I am not supposed to panic.
I am supposed to remain calm. I am supposed to breathe slowly – deep breaths. Relax. I am supposed to let whatever happens … happen.
But there are six days left in the quarter. I can’t see straight, with all the worry.
Shane is trying for straight A’s. I am panicked because he has an 87% in science. I have emailed his teacher, learned what he can do, and relayed the information to Shane.
Shane has done nothing to improve his grade. He just figures it will go up on its own. It will not.
But his science grade isn’t going to be on his college transcript.
I am even more panicked because Shane’s Algebra 1 and Spanish 1 grades are going to be the first grades on his college transcript. If he gets A’s in both classes this quarter, he will have two A’s on his transcript for college.
This may not seem like a big deal to those who have brilliant, non-learning-disabled children. But in this house, having two A’s is a huge deal.
Shane could actually pull it off.
In an interesting twist, there’s a chance – small, but there – that Dylan could get two A’s this semester, too. He will likely get an A in chorus. But if he works like crazy for the next week, especially on one project for his government class, there is a chance that he’ll get an A in that class, too.
I am not holding my breath.
I am also not breathing slowly.
In fact, I am completely panicked over all of it.
Dylan had a three-day weekend. He’s failing two classes and has C’s in everything else, except chorus. His angelic voice is getting him at least one A this semester.
There is nothing that he’s failing because of incompetency. He simply hasn’t turned in his work.
For the three-day weekend, I compiled a list of his English assignments. I suggested that he work with his dad on his Computer Science assignments. I suggested that he do English on Saturday and Sunday, and then on Monday we could go over, together, what he’s missing in his other classes.
Dylan did not like my suggestion.
“Just let me get it done,” he said. “I can do it my way and you will see that it’s completely done by Monday.”
Saturday and Sunday, he had friends over. We limited the time they could be here – and drove them home – so that Dylan would have extra time to work on all of the missing assignments.
There are seven days left in the quarter – in the semester – so we knew he would buckle down and do the work.
But we never saw him do the work. We saw him on texting on the cell phone, Snap-Chatting on the iPad, Face-Timing on the laptop.
On Monday evening, when I suggested that we go over the missing work for the other classes, he had one sentence written for something due in English.
I had suggested that he make a big pile of all the missing English work, printed out, since his English teacher prefers that late work be printed, rather than turned in online. And today he has a meeting with his English teacher to discuss what’s going on. But by Monday night, he hadn’t printed a single thing.
“I’ll print it all out tomorrow,” he said. “I’m too tired to do it now.” And he went to bed.
As far as I can tell, he did absolutely nothing for school this weekend. He swears he did, but I saw no effort.
I got up early and drove him to school so that he could get an hour’s worth of work done before the school day started.
I have no idea if that will happen, but I can guarantee one thing: the new quarter will bring new rules.
One fine school morning, Dylan didn’t get up.
I made his breakfast and lunch as always, and waited for the inevitable clamoring down the stairs like thunder-hooves.
It didn’t happen.
I waited for the door to be thrust open, for the slamming of the bathroom door, for the stomping and drawer shutting and other sounds of a boy who waited too long to get out of bed. But none of those sounds happened, either.
Shane came downstairs. “What’s wrong with Dylan?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess he didn’t wake up.”
Dylan has been warned many, many times that I would not wake him up if he slept through his alarm. That’s why he has not one, not two, but three alarm clocks.
Apparently, he didn’t use them on this day.
I slammed the door – hard – when I left to take Shane to school, in hopes that this might jar Dylan awake. Half an hour later I came home, and Dylan was still asleep.
At 9 a.m. – two hours after Dylan should have caught the bus – I finally texted Dylan: “I guess you’re not going to school today.”
He burst forth from his room in less than a minute.
“I set my alarm! I don’t know why it didn’t go off!” he wailed. He was all askew.
“That’s why you have three alarms,” I said, folding the laundry carefully and speaking in my calmest voice.
“But I was sure that it would go off! I woke up at two o’clock in the morning just to make sure I’d set the alarm!”
“What do you want me to do about it?” I asked.
“I have to go to school!” He was standing there in his underwear.
