Gutsy and Intrepid came through the door this afternoon, both near tears.
Fantastic. What a great start to the weekend.
"What's wrong, guys?" I asked.
"Gutsy thought it would be funny to tackle me on the school bus and all the kids said it was disgusting because it looked like we were having S-E-X!" exclaimed a very embarrassed twelve-year-old.
I suppressed the first logical thought: how would they even know what S-E-X looks like when half the bus is still young enough to watch The Backyardigans and the other half still watches it but would never admit it? Did I miss an episode or something? I don't remember Austin and Tasha getting busy.
(Not that I watch that show or anything because I'm way too old. Only babies watch stuff like that.)
I hate school sometimes, with its groups of children old enough to say S-E-X but not old enough to know what it actually looks like, which certainly is not two boys in snowsuits and backpacks on a bus. Stupid know-it-all kids.
Gutsy, meanwhile, was looking very sad and in need of some serious mommy Maven comfort. He fell into me crying and saying 'Nobody likes me on that bus! They think I'm annoying and they hate it when I sit in the back. They don't even want me in the middle. They tell me to sit up in the front! The front!!'
Now, if you know anything about the social hierarchy of school buses, you'll know that the back is where the cool kids are, the middle is for the well-liked kids, and the front is where all the band camp, chess club geeks hang out because they need to stay close to the bus driver lest they get their butts kicked.
... And these kids want my child to sit in the front? My child? The Maven's boy? I think not.
I resisted the urge to do a few things:
- Call the school and make an ass out of myself
- Flag down the bus that was now pulling away so I could step onto it and beat down the nasty kids who dare make my boys upset
- Eat my feelings
- Encourage Gutsy to eat his feelings with me
- Admit to myself that, while I find the middle gremlin to act in an annoying fashion sometimes (well, a lot of times), I do not appreciate other people noticing that quality in him, thankyouverymuch
So I gave the boy a cuddle, a story and a granola bar; all the good mommy things I shine at. Obviously it made everything better, but as anyone who's cuddled me can attest to, that's pretty much a given.
The funny thing is that, while I can be very nonchalant about the things that happened to me as a bully magnet, I'm a raging bitch when it comes to the gremlins' social affairs. I was on the school's governing board a couple of years ago due in large part to my dedication to the anti-bullying policies, which I wanted to make sure were enforced. So, basically, I'm a control freak.
An alcoholic control freak? Who ever heard of such a thing? Madness, I tell you!
Spawnling received a sizable scratch on his cute little face yesterday due to an altercation between he and another male toddler. They were fighting over a seat in front of the princess vanity mirror at playgroup. You can see how this quickly turned ugly. Both tots are the youngest of three brothers, so are quick to unleash rage and fury upon the enemy. It was really neat to watch how fast it escalated, too; within seconds my sweet little Spawnling reached up with both hands and pinched the other boy's cheeks. Not to be outdone, his wrestling opponent went all Wolverine and actually drew blood. Impressive!
The mother was so embarrassed and apologized as we held our crying boys. "I 'cared, Mom!" sobbed my child, which is Spawnling for "I'm scared, Mom!" (he doesn't pronounce 's' very well yet). I didn't feel bad for him, though, and he certainly had his own apologizing to do. If he had been a true princess he would have been courteous enough to take turns in the vanity mirror. This was not a bullying incident but a sharing problem. Next time he'll think twice about wanting to put his tiara on first.
What's been happening with Gutsy on the bus has been a problem since the beginning of the year, however. I have a difficult time not flaring up into Ninja Mama Maven Bear at the slightest thing. Don't these kids know what they're doing? Don't they realize that they're destroying his self-esteem? That he might start hating himself, isolate, drink too much, do some drugs, run away from home and become a shaggy man who rides the rails? Do they truly want to contribute to this tragic outcome for my son?
Deep breath. I tell myself to keep things in perspective. Having been the bullied of the moment at more than one school I could pretty much write a book on crappy things that can happen to you before you're old enough to consider to call it harassment and start threatening lawsuits. This getting teased on the bus thing is maybe a 2.5 out of 10. People have different emotional thresholds, however, and because I turned into a self-loathing, suicidal alcoholic by the age of fourteen, I underestimate Gutsy's ability to handle a bit of teasing without it completely destroying him.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, to what it's like to be a dysfunctional human being attempting to raise functional kids. Come see what oddities await you inside the tent!
I could probably make some sweet cashola and retire if I just started charging for a peak inside my tent.
(That is not, by the way, a metaphor for something else, although I could probably make some money at that, too, if I marketted myself effectively. But it's kind of dirty and definitely illegal, which made me finally decide to scratch it off my list of 'ideal work-from-home jobs')