Plan B Forum

The Lad started First Grade last week...

He was a bit apprehensive about it....

(In no small measure due to his sister who helpfully told him, "kindergarten's easy but in First Grade you have to work a lot harder"...I reminded her that as she enters her junior year in high school and we're looking at colleges, she needs to focus on working hard...)


I told him, " Look, you already know how to read, and do your numbers, First Grade is going to be fun. And if you want to stop by and see Miss Reynolds, (his kindergarten teacher, who's he's very fond of) you can always do that "

When I went to pick him up from his first day as a First Grader, he ran up to me and jumped into my arms (like his sister used to...time passes... ) and said "Daddy I like First Grade; it's not that hard"

WOOHOO!!!!!

Erik starts yet another year of pre-k in a week.

Lord Jim wrote: When I went to pick him up from his first day as a First Grader, he ran up to me and jumped into my arms (like his sister used to...time passes...

My little one - 4th grade - STILL does that when I come to the house (he's a petit guy). LOVE IT. His big brother - 6th grade - used to do the same thing, but yeah, time FLIES Luckily, they are both affectionate boys and I think they will be all their lives.

Glad your little man had a good day!

doesn t get any better than that.....

I still remember sean s first day of kindergarten.....

Good grief, don't blink, right?

Damn LordJim, seems like just yesterday he was a newborn.
Damn I am getting old.

Great, LJ!

oldr - my grandson started to attend college on Monday. Talk about feeling older (not oldr)

Wow, enjoy! Hope he has a great year!

Have you given him this to read yet?..........

oldr - my grandson started to attend college on Monday.

I'm old enough to be the parent of most of my kid's friends...

If I had tried to be a parent when I was in my 20's, I would have been a terrible parent...

I was way too self absorbed....

I had reconciled myself to the idea that I would never have children....

Until Lady Kelly, (who's a bit younger then myself) informed me that we were having a child, and at the age of 40, I was becoming a father for the first time...

It was a kind of scary experience for me, but I seemed to get the hang of it, so 10 years later we decided to do it again, and The Little Prince was born...

And even though at 55 (56 next month ) I'm old enough to be my kid's grandfather, I don't regret a moment of it;

I'm enjoying every minute of it

Joe Guy wrote:Have you given him this to read yet?..........

I guess it beats the "abstinence only" literature

MajGenl.Meade wrote:

Joe Guy wrote:Have you given him this to read yet?..........

I guess it beats the "abstinence only" literature

Oh? It isn't Ronnies' tell-all sexual expose?

yrs,
rubato

MajGenl.Meade wrote:Great, LJ!

oldr - my grandson started to attend college on Monday. Talk about feeling older (not oldr)

I don't have any grandchildren. I guess that's what's keeping me feeling yngr (not younger).

LordJim is only a year younger than me. I can't imagine having a 6yo son and a teenage daughter at my age. I am WAY too old to be raising a teen daughter. Went through those years once, never again.

ETA
But it's not all bad.

Lord Jim wrote:
If I had tried to be a parent when I was in my 20's, I would have been a terrible parent...

I was way too self absorbed....

I had reconciled myself to the idea that I would never have children....

Ditto.

rubato wrote: Oh? It isn't Ronnies' tell-all sexual expose?

yrs,
rubato

Yes, that was rather the joke. Thanks for explaining it

Wait until the teen years, Jim.

That's when it REALLY GETS INTERESTING!

The years seem to fly by.

Wait until the teen years, Jim.

We're going through that with Tati...

Or to be more precise, Kelly is going through it...

My attitude is this is a 16 year old girl who is a lot better than we were at that age...

In this past summer when she didn't really have any responsibilities, and despite the fact that she has a boyfriend, she's been home every night by 11 o'clock...

In fact a number of times she's called us to pick her up at the beach (where she and her friends like to hang out) at 10 O'clock.....

I've made the point to Lady Kelly that when I was a teenager in the 70's, and she was teenager in the 80's, we would have stayed out till 2 in the morning...

Tati's a much better kid than we were...

My attitude is:

Okay, she's 16 years old; maybe she drinks a beer every now and then, and maybe she takes a toke on some weed with her friends, (I really don't need to know anything about that) but she's a good responsible kid who gets good grades and is basically serious minded, and knows what's important, and we should cut her some slack....

But this Alpha Female versus budding Alpha Female thing is very painful for Kelly...

She feels really hurt by the fact she doesn't have the relationship with Tati that they had when she was little....

And my telling her, "don't worry about it, this will pass..."

Doesn't seem to help much....

Kelly's attitude is "she's playing you for a sucker, she can get away with anything with you"

and my response to that was, "well maybe, but so long as she's got a 3.8 GPA, I guess I'll be a sucker..."

But I've had to be the "peace maker" between the two of them and it's not right for Tati act so mean towards her mother...

And I've tried to explain that to her...

I did set my foot down once...

I told Tati that if she slammed her bedroom door one more time, I would remove it...

And she thought that was funny and said, "Daddy, you don't know how to unbolt a door"....

And I said, "yeah you're right, but I'm going to have one of your cousins come over and get it done right now"

And I had them come over and start unscrewing the latches on her door, while she was there, and she said "okay I get it"...

And I said, "I'm not sure you do..."

I said, number one, if you ever slam your bedroom door again, it's coming off; I'm not playing about that...

(She got the message on that one; even when she and her mother have had bad arguments, when she goes up to her room I remind her, "don't slam that door" and she doesn't...)

And number two, you have to show some respect for your mother, even if you're mad at her...

I'm not sure that message has sunk in...

Been there, done it, still got the bedroom door screws.


[spoiler]It all turns out great in the end Jim.[/spoiler]

BTDT.......my ex and older daughter really let the siht fly back in the day.

The cops (Santa Clara County Sheriff Dept) KNEW where we lived. Having been at our home numerous times.
Eventually older daughter (after many twists and turns and several years) became an adult with adult consequences to her actions.

Fast Forward some 20+ years later and now older daughter has her own kids to deal with.

She is an excellent mother and I am so PROUD of her in spite of the daily hell we all went through. I give GOD the glory on this one.