“Well, you can’t go like that,” I said.
“I need to get ready!” he screeched.
“So get ready,” I said.
He raced off and got ready in ten minutes, like he always does. Then I drove him to school. He ate his breakfast in the car.
“I can’t do this for you tomorrow or the next day,” I told him. “I am working both days and I simply won’t be home to drive you to school.”
“I’m going to set three alarms, I guess,” he said, chugging his peanut butter and banana smoothie.
“Okay. And I’m picking you up at 3:00,” I reminded him. This is half an hour after school lets out. “You might want to talk to your first period teacher after school and see if you can make up any work you missed today.”
“I will,” he said.
Then he went inside.
I drove away, leaving him to face his own consequences.
I am at 95% power – finally almost not sick anymore.
So I went back to work. I have canceled substitute jobs twice during my illness, so I really didn’t want to cancel again. I realize that people get sick – but geez, three weeks on the couch is enough to make someone want a full-time job!
I had signed up to substitute in a kindergarten class.
Kindergarteners are interesting. The first class for which I subbed was kindergarten, because I remember so fondly those days with my children, when they were young and did whatever I wanted them to do. And indeed, kindergarteners are usually pretty good about trying to do what’s expected.
They can’t tie their own shoes, or argue their own cases with their friends, or open their own milk boxes, but otherwise they’re a pretty nice group.
So on my first day of substitute teaching, I went in to a room full of five-year-olds and spent the day chasing them around the room. It was exhausting. Every child needed something at every single moment. Glue sticks didn’t work, the paper towels didn’t dispense easily, the water bottle wouldn’t open, a clothing tag was bothering someone’s neck. One girl climbed into a cupboard. Another boy never sat down – not once – for the entire three hours I was there.
“Teaching kindergarten is like herding goats,” I declared to my husband upon my arrival home.
I’ve since taught other kindergarten classes, and I’ve become more adept at controlling the classroom. But I stick with my original statement: Teaching kindergarten is like herding goats.
So after three weeks on the couch, I had a kindergarten class. But I still had a cough, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do much “projecting” with my voice to get the kids’ attention.
I armed myself with a bell, and sat the kids down early – using the bell – before even taking attendance. I introduced myself quietly, and I explained that I had a problem with my voice because I’d been sick.
Nearly every hand in the room went up. I called on somebody.
“I was sick yesterday and I threw up twice!”
More hands shot up.
“I threw up three times when I was sick last week!”
I listened to a few more kids, then signaled for them to put their hands down. I explained that my voice wasn’t working very well, so whenever they heard the bell, they needed to get quiet so I could talk to them. Then I moved into the lesson plans, and spent several hours herding goats.
What I learned from those two minutes was invaluable.
I spoke quietly. And I got my point across beautifully.
I thought back to my morning with Dylan: “We’re late!” I had screeched. “I told you to be down here at 6:30 and you blah blah blah blah …”When he didn’t respond to my rant, I’d actually gotten louder. By the time we’d separated for the day, I was screaming at the top of my lungs. In fact, it’s one of the reasons my voice was so bad when I got to that kindergarten class.
But I didn’t have to be loud.
In fact, it’s Rule #1: Remain calm.
I’d forgotten Rule #1.
The quarter and the semester are almost over. It looks as though Shane might be getting straight A’s, although his science grade just tanked to an 87.1%. But if he gets A’s in Algebra I and Spanish I, his first-ever college transcript grades will be A’s.
Meanwhile Dylan – who said he was shooting for straight A’s this quarter – will be lucky to pull off all B’s and two C’s. I’m not sure he’ll be that lucky, since he has again asked me to back off and let him handle it.
Once again, the work got past him. Once again, he chose to believe he had it “all under control” – and his grades show the opposite to be true. Once again, he did not talk to his teachers until it was too late. Once again, he came home day after day claiming that he had no work due, that he’d already checked online for missing work, that he knew for sure he had everything done.
And once again, half of his grades are A’s – because they were turned in on time – and the other half are E’s and zeros, because they were turned in ridiculously late, or not at all.
Dylan came home from middle school – day after day after day – saying that he had no homework. Or he had a few problems to do for math, but that was all. He had nothing else, ever.
