the parenting plan lottery

There are times in the moments of motherhood that cluelessness prevails. I admit {to myself} that I don’t know what I am doing. I pick a plan of action pretending to the outside world that the plan was intentional. The truth is that I am playing the odds.   These moments of clueless decisions are plentiful and at some point I will hit the parenting plan lottery.   The parenting plan lottery isn’t about a big payoff.   There are no illusions that these fleeting {and rare} brilliant sparks of parenting will be noticed by my children.   It is unlikely that they will ever utter the words, “my mom is SO smart”. The payoff is more of an internal patting on the back. I did good. I won’t lie.   It has been a rough couple of weeks.   Getting into a schedule that makes sense for three boys in three different grades with three different agendas, has been a challenge.   It isn’t just the classes that they are getting used to, but figuring out what the teacher wants and how to negotiate within the social structure of their new and returning classmates. They aren’t verbal about any of this.   Most of the time I don’t know anything about what is going on at school {even though they study at home two days a week on our home school days}, until there are pieces to be picked up. On top of all of this, Ryan(11) started 6th grade. Oh, 6th grade…how I hated you. I have kept my 6th grade opinions to myself and tried to not let it filter his experience.   I just remember 365 consecutive days of feeling ridiculously awkward. He IS a 6th grader.   It is all about friends.   HIS friends.   The friends that hang the moon.   The friends that he ALWAYS needs to be around or the world is coming to an end. The friends that don’t need to even KNOW he has a mom.   Let alone a mommy. He has been pushing the boundaries of attitude exhibition. What will we as a family tolerate from him? It is his 6th grade job to figure out exactly how far he can push all of us away without breaking.   He is doing it well. I am not especially fond of this stage of development.   I like happiness.   I like to get along. A few days ago, I picked him up from school at the curb of the middle school.   He came reluctantly walking towing his backpack and waving to his friends. He stopped and talked to several people on the way over. It was like watching life in slow motion. Slow, grumpy motion. When he finally got to the car he said something grumpily negative and half-heartedly dumped his bag into the back of the car and turned to me with a sour expression. And RIGHT there I hit the parenting moment lottery.   I gave him a BIG mommy hug on the curb of the middle school in front of his peer audience. He was shocked. He ran around to the other side of the car horrified. He sat in the front seat and looked at me, “WHY did you DO that?” You were acting like you needed a hug.