What the hell is going on lately?  I know that it is a full moon, but it seems like more than that.  The planets must be aligned in some extra kooky way because my kids are over the top bonkers right now.

Everybody is nursing a cold, so there’s that.  We finally ran out of Halloween candy, so maybe they are lamenting the loss.  Then there is general PMS-iness that seems to lurk in all of the teenage (and pre-menopausal, as I have been oft-reminded) cracks and corners of our household.  There are always tears coming from somebody… morning, noon, and night.  And it’s not about anything horrible or crazy or life-changing either.  It’s just stupid stuff.

Yesterday morning the bus stop tears stemmed from the weather, short-sleeved t-shirts, and fear of a new bus driver (but I’ll give them the last one… the new dude is O.L.D. and change is scary).  The other night’s dinnertime tears were about sweet potatoes (even though they taste like the recently departed HALLOWEEN CANDY, for cripes sake), and yesterday morning’s meltdown was over me not being able to come to school during the class’ allotted 6 minutes of book fair time.  Oh, and did I remember that I was late arriving last year too?  More tears.  More crazy.

Kid C hasn’t been crying so much, but she has been totally “off” for the past few weeks.  She is unfocused, scatter-brained, and ditzy.  That’s on a good day.  She is the last one to leave the house for school in the morning.  By the time she heads out the door, I am already upstairs doing chores and starting my day.  She leaves through the garage and she forgets to close the door every single time.  I have tried reminding her nicely.  I have tried threatening her.  I took away her phone for a week.  I took away television as well.  I have pleaded, coaxed, and cajoled.  I even said “pretty please.”  Nothing works.  I said I would ban the use of the door and she’d have to find another point of egress.  That didn’t work either.

Then one day I very calmly said, “Do you know that 117% of home invasions happen through open garage doors?  Do you want some criminal to walk into this house and shoot me dead while I am folding your mismatched socks and tiny bras?  Do you?  I could be lying in a pool of my own blood on the floor and it would be your fault because you couldn’t be bothered to close the door on your way to the bus stop.  Could you live with that responsibility?”  With wide, blue eyes, she shook her head no.

Yes, I said that to my overly-anxious, wildly imaginative, twelve year-old daughter, who is already scared of everything right now.  She doesn’t like to be home alone.  She won’t go down into the basement unless every single one of the lights are on.  Oh, and I said it whilst her little brothers were within earshot.  Not my shiniest parenting moment, I admit.  But at least she was on track to shut the stupid door now.

Or not.  It was totally wide open when I came downstairs yesterday morning.

I do not think that Kid C actually knows how the internet works

The other side of the coin with Kid C is that she is super creative lately.  She has been rocking her assignments in school, especially the ones that require something “extra.”  She made a very extensive booklet on cell biology for her science class.  She has been killing math, where they are studying linear, quadratic, and exponential functions.  She had a value drawing due for a Visual Arts class she is taking and it was really, really good.  Value drawing is all about light and shadows and shading, which creates depth and can bring a drawing to life.  She drew a guy lying in a pool of his own blood on a deserted island, along with a shark swimming menacingly nearby.  There is so much going on in the picture and she shaded it all beautifully… the sand, the setting sun in the sky, the water, a lone palm tree.  Then, on the back of the drawing she wrote “He wasn’t killed by the shark.”  And, if you examine the drawing closely, you will see the slightest shadow and the hint of a man hiding behind the palm tree, which isn’t really noticeable at first.  It was awesome!

But I’ll bet somebody left the garage door open at their house too.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

11/22/2013 Update: Guess who remembered to bring home her value drawing so her mother could scan and upload it to her blog?  It has changed a little since I saw it last, and the scan quality makes it look a bit different than it does in person, but you can definitely get the gist of it.  Enjoy!

“It wasn’t the shark that killed him.” – Kid C