I have an odd habit of taking snippets of video. The moments before a posed picture or just a survey shot of a room. The snippets are mostly of people when they are just living. Most are 3s to 20s. I remember talking to my Dad about a ten second video; one of my daughter as a newborn. Right after my sister had said to me “that was all the video.(sigh)” Well that was all you could manage to send digitally, easily, to normal, non-tech folks at the the time. Her comment of frustration and disbelief to a post partum me had me on a brink of my new om tipping point. You know, the type that ends up with you standing in a barrel of tears. Then, my Dad said, if he could have sent even just 3s of us home to him parents. Well, he choked up. He said “you know, I would have loved to have done that” and he continued “to send a video like that to my mother.” So, neither kid was at home this Mother’s Day morning, no Mom to call. Our son was on a school trip abroad, our daughter was at a prom sleepover, and my mother resides in a better realm. I thought I would be sad, I was not. There was a touching moment in a prayer that Kevin said over the Junior Prom goers last Saturday. His prayer reminded us to be thankful for all parents sacrifice and all the gifts we are given. Ahhh...the clarity. Life is about those tiny moments, sacrifices and gifts, especially those moments where all is well. So, I spent my quiet morning going through some sweet, snippet videos. Marveling at moments. Remembering the dearness of people. Being grateful for memories and thankful for all of the mothers who brought each of us here, especially for their sacrifices and their gifts. And, then of course, we went to the nursery to get some wonderful flowers.
Updated: Mar 23, 2024
Last night was supposed to be a Marvel movie night, a reward for our son's hard work on the piano. But things didn't go as planned. Let me take you through the saga of "Teen vs. Marvel: The Showdown."
We did not go to see Captain Marvel last night. Nope. By the time our son got around to doing his piano, we were mad. He had a day off due to parent-teacher meetings. He practiced one piece for 7 minutes and reported to his Dad, when he got home, that he had "done some." He was acting like a few more minutes of polishing would do it.
In one of those epic, tell-all reveals that seem scripted, I exclaimed, "Are you kidding me? Only 7 minutes of practice with the exam coming up?"
Then, Dad said firmly, "We shouldn't go."
Boy, did that piano start working. The best practice I have heard in over 2 years. Going back to work in sections. No breaks. Same piece 5x, 7x as it was worked. I'd go to call out like I do, "There is no way you are done practicing" or "Okay, good job. Next piece." But before I could get the words out, our boy would go back and do more work on the piece he just played. Repeating and removing hesitations.
During all of the Marvelloso practice, his Dad and I had been texting. In our exchange, heated —no sense in lying to you all, I said "we have to not go. Move the tickets tomorrow. And, if he doesn't practice again, we keep moving them."
We always give in to our son. Because we want the thing that teaching him a lesson would deprive us of. We don't have the schedule to go to plan B.
But we did yesterday.
Our tenor-voiced teen was so mad, "I did everything that you wanted. Let's go."
I am so proud that his Dad said, "Too late. We had already said the consequence, and a last-ditch effort to turn things around wasn't going to change anything." Or something like that.
His Dad was in fine form. When our teen threw back, "I am SO mad at you," Dad said, "I am SO mad at YOU. I wanted to go to the movies tonight after work. And, if you don't practice tomorrow, we won't go at all."
All I know is that was the best independent practice session I had ever heard from his middle school body. If Marvel could bottle it, parents would make them rich.
Marvel Motivation - sprinkle some any time you want your kid to perform to their true potential.
Now that's a superhero power I can relate to!
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I want a Mom.
Our son asked for his phone to go out with his Dad. He was going to sit in the lobby at work while Dad had a meeting, or in the car, or walk around. So “Mom, can I have my phone? For communication purposes?”
Here’s the thing. I forgot I loaned it to him. So, when I went to bed and checked the charge on his phone. It was only at that moment that I realized the phone had been checked in.
O.M.G. The Phone Repo is working! This is the self-regulation we were hoping for.
Another ah-ha moment Me: A couple of days before “You know you can still receive messages on your iPad.”
J: "Mom, turns out I don’t want to. I don’t want people beeping me at any time." Wow, what an awareness!
💡🗣 it from the rooftops “Like I said, I want what he has.” Why isn’t there some responsible adult that helps me to check myself before I wreck myself? And oh how I wish I appreciated it more when I was a teen!