Enigma or Enema?

And so it begins.  Not yet four weeks into a brand new school year, and I have had my first teacher phone call.  Phone calls from teachers are seldom good and phone calls from high school teachers are never good. 

Stancey.  

How can one name say so much, but then again, so little?

She’s an enigma. Where did she come from?  I know what she came after—an unholy labor-inducing enema—but her unmitigated butt headedness?  I have no doubt she gets that from her father.

I’m quick to notice this theme.  I admit I have made John the scapegoat to all of our children’s characteristics that make no sense to me.  And though my contributing DNA may not visibly apparent, I do know that my idiosyncrasies too are there.  Mayle’s recent trips to the ER are courtesy of my genetic contribution.  She may not have my nose, but she did inherit my attacks of anxiety. 

Motherhood, it’s the guilt that keeps on giving. 

But Stancey came into this world defiant and John has bucked authority since the day I met him.  His motto is “I won’t pander to anyone!” and mine is, “Just play the game.”  Ultimately it’s a good balance, but when Stancey and John come to blows, everyone in our house tends to scatter—except Kenny, who shouts, “Guys, you’re too loud!  I can’t hear the TV!”

If I could speak for her during one of their arguments, I’m sure I could shave weeks off her inevitable grounding.  But when she digs in her heels and balls up her fists, I can only shake my head and try and remind myself that it must have been John’s idea to have more kids.  Brow to mono-brow they wrangle until she stomps off up to her room, John complains of chest pains, and I pour myself of glass of wine and utter a prayer of thanks that we only have two daughters.

The tumultuous toddler years have ebbed into the tumultuous teenage years, with little reprieve between.  When she was a toddler, she’d tell me to stop talking to her.  Now that she’s a teenager, she tells me to stop texting her.  Although I love her, I sometimes don’t like her, and just when I don’t like her, she’ll drop a chink in her armor and all is forgiven.

All of which leads me to explain the phone call from school.

She failed to show up for test day in science class. Without hesitation she explained that no one has noticed how hard she’s worked all year—all four weeks.  But everyone’s quick to yell at her when she screws up. 

That made me smile.  

There’s something we have in common.