I don’t like to compare my kids – but in this case, it is essential. Sometimes it takes comparing them for me to understand how Dylan’s brain works. For that matter, it helps me to understand Shane, too.
Shane has been doing homework nearly every night since the first day of middle school. They went to the same middle school, but Shane has homework. In fact, even though the homework is minimal, Dylan probably had homework in middle school, too. But Dylan didn’t know he had homework.
So Shane does his work, every night, and he turns it in on time. Once in a great while, Shane forgets to turn in his homework. He leaves it on his bed, or on the floor, or in the kitchen. Shane almost never forgets to do his homework. But for the most part, the work is turned in – on time – and Shane gets A’s.
But Dylan – now in 10th grade – still insists that he doesn’t have any homework. And no matter how many times he looks on the computer at his class lists, or his assignment lists, or his grades with glaring X’s and 0’s, Dylan still says, “I don’t have anything to do tonight.”
And then he goes about his merry way, letting all those assignments slip through the cracks, wondering how it happens – how does it always happen – and having no idea that he could solve the problem with one simple new habit.
Ask your teacher after class: “What was due today?” (Then turn it in.) Then say, “What’s due tomorrow?” Write that down, or put it on your phone, and then actually do that work, that evening, and turn it in the next day.
Dylan doesn’t want to do that. He would rather dig himself into huge holes – and then dig himself out of the same holes, so as to add great drama to his life. And the whole time, he says sits on his bed, chatting with friends he’s never met in person, and says he has it under control.
And I have no choice but to let him do it his way.
But in all honesty, I prefer Shane’s way.
In a month, Dylan will select his classes for 11th grade. For four years, I’ve been pushing him in the direction that – I believe – suits him best: the IBCP program. The program is not as strenuous as the full IB diploma program, but it incorporates a handful of IB (broad-thinking, college-level) classes and a program of hands-on action classes (in his case, computer science).
Dylan certainly has the intelligence to get the IBCP diploma. But this week, for the first time, I talked to his AP Computer Science teacher about possibly dropping out of the program entirely.
“Do you think he can handle the IB classes?” I asked him. “We have to decide soon, and it seems that he is really struggling taking one AP class.”
The Computer Science teacher – who is both enthusiastic and supportive of Dylan – said no IB, and yes – maybe:
“I would initially say no. That being said…I would like to challenge him …if he can prove himself in the second half of AP COMP SCI, then maybe we could talk IB. The fact is this is an easier AP class…and IB classes would eat him alive if he acts the same way.… I will ask that this be his challenge class! If you challenge him “Do well and we can talk IB”….otherwise we have to go other options.”
Immediately after I got the email from his teacher, Dylan’s case manager emailed me. “Dylan really wants to drop Computer Science next semester,” she said.
This, of course, would eliminate him from the IBCP program – and from IB course eligibility – altogether.
So I started looking at possibilities for Dylan’s schedule. He could take a much simpler schedule, and continue to do as little work as possible because he hates school. He could drop out of IB, never take another AP course, and even drop out of Honors level classes, if he so desires.
But… everything I’ve read about colleges – everything, from every college admissions office – says that they prefer to admit a student who gets okay grades in challenging classes, than to admit a student who gets A’s in on-grade-level classes.
So I talked to Dylan about it after school – about the conflicting emails, about his Computer Science teacher encouraging him to challenge himself, about his case manager encouraging him to drop out of the class because it’s too challenging.
I was not prepared for what Dylan had to say about it.
“What I really want,” Dylan said, “is for my Computer Science teacher to help me when I ask him. He’s too busy! He always says he’ll be right there, and then he never comes back to answer my question.”
This floored me. Dylan just wanted a little help. His teacher was busy, certainly, and had a lot of kids clamoring for assistance. But it sounded to me like there was a huge gap in communication – rather than a problem with the class being too challenging, or Dylan not wanting to be challenged, or whatever.
It sounded to me like Dylan just needed to spend a few minutes with the teacher.
So I set up a meeting for them to work it out.
I have no idea what Dylan will do about the IB program.
I thought I was feeling better.
