembly/concert/game/event after another.

 

Yesterday afternoon, after church and naps, we decided on the spot to take a Sunday drive to Wingaersheek beach in Gloucester. We read out loud in the car up and back, flew a kite in the breeze and watched the sun set. I was so happy with our spontaneity.  And with the lovely, glowing light--the gloaming. Sometimes I look at these faces and am just smitten with motherlove.

And then sometimes, like today, we have silly + emotional showdowns in public at Subway over who owns a certain pair of earrings (+in the process the earrings end up on the floor and no one will pick them up) and the smitten-ness is tempered with a sprinkling of irritation and eye-rolling. It's a fickle pendulum, this mothering thing.  Just when you think you've got it right, you don't.

But still.  I'm dazzled. By who they are + are becoming, by my wide gaps in competence and my abundant weaknesses and occasional bursts of doing it alright, by the delicious aching laboratory these years are. Most of the time we are both kites and kiteflyers: we soar and swoop, rise and fall and we hold on to each other, hoping we all stay both aloft and anchored.  No wonder it's a tangle sometimes.

The enforcer

 

Oh, boy, am I unpopular with my kids right now.

You know, way back when I thought about what kind of mom I would be when the time came, I had rosy visions of reading together, making meals together, listening well, giving big warm hugs, bedtime routines, birthday parties.  I didn't really dream of being the bad guy.  The enforcer. (Ba ba BUUM.)

But, sure enough, that's what's called for sometimes.  I'm a parent not a pal, as the lady on the morning talk show said a while back (although, really, I'd love to be a Lorelei, Gilmore Girls-type mom. She seemed to pull off the pal+parent thing, plus witty banter. I know, it's just a tv show.)

We've had some chronic problems with technology use and rule breaking around here and it reached a boiling point this weekend so we held a grand Family Summit on Technology OverUse (you know, the FSoTOU). We ended up with: 

Consequence A: one child* can't use the computer nor stay home alone with the computer for a week (broke house rule about not going on the computer when you're home alone, sneaked on and then tried to cover it up.  Good try attempting to fool The Enforcer!).

Consequence B: one child* will have certain "texting hours" every evening/afternoon but put away the phone the rest of the time (had banked a shocking 8000 texts in one month. Yikes. I'm not sure I could think of 8000 things to say in one month. Moderation, anyone?)

Consequence C: one child* has lost cell phone privileges altogether for two weeks and will gradually be able to get it back (chronically texting after hours/lights out and throughout the school day. I mean, really. How can you listen in class if you are texting every few minutes? Come on. Plus it's against school rules. Those cell phone bills are fantastic aids for this kind of sleuthing, I found out this weekend.) 

Here's the thing. I had no idea until I checked the phone bill. Surprise! (Not in a good way.)  So we enforced. There were tears and some cold shoulders for a bit. Now I'm mostly noticing more book reading, more conversations, more presence, more of how we want to be (or at least how I want us to be). 

And in the meantime I'm looking more closely at my own technology habits (+ knowing I am being watched carefully for slip-ups). How does your family manage the technology pull? How do you?

*may or may not be same child in more than one scenario.