Control Freak is Not A Well-Paying Profession

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I am a control freak.

There are some aspects of my controlling nature that I’ve gotten better about, as my pee-stained toilet and sink full of husband’s shaving cream and razor hair will attest.

But when it comes to parenting, the whole control thing is still a work in progress. You may have read my post about the amount of time I spent trying to make my teacher choices for the upcoming school year.

So let’s take the start of the school year, August 23. Little CEO  was to start kinder and Boy Wonder, second grade.

Now, Little CEO has what a perfect mother would call “difficulties with periods of transition.” Kludgy Moms call it “behavior bordering on juvenile delinquency.” She’s not a bad kid. Just misunderstood. As in the teachers  never understand her when she tells them she will not follow the rules. She hit one teacher, and then the teacher understood her. Very well.

Once Little CEO is placed in a highly structured environment with a teacher sporting a bullwhip, she actually is a model student. The key for Little CEO is a good routine. Lots of structure. Very few surprises. And a lot of time to get ready in the morning.

So as the first day of school approached, my husband and I mapped out our strategy:

1. Make Sunday night very slow paced, with plenty of time for showers, picking out 1st clothes, dinner, maybe a little TV and bedtime.

2. Have all of my morning tasks completed the night before so as to allow me 100% focus on getting Little CEO’s ass out the door for school.

3. Get her up extra early so we’re not rushed and we have time to take pictures.

4. Take the kids to Six Flags on our season passes for just a few hours Sunday morning to celebrate the end of summer, tire them out and make bedtime a non-issue.

We were in perfect lockstep on the day, husband and I. Six Flags was a blast. We left at precisely the time we wanted to get home for that low-key evening. We did dinner, showers, I had lunch stuff set out, backpacks pre-loaded. We had accounted for everything.

Everything, that is, except Little CEO getting a fever. A 103 fever, to be exact. At 7 p.m. the night before her first day of kindergarten.

This gives a card-carrying control freak like myself an ulcer the size of the BP spill. Panic started to penetrate my very core. I kicked into Project Manager mode: If she can’t go to school tomorrow, disaster, chaos, and mayhem will ensue. Not to mention she’ll never get into Harvard at this rate.

I start to outline in my mind the risks associated with her missing the first day.

* all the other kids will start making friends on the first day and she will be the odd one out.  This will lead to her crying and having a meltdown because people don’t like her.  She will hate school and not want to return. Morning routine will consist of me hopping her up on Pixy Stix and lemonade every day to get her out the door.

* all the other kids will have been told the rules and procedures and she will not. She will then believe there are no rules and run roughshod over Teacher With Bullwhip. She will demonstrate her Tae Kwon Do prowess by administering a swift side kick into Teacher With Bullwhip’s solar plexus. She will go to the principal’s office on her second day of school. She will have a NOTE on her file. Smirking looks from the school receptionist will ensue every time I drop by to volunteer.

* I will have no pictures to post on Facebook. Dammit.

Well, she missed school Monday and watched SpongeBob, while I sat around and played out the various scenarios of how Tuesday might play out: Will she want to wear that torn dress that violates the school dress code? Would the kids talk to her? Would she now be afraid to go because she missed the first day’s excitement? Would she throw a juicebox at the lunch lady? Would she cling to me incessantly and pull her fake “but I’m shy” act (it really is fake)? Would she lock herself into a toilet stall and talk to herself about unicorns?

Oh, the time I spent worrying. Trying to plan. Trying to anticipate. Trying to control.

She went to school Tuesday. Dread filled my heart. Last year on the first day, she clung to me like Play-Doh on my kitchen table. It was going to happen again.

As we pulled into the parking lot, she said, “I DON’T want you walking me into class.”

I talked her out of that somehow. We got out of the car and she saw her friend Timmy. Timmy ran up and said, “where were you yesterday?” Little CEO said, “I was sick. But hey, do you want to hold hands on the way to class?”

And so they did. They went to class. She sat down. She unpacked her backpack, and began chatting with Timmy and her other friend. She didn’t even notice I had left.

And once again, the universe remined me that the job of Control Freak is not a well-paying profession.

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Tagged as: My Neuroses, the kids are alright, Why I Suck at Parenting