Twelve

We've had a week. We really have. Not the good kind of week but not the bad kind of week- Just the kind of week that makes you wonder why you had kids at all.

Dave and I finally bought cellphones, after 4 years of not having them. Probably wasn't the best decision, because all G and L want to do is play Angry Birds. If I get woken and asked if they can play Angry Birds at 6am one more time, I might end up in jail for killing one of them.

G has finally gotten his act together at the new school and he's doing wonderfully. He loves his new class, wants to do school work again, and is just overall happy... And it's a great thing to see from the kid who was eating furniture earlier in the year to relieve stress. I really don't have much to say about G since his issues have mostly been worked through. I do need to haul his little happy ass back to the kid head shrinker, though...

S is still refusing to crawl. 10 months, 10 days, and the little fatty is happy scooting his ass across the floor while sitting upright. It's comical. He's trying to pull up, but... Well, I'm fine with him not crawling. I'm lazy. I don't want to have to childproof this bitch. Parts of my house look like they belong in an episode of Hoarders.
This is what my computer desk looks like AFTER I spent 20 minutes cleaning it off earlier today. 

How baby inappropriate is that? As we all know, I realize my inadquecies in life- Keeping my computer desk clean is one of them. Anyway, the longer he doesn't walk or pull up on shit, the longer I don't have to worry about Natural Selection taking out my baby. I do figure if he's not smart enough not to pull the coffee cup with candy canes down on his head, he's probably not smart enough to get by in 2028 (When he turns 18). Also, I type this as he's actively trying to to a bottle of Febreeze air freshner that's on the coffee table. He'll only do it once, right?

Nah, he's one of my kids. Probably at least 4 times.

And L... L is going to be the death of me. Mark my words. Put me on deathwatch.com. Take bets. I'll leave whomever wins my computer desk, everything included. Now, he's skipped Kindergarten this year. He wants to skip 2nd grade next year. Honestly, if he really tried, he could do it. He's S M A R T, smart. (Not really bragging... It's just the truth.) But because he's so freaking smart, he knows exactly how to entertain himself while he's supposed to be doing homework for 4 hours. Sharpen pencil. Make trapezoids out of extra pencils. When mom walks by the kitchen, pretend I'm writing something. Poke holes in my eraser. Stare at the ceiling and pretend that it's constellations. Sharpen pencil again. Smack myself in the head with my pencil a few times. Stand up. Sit down. Stand up. Sit down. Color pencil topper with most annoying pencil ever. Sharpen pencil again. The kid lives in his own world and he's the ruler, regardless of what mom says.

Homework is usually a chore. Not because it's hard for him, but because it's easy peasy and he already knows how to spell most of the words given. So, for 4 hours yesterday and then a while today, the above was repeated until the twisted all the graphite out of his pencil. Why did this make me so angry, you ask?

1) I'm fucking nuts. 2) It was a specially ordered $.89 pencil for left handed people from www.lefthandstore.com with hard graphite. Wouldn't smear but damn, it was a bitch to erase. I buy PACKS of pencils for a dollar.

Then, I noticed he'd not done a THING on his homework again. Now, we've told him MULTIPLE times that he either gets his head in the game or we're holding him back. That's his worst nightmare. That's even worse than the nightmare where bees were pulling off his arms and legs. Worse than the one where Daddy was eating him. On the top ten things he doesn't want to do in his lifetime, repeating 1st grade is number 1.

So, in one of my finer moments of parenting, I grabbed his homework, tore it up and threw it away, as he was shrieking his little 6 year old head off. No homework means no lunch bunch (Where they get to eat in the classroom on Friday/Monday) or recess on Friday. No homework means failed spelling test. Failed spelling test means home consequences. There's a lot of reasons for this, but the main one boils down to this: I refuse to let my children be stupid, regardless of the state of the US Education System.

After talking to Dave, I talked to Liam. He's going to write his teacher a note that says why he's not got homework and why his mom tore it up. I told him that he's got the rest of the year to prove to me that he belongs in 2nd grade and not in 1st again, because going to 1st grade again would be very boring for him, more boring than it is now. (As he said.)

Then he told me I was ruining his life. I told him that he doesn't know what a ruined life is until he has a child like himself. He laughed at me because he understood what I was saying.

He laughed because he's ruining my life.

And my world spins madly on.