Updated: Mar 23
Last night was supposed to be a Marvel movie night, a reward for our son's hard work on the piano. But things didn't go as planned. Let me take you through the saga of "Teen vs. Marvel: The Showdown."
We did not go to see Captain Marvel last night. Nope. By the time our son got around to doing his piano, we were mad. He had a day off due to parent-teacher meetings. He practiced one piece for 7 minutes and reported to his Dad, when he got home, that he had "done some." He was acting like a few more minutes of polishing would do it.
In one of those epic, tell-all reveals that seem scripted, I exclaimed, "Are you kidding me? Only 7 minutes of practice with the exam coming up?"
Then, Dad said firmly, "We shouldn't go."
Boy, did that piano start working. The best practice I have heard in over 2 years. Going back to work in sections. No breaks. Same piece 5x, 7x as it was worked. I'd go to call out like I do, "There is no way you are done practicing" or "Okay, good job. Next piece." But before I could get the words out, our boy would go back and do more work on the piece he just played. Repeating and removing hesitations.
During all of the Marvelloso practice, his Dad and I had been texting. In our exchange, heated —no sense in lying to you all, I said "we have to not go. Move the tickets tomorrow. And, if he doesn't practice again, we keep moving them."
We always give in to our son. Because we want the thing that teaching him a lesson would deprive us of. We don't have the schedule to go to plan B.
But we did yesterday.
Our tenor-voiced teen was so mad, "I did everything that you wanted. Let's go."
I am so proud that his Dad said, "Too late. We had already said the consequence, and a last-ditch effort to turn things around wasn't going to change anything." Or something like that.
His Dad was in fine form. When our teen threw back, "I am SO mad at you," Dad said, "I am SO mad at YOU. I wanted to go to the movies tonight after work. And, if you don't practice tomorrow, we won't go at all."
All I know is that was the best independent practice session I had ever heard from his middle school body. If Marvel could bottle it, parents would make them rich.
Marvel Motivation - sprinkle some any time you want your kid to perform to their true potential.
Now that's a superhero power I can relate to!
Like this post? Follow me at :
Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram: @deliagrenville
Vulnerability during prayer. It should be a code we all honor I guess what really hit me is: To me, NZ is so far away. And if this type of senseless crime is happening there, then officially, it is happening everywhere.
We have a global problem. The second wave of colonialism; its lingering tail end is supremacy.
We have to stop teaching kids that others were conquered. Even the language of power and submission, recounted in school books,reinforces the same supremacists believe most of us consider to be extreme.
There is such vulnerability when we pray. It is a submission to a belief that we are not alone on this planet.
And, in those moments, regardless of your faith, those who wish to demonstrate their belief, should be safe.
It is a human moment that many of us share.
I want a Mom.
Our son asked for his phone to go out with his Dad. He was going to sit in the lobby at work while Dad had a meeting, or in the car, or walk around. So “Mom, can I have my phone? For communication purposes?”
Here’s the thing. I forgot I loaned it to him. So, when I went to bed and checked the charge on his phone. It was only at that moment that I realized the phone had been checked in.
O.M.G. The Phone Repo is working! This is the self-regulation we were hoping for.
Another ah-ha moment Me: A couple of days before “You know you can still receive messages on your iPad.”
J: "Mom, turns out I don’t want to. I don’t want people beeping me at any time." Wow, what an awareness!
💡🗣 it from the rooftops “Like I said, I want what he has.” Why isn’t there some responsible adult that helps me to check myself before I wreck myself? And oh how I wish I appreciated it more when I was a teen!