The Down Side to Acceleration

Testosterone is everywhere, let me tell you.

He blames it on his "Staley temper", which is definitely a factor, but really, I think it's the testosterone. Hormones are a cruel trick.

There has been one project after another for Aiden. This month has been the Major American Author theme, with a project due every single week. Aiden chose his favorite author, Orson Scott Card. First there was a Timeline project, then an oral presentation (he did a game show), and now he's finishing up the book he chose by Card to write a report on it. (I write all of that like it was smooth sailing, oh no. Those were each mountains to climb.)

This is why today I am making Vanilla Pudding Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting. Because I'm gonna need some help, and cinnamon rolls have never let me down.

Aiden wants so much to do a good job. He has very specific ideas in mind of how he wants to do things, and he has very little patience at this particular time in his life. This can mean flying glue guns and staplers, and possibly even some tears.

The hard part is that he has very little time. He leaves at 6:15am and doesn't get home until 4:30pm. He has football practice and games three times a week, and he doesn't do homework on Sundays. He has good intentions of staying on top of everything, but time really does fly by when you're busy.

Yesterday after school and a very large snack, he arranged himself on my bed with his Kindle and the cat and set to work reading. He dozed off a few times, but tried his best. Several hours later he was almost in tears. He was so tired and still had 50 pages left to read to stay on track to finish by Wednesday. Worse, he said he was just not understanding what was going on in the story. My heart went out to him. I offered to buy the audiobook for him. He protested because he didn't want me spending my money on him, but I solved it with an "It's my money and you can't tell me what to do," and sent him off for my wallet. Turns out that because we'd purchased the Kindle book, the audiobook was only $4, so it was an easy solution. He can now go back and listen to the parts he didn't understand, and make use of his hours on the bus.

By this time it was 9pm though, and he still had a science assignment to do. This always happens on the days when I am ultra-exhausted. I didn't want him up working by himself, so I told him to bring it into my room. But by this time, he was tired and frustrated, and about shot for the day.

He brought in a worksheet full of charts to graph and formulas for velocity and acceleration. Kill. Me. Now. I started explaining, because apparently this teacher gives assignments before teaching lessons and wants the kids to figure it out and then come in the next day to see if they are correct. But I was tired too, and things weren't going too well. I'm talking him rolling around on the floor saying that the teacher sucks and this is so pointless and school is so stupid not going too well. Meanwhile, I'm narrating word problems, ignoring him, and trying to redirect whatever words have to be spoken to filling in formulas.

Man, I hate velocity and acceleration. Can't we just SLOW DOWN ALREADY?

He would have moments of pulling his act together, only to melt a few problems later. I was drawing question marks next to some of them, and he was worrying about how he was going to lose points. And I'm threatening to WRITE A LETTER.

At one point, I said to him, "Listen, Aiden, is this what it's going to be like for four years in high school, because this is going to be rough."

And then I thought to myself, "Are you kidding me? Four more years? That's all I have after this one? Son, you roll around and keep me up late with whatever you want. I'm here. Right here. We'll learn it all together. I got you."

So, we did it together. We'll do it again tomorrow, I imagine, like I did it with his brother and sister who grew up too fast.

And this is how I know he's growing. The next morning I got a text message from him that said:

"Heyy mom i just wanted to apologize for my irrational actions. I love you and i don't want to hurt u in any way. I don't know why i get so mad i just do. I'm sorry. I will work on it. I hope you can have a great day. Love youu."

Here's to late nights studying with my boy! And cinnamon rolls!

Behind Every School Project . . .

It wasn't the 4th day of school, when Aiden told me he had not one, but two projects already assigned. I thought he was joking, just to get to me, but no. His teachers are piling it on. He got his science project done last week, but there was this history one left to tackle.

My assignment: Buy sugar cubes.

His assignment: Say no to every single social invitation on Saturday and get to work! (very hard for Aiden. He's a friendly guy, and he'd rather be biking, running, throwing, climbing, or doing crazy stunts and giving me a heart attack.)