I got up, did a few loads of laundry, messed around on the computer. When it came time to take the boys back to school, I got up before dawn – as I always did before – and made breakfasts and lunches, and shuttled the boys to their desired locations.
Shane complained of a sore throat on his way to school. Since he’d spent two days at an indoor water park, I blamed the overload of chlorine on his little system. Then I forgot all about it.
I didn’t feel great while they were at school. I slept for a few hours. But I didn’t have a fever, and while I canceled my substitute teaching job and my dentist appointment, I was thinking that maybe I was on the upswing.
I picked up Shane after school for his orthodontist appointment. I waited in the parking lot, and then he climbed into the car.
Well, he fell into the car.
“Are you still sick?” I nearly shrieked.
He nodded, too exhausted to speak.
“We have to go to the orthodontist!” I nearly shrieked again. “Why didn’t you call me to come and get you?”
“I didn’t feel that bad until sixth period,” he said.
“What kind of sick are you?” I asked. If Shane had what I have, he would miss two weeks of school – at minimum.
“What do you mean, ‘what kind of sick’?” he asked.
“I mean, is it your stomach? A cold? Do you think you have a fever?” I reached into the back seat to feel his forehead. It was warm, but not hot. His cheeks were cool.
“I don’t know,” Shane said.
Long story short, we went to the orthodontist. But by the time we got home, after my first hour-long outing in 12 days, I was exhausted. Shane and I both curled up on the couch, and started watching TV.
Bill had volunteered to pick up Dylan from play practice, so I took a nap.
Shane – whose sore throat is still bothering him – did not take a nap.
But suddenly, I was as sick as ever. I felt drained, achy, fatigued. My “feeling better” was over, and I was sick again.
Except, I don’t know if I am as sick as ever. I wonder how much of it is psychological. I would have thought I’d have risen to the occasion – be the well mom, taking care of my sick child. Instead, I curled into a fetal position and gave up.
It just feels like this thing is never going to go away.
Dylan is a singer.
As such, his voice coach advised him to do an audition for a local competition. In the audition requirements it says, “Participants MUST be available to perform” in the Young Artists Awards Show.
When signing up for the audition (which costs $30), I realized that the Young Artists Awards Show was the same weekend as the high school musical. In other words, if Dylan were accepted into the finals and had a role in the musical, Dylan wouldn’t be able to perform in two places on the same night.
I mentioned this to the voice coach.
“It doesn’t matter,” the coach said. “It’ll be good practice for him to audition.” So we acquired an accompanist and paid the $30 for the “practice” audition.
This took place before we even knew if Dylan would try out for the school musical.
Then Dylan got the lead in the school musical. And the audition is in a few weeks.
This morning, after mentioning the upcoming audition to the voice coach, I got a long and detailed text: “Dylan can work with the accompanist during our lessons, and you can work out payment for that with the accompanist. Also, I recommend longer lessons during this time, while he is preparing for the audition.”
The audition cost me $30. And I knew we would have to pay the accompanist (something) for playing piano during Dylan’s audition.
But the text this morning had me seeing nothing but dollar signs: four longer lessons ($$$) with the accompanist ($$$) before the audition ($$$) – for absolutely NO REASON.
Dylan won’t even be able to perform if he succeeds at the audition.
So I mentioned my concerns to the voice coach. I said I didn’t know how much to pay an accompanist, let alone during voice lessons, and that the audition was just for practice anyway and that paying for a longer lesson was also going to be tough, especially since this was just for practice.
The voice coach – oddly and immediately – backed off.
“Okay, just a regular lesson with me then,” he said.
“Should I pull him out of the audition?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “He’ll have plenty of other opportunities to audition.”
Sigh.
So maybe I ate the $30 for the audition. But I sure learned a valuable lesson.
When I think Dylan should not audition, then Dylan should not audition.
Sitting around waiting to get well gives one plenty of time to think. And with the holiday season ending (without me being a part of it) and 2016 coming to a close, I have lost my ability to do anything but think.
I’m astounded at the amount of time I waste.
I’ve been relegated to the couch for so long that I recognize commercials before they start. The charities are out in full force, grasping for last-minute donors, and I am lying on a couch.
This means that I am not only a captive audience, but I must donate.
