Karl Rosemond

Sometimes our school principal puts not-so-subtle hints in the school newsletter.  Xeroxed-looking copies of articles shared with the entire community, intoning us to get off of teachers' butts, stop whining, and quit capitulating to these little child monsters that we've created.  John Rosemond appeared this week, his smug mug half smiling at us in grainy black and white... and you hardly have to read more than the expression on his face to know what he's going to tell us.  This week it was something about make the kids revolve around you, not the other way around.   I get it. And at heart I'm old school, or at least I'm not built for servitude, and I agree with it.

And yet... I forgive us, we modern parents, for quite a bit.   I mean really, here it is: there was this microscopic sperm and egg that met and cataclysmically, silently, started the chain reaction that started a human life, and it grew into this little pea sized thing, then this little fishie like thing, then it grew into a sea horse, then kind of a hamster, then an actual mini-baby, and then puff puff puff a mewling red faced alien human, covered in slime and ready to begin life on the outside.    This is all quite shocking.  When you think about it how do we even walk around calmly with these little creatures in hand when this is the norm.  That we are capable of such greatness.   The only reason we think it's normal is because everybody does it.  And how, if you are remotely a thoughtful person, do you suppress all of this wonder and amazement that you DID THIS,  while simultaneously coping with the fragility that at any moment that little thing could bump its head and all would be lost, with a frank black and white common sense approach to 'PARENTING'.   It's kind of a joke, really, that we are all advised to put sentiment aside when dealing with our children and use discipline, common sense, a sense of authority. 

I have no idea what force of creation made it possible for me to be here, let alone for Karl and I to have made it possible for YOU, my children, to be here... and  yet there it is.  And here we are.  And you are all looking at me like I'm supposed to know what to do.  I'm as stunned about it all really as you are.  And I'm not the best actor.  But Karl's a good actor.

So last night Karl had to get after the girls.. they go into their hysterics so easily and loudly that you just have to get louder and more determined than they are when it's time for bed.  He yelled something at them like OH NO NO THAT IS NOT WHAT WE ARE DOING in his authority voice.  They barely flinch but it's something.  So he dubbed himself Karl Rosemond.  Trying to kick their butts into bed.  It really works when he sets his mind to it.  But he's never smug.  The girls constantly flabbergast us out of smug. 
They are so cute I have to look away or else my heart will pop.

Yesterday Viv was sitting at the bar, curled up like a cat and twirling her hair, absently eating a goldfish or two when she just broke into tears.  Real tears and sobbing.  I said 'What's wrong??'   She said "I just wish I had picked a barbie with DOGS' she sobbed.  'I don't want a flying barbie!!!'  sob sob sob.  Grandma Gloria had let her pick a barbie.   And that's where she's at.

The emotional level is high.  Meanwhile Teddy just completely skirts around it, trying not to get ensared.  The funniest is when he tries to reason with them.  It seems so simple, he must think. They are crying about something so STUPID, he must think.  I will just try to explain to them how stupid it is.   That never works.  The girls shift what they are mad about if you try to solve what they say they are mad about.  The point, my dear, is that they are MAD.  He's starting to understand women a bit too well for an 8 year old.  It's too soon for him to be this wise.

When Norah gets pissed the steam blows out of her ears and there is no fixing it except distraction.   We have been making boxes for her to write her letters in.  So that she knows where to write a letter on a page.  She's very into the trappings of school and when I tell her it's homework time she breaks out a red marker and makes boxes all over her page and tells me to write letters in them.    She pretends to be the teacher the whole night yelling at us:  "VOICES SHOULD BE OFF KINDERGARTENERS!!"   "ONE IS YOUR EYES TWO IS YOUR EARS THREE IS YOUR LIPS!!!"  

We were reading her library book that she got from the School Library.  It was called 'Clifford and the Grouchy Neighbors'.  The neighbor lady was grouchy with Clifford.  Norah got so mad at the neigbor lady that she went back and ripped her grouchy face out of the book.  Just the face out of the page.  Hmmmmmm.

So now we are going to go tell the school librarian what happened and apologize.  Norah wants to do that as much as she wants to go get her flu shot.   I saw her hiding the book in her drawer.  Sigh.   We will learn this lesson.  It's just that... Norah has a way of trumping  my 'PARENTING'.  She could truly flat out refuse to participate in my After School Special.  Oh well. We'll give it a try. You've gotta admire her unbreakable will.  It's vaguely similar to John Rosemond's insistence that we can have control.  We can be in control.