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In This November 2005 Issue:
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- Hope
- Health
- Humor
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Hope:
Last week I felt like the mother in the commercial,
where her son shows her a good report card, and she starts to cry.
My son is growing up. He pulled up his grades. I wish he
could do the same for his pants, but one thing at a time.
We visited a college campus this past weekend.
He was happy to find out the school was seventy percent female and he
liked the food. I was happy thinking I’ll have less laundry and
that he was finally happy about going to school, any school.
School was never easy for him. Not that the
curriculum was a problem, the staying out of trouble was the hard part.
He was always too bright for his own good. He got bored easily and
boredom for little boys leads to lots of big boy trouble.
I think every Principal he ever had kept my phone
number on speed dial. I heard far too many times, on the other end
of the line, “Is this Devaun’s mother?”
“Um, no. She went out to lunch. Can I
tell her you called?”
Okay, I didn’t really say that but I wanted to.
It’s hard being a mother to a child whose I.Q. surpassed your own at age
five and yet I’m supposed to know what to do with him.
I knew we had a problem on his first day of
Kindergarten. The teacher gave us a tour of the class and I could see
his bright little face starting to frown. Those handsome dark
eyebrows, that I loved, were knitting together and I knew he wasn’t
happy about what he saw.
“We are going to learn to read in this class,” said
Miss Way Too Happy Teacher.
Great. Does she realize I walked into my
son’s room last night, hoping to read him Happy Birthday Moon and
found him reading my John Steinbeck novel, Of Mice and Men?
He rarely wanted stories anyway. He preferred
running through his set of math flash cards before bed. Whew! I
was lucky they had the answers printed on the back of the cards.
“Then we will learn how to tell time,” says the
teacher as she pulled out a pretend clock, made from a paper plate, with
black movable hands.
I could see his disappointment growing. He
had been telling time for over a year now. His older sister still
relied on her digital watch for time telling and his mother, the
microwave.
I remember him asking me once “Mommy, how many
miles to get to San Jose?” “Ninety miles,” I replied.
“Oh, so we should be there approximately one and a
half hours from now. That is if we continue to go sixty miles per
hour.”
Who is this kid really and what planet did
his pod drop in from?
I left my beautiful little boy with Miss Way Too
Happy Teacher and a scared look on his face. That day was the
start of many “He did what?” type of conversations on the phone.
Once I took him out of school, for a mother and son
road trip. He was ten. I was….none of your business.
We drove to Oklahoma, all the way from California.
Now that I think back, perhaps it wasn’t a very good idea, to be a white
woman driving with a black child through the South, but it all went
well.
As we were leaving California I remember pointing
at a mountain and saying “Look! There’s Mt. McKinley.”
He didn’t even look up from his book and said “I
highly doubt that, Mom. Mt. McKinley is in Alaska.”
I said “Really. Then what is it doing over
there?”
“That’s Mt. Whitney,” as he kept on reading his
book.
Hey, how am I supposed to keep the names of
mountains and dead presidents straight?
Recently, I was standing at the front door of my
house. The kids were arguing and my arms were full. I was
jiggling the door knob with one hand and holding my keys in the other.
I kept pressing my cars automatic lock and unlock feature on my key
chain, while getting frustrated that the front door wouldn’t open.
I honestly stood there shaking the door knob, to my
house, and said “What is wrong with this thing? I just bought the
damn car.”
He quietly reached over, took the keys from my hand
and opened the front door…with the house key. Then he looked up to
the sky, as if praying, or was he searching for the UFO that had
accidentally left him, to come back and take him home, to his true
mother.
Over the past twelve years I grew to know all of
the schools educators and administrators, much more than I would have
liked. I have paced the floors, yelled, cried and replaced
property damage.
I have spent countless hours circling neighborhoods
and calling friends houses, to look for him, and then cried and gave
thanks when I found him.
I didn’t know what to do with him, but I am not
looking forward to learning how to do life without him. Maybe I’ll
be lucky and this six foot three extraterrestrial will remember to
“phone home”.
Hey, maybe I’m the one who is really an alien.
After all, my initials are E.T.
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Health:
Do you have the bird flu blues? No worries
mate. Just pump up that old immune system. It’s time for a
health tune up anyway. Spring and fall are always the best times
for scheduled maintenance.
First you need to go in and clean up all the mess
before you start to rebuild.
Just click the link below to read more on the first
step to health, colon cleansing.
http://www.oursecretweapon.com
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Humor: (Thanksgiving Day) (author unknown)
It is with the saddest heart that I must
pass on the following news: Please join me in remembering a great icon
of the entertainment community. The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of
a yeast infection and trauma complications from repeated pokes in the
belly. He was 71.
Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased
coffin. Dozens of Celebrities turned out to pay their respects,
including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California raisins, Betty
Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and Captain Crunch. The grave site was
piled high with flours. Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly
described Doughboy as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded.
Doughboy rose quickly in show business,
but his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a
very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes.
Despite being a little flaky at times he was still a crusty old man and
was considered a Roll model for millions.
Doughboy is survived by his wife Play
Dough, two children, John Dough and Jane Dough, plus they had one in the
oven. He is also survived by his elderly dad, Pop Tart. The funeral was
held at 3:50 for about 20 minutes.
If this made you smile for even a brief
second, please take time to pass it on and share that smile with someone
else that kneads it.
© Copyright Elodia
Tate, 2004-2005 |
