I am a wee bit frustrated. With the Squirrel. Yeah - color everyone surprised.
I feel as though I have pulled my hair out, smoke has come out of my years and I am losing teeth enamel from grinding just to get this kid to do things that NEED to be done.
Whenever I give her a task and she forgets to do it I get upset. These are important tasks - graduation related tasks, college related tasks - things SHE has to do I can't and usually involve emails or a phone call. I am not looking for calligraphy on fancy stationary - fire up that computer and get going. Better yet? Spend as much time on the phone completing the important stuff as you do saying "LIKE" [Like Stacy said he was like so hot, like you don't even know] to your friends on the phone.
When I get upset she says to me "But Mom I get straight A's. Do you know how much work that takes?" Actually yes you little brat I do. Georgetown University didn't accept me with a 1.5 GPA. Her reasoning is since she does so well in school she is exempt from life outside of it. I am going batpoop insane over this.
So here is the latest - and not a major one if you take into consideration some of the Financial Aid deadlines she missed and oh! Please don't ask me about the Stanford deadline.
When we were driving home from HER weekend yesterday I asked her to please go online when we arrived home and using my credit card to PLEASE order her yearbook. I told her I simply wasn't up to it and needed to lay down for a while but it was the deadline and she needed to do it if she wanted a yearbook.
She has used my credit card plenty of times to order stuff on line - no big deal. But she forgot.
Big surprise. When she came downstairs to kiss us goodnight I told her that I had asked her to do something and she hadn't done it. She looked confused and asked me what it was. I told her I was not going to repeat myself [I swear sometimes I feel like a myhna bird with these guys] but she would be sorry come graduation.
Do you know she still has not figured out what it was?
Now here is the quandry - Because y'all know I ordered the stupid yearbook but do I tell her I did or do I tell her what exactly she forgot and let her think until yearbook distribution day she isn't getting one?
I know I sound harsh, but I am seriously leaning towards telling her what she forgot and let her think she isn't getting her senior yearbook.
Is that teaching her a lesson or is it just me being spiteful?
15 comments:
I'm totally cracking up about the batpoop!!!
First - mynah bird goes with the age....meet your sister mynah. :)
Second - you're better than I am -- I didn't buy it. He went to Dad, and had to work off the "late fee".
Third - I'd make her sweat it out....
So, if it's spiteful - I'm just as bad.
Well, she won't learn the lesson if you keep bailing her out.
I am with Ellen on this. It is the little things that make us crazy sometimes. The year book is a big deal and she would have regretted not having it, so yeah, I think I would let her think she had lost that opportunity! Not spiteful, not at all!
I (unfortunately) recognize myself in Squirrel. I did well in school, but constantly forgot things and lost things and generally behaved in an absent-minded way (other than As in school.) I never learned my lesson. Even when I moved out, and the things I was forgetting were utility bills and renewing my license (but I still got As.) I'd say having her sweat it out is a good lesson. Heck, hang onto the yearbook until she graduates university. it has to be *convincing that she has indeed missed this boat, and will not be rescued from her mistake. (except then her friends can't sign the book, and that is the whole point of having the book... now I'm torn. /sigh)
Not saying this is the mental process behind Squirrel's behaviour, but for me, I was addicted to the intense gratification that getting good grades provided. Accomplishing common sense life tasks has no report card. My therapist suggested creating a report card for myself in these matters, and grading myself on a quarterly basis. It worked, sort of.
Sorry, didn't mean to leave such a long comment :) Rest assured you're an awesome mom!
not sure you want my 2 cents since i'm a new mom, but i don't think you should tell her. in fact, i think once she does realize what she forgot, you still shouldn't tell her. when you do receive the yearbook, you should let her know that it's YOURS and not HERS because you ordered it you were surprised that it didn't mean that much to her (since she forgot it), but it did mean a great deal to you.
I agree - let her sweat; tell her she missed the deadline for the yearbook and you're very sorry that she'll not have a senior year yearbook. Then, when it comes can you wrap it up and give it to her as a going away present for college?
It's so hard to not bail them out when they do things that we can fix, but down the road when she has to fix her own "oops" then she'll thank you for not bailing her out every time she let something minor(ish) slide by.
I think if it were me, I wouldn't say anything until later when she asks about her yearbook. Then ask her if she remembered to order it and let her stew about it for a while.
Yup. Im with Martha and Gizmo. It's not enough to be an A student at school; every adult needs to learn to manage their own 'paperwork'. Sometimes learning happens the hard way. Skippy I dont believe you owe it to her to protect her from her mistakes, especially as you went to the trouble of reminding her in the first place. Teenagers, hey!? Sometimes we request that our family have dinner without using that LIKE word. Sigh!
Ellen has it right. Take that to the bank from a mom of a 39 year old that still cocks her head to the side like a dog and says huh? I bailed her ass out too many times and it has not helped her in her life as a so called adult. Trust me.....be a mynah and let her learn from HER mistakes. It is not kind to take the consequences away. Honest. REALLY. Sweet Man and I rue all the: oh yeah we'll help out, sure you can borrow some money, don't worry we will do that for you, dumb things we chose to take on. Let her learn the little lessons now......instead of when she has kids in tow and a life to restart at middle age.
Too harsh????, just sharing.
vert word. diagonte, it is Italian for slanty thingie..... yeah that's it.
The first mistake you made was to order the yearbook.
But I have to admit, given the same situation I probably would've ordered one too... #3 child sounds like Squirrel- if his head wasn't attached he'd leave it @ home every day. Unfortunately right now you are dealing with IMPORTANT issues like financial aide etc... Would it help if you made a list and posted it to the frig? then she could check it off as she completed the tasks- I know for me if I have a visual it helps...make sure she understands that HER FUTURE is at stake here, because if SHE doesn't do these things she DOESN'T go to college.
I would have ordered the year book too, but then I would tell her (assuming the deadline has now passed) that thing that she didnt remember....well yeah, no yearbook for her.
And, when the book was delivered...it would be mine. I paid for it, I ordered it, I cared about it.
Oh that would be fun.
A whole bunch of good advice there. Nothing to add. Kids. *sigh*
Word; backlis. I was going for the backlis/spineless thing but decided not to touch it. In case it was read the wrong way, since I would have been joking.
I don't think you sound spiteful. In fact you are WAY to nice.
Seriously, this is her senior year. She needs to sink or swim. You ordered the yearbook. Its YOURS. Don't let her have it. Pick it up your self and then have all YOUR friends sign it. That's what I would do anyway.
That's not harsh. Harsh is not ordering it and letting her NOT GET a yearbook. I have the same problem with my kids. It's a teenage thing. My son didn't order graduation announcements, didn't even bring the form home, so I had to pay extra and do a special order through the assistant principal, who was not amused. Amazingly, my two boys learned how to do things themselves as soon as they were away from home and didn't have me there to bail them out. It's a miracle!!!
Nothing mean about it. Mirroring what others have said, tell her what she missed and then let her sweat it out. I am a minah bird to my kids. Sometimes I turn them around and start talking to their butts - when asked why I tell them that their butts have sucked up their heads and I was trying to make it easier for them to hear me. It is called headupassitis. =P
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