Snapshot of Chaos

I had to buy a minivan. It feels very wasteful to be riding around in an urban assault vehicle. When it is full of long-legged, food absorbing, voice changing 13 year olds, it doesn't seem that it's quite big enough.

The Child Who Can't Be Bothered to Put in Too Terribly Much Effort, heretofore, TCWCBBTOINTTME, has earned back his XBox privileges. Said privileges had been forcibly removed due to substandard English performance. Remarkably, this has resulted in renewed interest in English and a grade that no longer causes me to wince and imagine him toiling in a coal furnace for the rest of his life.

Then there's track practice set up by the brilliant school to end every day at 4:00. How is it that two working parents can somehow manage to knock off at 3:30 every afternoon to fetch the offspring from practice? I'm sure the judge will wait and same with that conference room full of people. Yep, that's career enhancing.

The Other Child Who Is Much More Motivated But Also Moody, heretofore, TOCWIMMMBAM, has suffered from some strange and exceedingly painful leg tendon ailment. This has me gripped with terror as I also had strange leg tendon ailments resulting in surgical intervention. Isn't it amazing how we pass down the inadequacies?

Last but not least, TCWCBBTOINTTME, figured out that substandard academic performance has ramifications outside of school and outside of his removal from the XBox. The consequence was so powerful that I actually saw the LIGHTBULB blink on, slowly, over his 13 year old hormonal head. It glimmered with a bit of recognition that perhaps I am not full of hooey. On the other hand he then attempted to negotiate a cell phone based on his renewed efforts not to be slothful. He then regaled me with his new plan to attend West Point. Whereupon, I suggested that a fantastic preparation technique for West Point would be making his bed and picking up his laundry from the 4 foot radius around the laundry basket.

What? Of course not, said TCWCBBTOINTTME, I don't need do that yet. I've got a couple of years to work out the bugs.