For days my 11-year-old, Paige, has been sniffing and clearing phlegm from her throat.
For days.
I have checked her forehead with the back of my hand, and even taken her temperature, worried she was maybe coming down with something.
I commented to her after quite some time of this that maybe she was fighting off a little cold,
and that is when my child (with consistent test scores showing her above average in nearly every category, mind you) sheepishly said the words that made the record scratch:
“Actually, I feel like it started after I snorted flour in culinary class that one day…”
Terrified to know the backstory there, and what was going through this child’s mind that would lead her to snort flour in culinary, I questioned her motives hesitantly with the never-say-die belief only a mother has,
still holding out hope that maybe it had been an accident.
Maybe there was a perfectly good reason; Something she could easily explain.
But then she answered the exact type of answer my experience with her taught me to fear that it might be:
“I thought it would be funny to look like a drug lord.”
I slowly nodded with my eyes closed.
Yep. Exactly as I feared it would be.
My child had purposefully snorted a line of all-purpose flour as if it was cocaine.
This is only month two of middle school, but my fourth middle-school-rodeo.
I thought nothing could surprise me now.
I thought things like the birth of flour drug lords happened at least after month three.
This is the same child that is so mortified by my school drop-off outfits and music that she will slump down in her seat to avoid being detected by her friends as riding in a car with me,
so the standards of operation seem pretty arbitrary here.
She WILL do a line of all-purpose flour while all her friends watch,
but, somehow, my trusty “Lattes and Lipstick” sleep shirt with the comfy but stretched out neck is “way too embarrassing?”
The mind of a middle schooler is one of the world’s deepest mysteries.
They are somehow deemed wise enough to do things like calculate the area of a parallelogram,
All while lacking the judgment required to know that one should probably not plug one nostril with one of their marker spotted hands, and then – just for laughs – forcefully inhale finely ground-up wheat.
I think there are some clear holes in our education system.
Math, English, History, Science, and COMMON SENSE.
Why not?
We’re missing a big curriculum opportunity.
Last week, my fourteen-year-old, Tessa, announced that she had made the honor roll this quarter; A very hard-won battle after two years of our joint suffering.
She faked protest and annoyance when I told her that I would for sure be ordering one of those “My child is an honor student” bumper stickers for our car so everyone could see.
One look at my rear window would tell you that my children were thriving!
Just look at them go! Kicking butt and taking names!
But then there is the drug lord…
The last one in our clan.
The final hope of our family.
I guess I’ll only order one bumper sticker now?
Meanwhile, I will hold out hope for a turn-around for Paige.
I will not give up on the possibility of rehabilitation.
Even drug lords can turn it around, right?
I believe in second chances as much as anything.
Just say no to drugs and to flour, kids.
Even with your questionable decisions, moods, and smells – You middle schoolers are our future.
We want to keep you off the streets.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