I wonder why it costs 66 cents a day to save a child with cancer, but it costs 65 cents a day to save a dog that’s been left chained to a frozen doghouse. After six days, I leapt up from the couch, raced to the computer, and became a member of the ASPCA. It was my last chance for a 150-year celebratory t-shirt. The dying children will have to find help elsewhere.
I don’t take this action lightly. I am seriously offended by the issues in the world. But while these commercials play when I am not watching, spending a full week watching has made me aware that there is probably more that I could be doing. Maybe I could be donating my time to a local rescue. Why have I not done this?
When I am well, I don’t contemplate donating my time – because I don’t have any. I am too busy with the kids.
But maybe I have more time than I think.
I spend a lot of time worrying. I spend a lot of time planning for things that haven’t happened yet, and worrying about things that might happen during the time for which I am planning.
I rarely live in the moment.
Meanwhile, as I’ve been staring at the television, George Michael’s life ended. Like most 80’s children, I adored George Michael. Then Carrie Fisher died, whose books and stand-up comedy I thoroughly enjoyed. Like most Baby Boomers, I lump these two together in the “horrific tragedies” and “much too young” categories, along with Prince and David Bowie and Glenn Frey – who also died this year. I try not to think about their families, or it will remind me of my own family, my own mortality, and how incredibly, ridiculously, absurdly SHORT is this time on Earth. I prefer to remember these abstract people, these people I never met, these larger-than-life personas.
It is easier to dwell on that.
I don’t think about my kids during this time, because I miss them so obsessively, so painfully, while I sit alone and they play together elsewhere.
I don’t think about them, how old they are, how old I am, how sick I am, how fragile life is.
I don’t think about it, the way a dog doesn’t think about the bone he just buried, in the dirt right under his nose, directly in front of him. I don’t think about it the way the dog doesn’t think about it, even as his stomach yowls and he starts digging.
Instead I think about what to do when I’m better. I think about the family videos I haven’t seen in a decade, the videos I swear, every year, that I’ll transfer to DVD.
I think about spending less time on the computer and more time with my kids, who are already too old for me.
I think about resolutions.
Even as I plan to live in the moment, I am planning.
The day Dylan got the flu, he blamed it on the caffeine pill he took that morning.
He took 200 milligrams of caffeine (the equivalent of two cups of coffee) at 7 a.m. He was fine all day. At 2 p.m., he felt sick.
I went to pick him up at school.
“I think it’s the caffeine pill,” he said. “I’ve been shaky and I have a headache. I didn’t even want to eat my sandwich today.”
“Did you drink the coffee from your lunchbox?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I drank a little bit of it in seventh period. And that’s when I started to feel sick.”
“Maybe the coffee interacted with the pill,” I said, not knowing. Until that day, he’d only had unsweetened iced tea in his lunchbox. Maybe the additional coffee “kicker” was too strong.
I took Dylan home.
Later – much later – we realized that Dylan had the flu, complete with vomiting and fever. The pill had nothing to do with his illness.
Yet three days later, when he was feeling better and we’d cleared the caffeine pill from any wrongdoing, Dylan didn’t want to take his usual dose in the morning.
“You’re going to need it next week,” I told him. “It will help you make up the work you missed while you were sick.”
“Okay,” he said. But next week came and went, and he still refused to take a caffeine pill.
Dylan got further and further behind in his work. He got sick again and missed more school.
“Why don’t you take a caffeine pill today?” I asked him one random morning, weeks after the flu.
“No!” he shrieked. “I don’t like it! It makes me anxious and shaky and it makes everything worse!”
None of those things are true, I thought. In fact, he had no side effects whatsoever, except for being able to actually finish his work in class.
I think he’s confusing the caffeine pill with the ADHD medication he took years ago.
Dylan, however, doesn’t think that. He thinks he gets anxious and nervous and shaky on the caffeine pill. But when he drinks caffeine in coffee or tea, he has no side effects – except that it helps him focus.
So now I give him coffee in the morning. And I give him coffee or unsweetened tea in his lunchbox. It helps him to get through school.
Heaven forbid he gets the flu again. Who knows what he’ll blame then?
