Posts Tagged ‘mother’
|Mom’s Back to School Homework ©2011 Lynn Rebuck
Tuesday, September 6th, 2011
I hate the first day of school. I always end up with more homework than the kids. There is always a sizeable stack of forms for me to review, complete, and sign. There used to be fewer, less complicated forms when children started back to school. Now I need a paralegal to help me.
First I encounter numerous classroom contracts which my son and I need to sign in triplicate. Some need to be notarized. We must stipulate to standards for classroom behavior, attendance, and homework completion. I am sending my son to school this year with counteroffers.
Next I must complete the 
registration card requiring emergency contact information. Designating someone to pick up your child when he or she becomes feverishly ill is always a tricky decision. It’s tough to get someone to commit for a second year of service once they’ve had to clean your child’s morning meal out of their minivan.
There is also the fairness and reciprocity rule to consider. If the individual you previously listed had to pick up your child multiple times, while her remarkably healthy children didn’t need you to come to the rescue the entire school year (they didn’t even have cavities), it would be inappropriate to ask her to commit to another year on-call.
Next in the stack is a media consent form that asks whether I authorize my son’s image to be photographed, his name to be published on the Internet or in the news media, and for him to be interviewed by Anderson Cooper. Hmmm, I’m going to have to consult my son’s talent agent and publicist before I respond to that one.
By the time I get to the “radiological emergency” card I am overwhelmed with anxiety and ready to home school him. Since we live within a ten mile radius of a nuclear power plant, I must decide whether to authorize school personnel to give him an emergency dose of potassium iodide in the event of a nuclear emergency.
A more ominous card has evolved from the emergency contact card: the “catastropic emergency” form. In the event of a total meltdown, no wait, that would fall under the nuclear emergency card…umm, in the event of a complete catastrophe, who do I want to pick up my child? My first choice would be the First Lady. Michelle Obama can pick him up with Air Force One. I hope she doesn’t mind. I’d be happy to reciprocate.
By the time I finished all of the forms I suffered from severe writer’s cramp, had multiple paper cuts, and my signature had degraded into a series of illegible curves and squiggles.
But if a school district photographer ever snaps a photo of my son as Michelle Obama rushes him onto Air Force One following a catastrophic “nucular” chain reaction right after school personnel administer iodide to him in the wake of an incident at a nuclear reactor, district officials need not worry. I signed the forms.
Lynn Rebuck is a national award-winning humor columnist, counselor, and speaker. She is currently looking for loopholes in the library book return policy. Fan her on Facebook, follow her on Twitter, and email her at Lynn@lynnrebuck.com. © 2011 Lynn Rebuck
Tags: Air Force One, Back to School, Children, homework, humor, Michelle Obama, mother, motherhood, parenting, School, september
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Mother, Stay Calm© 2011 Lynn Rebuck
Saturday, May 14th, 2011
Mother’s Day is simply not long enough. Mardi Gras lasts for at least three days. The entire month of May is dedicated to hamburger. What are we mothers, chopped liver? Mothers deserve at least a fortnight celebration, however long that is.
Christopher Columbus gets a whole day devoted to him. All he did was discover the New World. He never had to tend to a colicky baby in the middle of the night. He never had to shop for a prom dress with an indecisive teen. And he never had to chaperone a field trip of unruly third graders. His overseas voyages pale in comparison to the experience I had leading my last motley crew. Try finding a new route to the bathroom every few minutes in a crowded theme park with a kid who “really has to go.”
Abe Lincoln gets a whole day. Well, four score and seven years ago (give or take a few scores) I brought forth on this continent three new babies, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that I do not treat any of them equally. What did Lincoln do to deserve an entire day? Oh sure, ending the Civil War was a big deal and preserving the unity of our country was important, but mothers end wars and preserve unity on a daily basis. We perform hostage negotiations, infiltrate dangerous territory (teen bedrooms, need I say more?) and we are diplomats in every sense of the word.
What mother hasn’t encountered a scene like this:
“Let go of your brother.”
“No. He started it.”
“Let go of him this instant.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Nothing.”
“Why is his hair shorter on one side in the back?”
“No reason.”
“Did you cut his hair?”
“No, the scissors did.”
Or how about this typical scene between a teen and his mother:
“How long has this plate of food been under your bed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you think about throwing it away?
“I’m not done with it yet.”
“What do you mean you’re not done with it? I can’t even recognize what meal it was.”
“It’s a science project now. I’m getting extra credit for seeing how much mold and bacteria I can grow on it.”
“It looks like you have a matching set of petri dishes under here. Are those to boost your grade as well, Louis Pasteur?”
I believe that a holiday to honor mothers needs to be longer in duration for one simple reason: it is not easy for us to transition out of mothering mode. Motherhood is stressful, and we must be constantly vigilant. There has been an elevated threat level in my home since the day my first child was born. It takes mothers at least a day to start to let go of the constant responsibility of mothering. We are just starting to unwind when it abruptly ends. That’s why we need another day or two tagged onto the end of the festivities.
I began writing this column using speech-activated technology on my cell phone. I speak, and the word processor types what I said, or rather what it thinks I said. As I dictated the temporary title of the piece, “Mother’s Day Column,” the well-meaning application typed out “Mother Stay Calm.” It is a fitting headline and the theme of motherhood if ever there were one.
Mothers, stay calm. And have a Happy Mother’s Year.
Lynn Rebuck is a nationally award-winning humor columnist, speaker, and comedian. Her column appears weekly in print, online, and on Amazon Kindle Blogs. Follow her on Twitter, fan her on Facebook, and visit her website, www.LynnRebuck.com, where you can email her about your Mother’s Day experience. © 2011 Lynn Rebuck
Tags: Columbus, Columbus Day, funny, holidays, humor, Lincoln, May, mother, Mother's Day, motherhood, parenting, President's Day
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Operation Mommy Freedom ©2009 Lynn Rebuck
Friday, November 6th, 2009
It’s an emotional time of the year for mothers. The same women who gathered nine months ago outside the elementary schools and waved tearful good-byes to their little ones as they headed into school now stand arm-in-arm for support, bite their lips, and hold back tears for a different reason: the last day of school.
Mothers who not long ago wondered how their little one would cope with the separation anxiety are now curious as to how they themselves will survive the attachment anxiety.
There’s nothing quite as frustrating as (more…)
Tags: Children, funny, humor, Kids, Life transitions, mother, motherhood, parenting, School, Seasons, Summer vacation, swimming, Transitions, Vacation
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