So, on Saturday, he set up a work station in the family room right after breakfast, and there he stayed for about 7 hours. Glueing sugar cubes together with hot glue. (Did you know Aiden has a temper? If you'd ever like to witness it, ask him to glue together 246 sugar cubes with a hot glue gun. Then stand back.) Well, he finally got it together. And I kept the movies playing on the screen in front of him.

Of course, since Aiden was doing a project, Conor felt inspired, so there went another room in the house. Conor set up shop in the dining room. And made a whole lot of nothing. He lost interest in his diorama, though he was beautifully organized for creativity.

And then when Aiden started painting the sugar cube pyramids, inspiration once again struck Conor. His main challenge was how to create brown from the other colors he had. And then he realized how hard it is to paint one's name with a paintbrush. He left this on Lyndsay's bed for her to find when she got home from work. Oh, and then the cup full of paint water got dumped all over the carpet, so that was fun.

Aiden's project is supposed to be about a travel destination he'd like to visit. Obviously, he picked Egypt, which kind of surprised me, but I think he was going for practicality of construction. (I suggested Stonehenge.) It looks simple enough, but this thing took him hours and hours. It's been in various stages of drying for the past three days. Today I got a text message asking if I could go buy palm trees. This was the best I could find on short notice, at the pet store. Tonight he finished up the visual part of the project. Not without a fight, though. The Great Sphinx he made out of clay took several days to dry. He didn't even want to do the Sphinx, but I thought it would be a nice touch, and once he decided to give it a go, he did a good job. The problem was, he constructed it in pieces which he attached together and as the clay finally dried (today while he was at school) pieces started falling off. He was not a happy camper when he got home, though I'd warned him on the phone first with a very encouraging, "We'll just Gorilla Glue it back together, no problem."

Well, there must have been a problem, because during a piano lesson this afternoon, I heard a loud thump and I knew the Sphinx had just hit the trash. (The temper, again, you see.) And broken into even more pieces. Which made me mad. So, after my lesson, I fished out all the pieces from the trash and set to glueing them back together myself. I know that hot-headed boy of mine. I knew that the second he tossed it, he regretted it.

Once the glue was dry (and now the pieces just give it a more authentic look. Right?) he painted it and glued it down into the diorama. And then he thanked me and told me he was sorry he'd thrown it away right after he'd done it. See?

Finally, a happy, relieved boy. He makes me smile. Behind every picture of a kid with a finished project, is a Story. With a capital S. Ask any mom.

Now he begins the work on the written portion. Help us all.

Thankfully, Conor was assigned a project also. Today. Due tomorrow. Which I found out about at 6:40pm. Oh well, it was easy and Conor did most of it himself. I just had to print out a picture for him. His project is an About Me Bag. (Not like a pirate talking there.)

He decorated it with stickers and his favorite words.

Inside, he was to put three items that tell about himself. Only three. He chose a Lego Ninjago guy. Because he loves Legos.

His favorite Wii game.

And a picture of the dead bunny. Well, not a picture of the dead bunny, but a picture of Chadwick, our bunny who died two years ago.

I probed to see if this was the best choice of items for his bag. I said things like, "Well, what about a picture of our family? You only get three things." Or, "We have a cat that's still alive, you know." But no. He said it was very important to him that it be a picture of Chadwick. He misses the bunny so much. Still prays for him to "have fun in heaven" every night.

Tomorrow Conor has to present his project to the class. He made us all practice with him, telling us exactly what to say and how to react. ("I appear out of nowhere and go to the front and say, 'Hi, I'm Conor,' and you say, all together, 'Hi, Conor!' But do it serious, not like you're goofing off." N.A. Meeting. Got it. He went through his whole presentation, item by item, very soberly. And then we clapped when instructed.

He'll be just fine. My house, on the other hand, might take a while. But that's okay. Because little do they realize that while they work on their projects, I'm loving the work I get to do on mine:

Raising them.