Posts Tagged ‘Alison’

This week had Alison in a tizzy because at the last minute she was invited to participate in the school’s annual Christmas & book sale.

She makes earrings and some other jewelry, and one of the moms she sits for suggested it. The second day she wanted to expand and took some Mardi Gras throws I’d picked up to add to her line, making her own sign and display:

I wasn’t sure anyone would want to pay that much for them, but she sold out immediately and then went on a rampage in my inventory, looking for more items.

Well, yesterday was the last day, and when I picked Ali and her friend up at school for a quick change before they went out on the town, I asked her how she did, and she looked miserable and didn’t want to discuss it.

I figured it was because she didn’t want to get into it in front of her friend. She got in around 11 and when I wanted to try to comfort her about her sale, she floored me. That stuff- you know, the sale she was so stressed over mere hours before- was petty and pointless, she said.

Her problem? Not low sales, but… UGANDA. Where she now passionately wants to go. And, oh, I should go, too.

In Global Issues class they watched a documentary made by American students in Africa called Invisible Children and the whole class bawled (except one girl, who is now branded a heartless beast). The teacher bawled. The next period, when the teacher asked what was wrong with everybody, they bawled again.

They’re all ready to pack up and go kick military ass and reintegrate these child soldiers, feed the victims and generally save the world.

All admirable, but I wish the school had given them a bit more African history. Ali seems to think it’s all about the information- if Americans knew, they’d be up in arms and we could just sort of…you know, fix it. Today. Tomorrow at the latest.

And if an American student got killed there, then the military’d surely rush there to kick ass, no?

What do you say to that? It’s this strange sort of sweet naivete mixed with martyresque conviction, and it’s all so convoluted it makes the Gordian Knot look like a kitten’s plaything.

So what did I say to all this? What brilliant Mother’s Wisdom did I bring to the table?

I did the only reasonable thing. I stalled. “Kiddo, unfortunately you’re not old enough to go. Let’s talk about it again after you turn 18, okay?”

I should be able to come up with something to say in the year and a half before she’s of age, right?

As soon as you think your teen’s wings are really really extended and they just can’t wait to jump out of the nest you get a panicky call that you have to come home from your meeting NOW because she’s having a meltdown about homework.

Then you spend (another) several hours researching the Kyoto treaty and coloring posterboard charts so she can go in and anhilate the other debate team.

But her killer instincts weren’t really the issue, the coloring was. It’s been a long long time since I’ve taken out the crayons with her, and it was a really nice throwback. Okay, so I was working on graphs of pollution levels and not fuzzy teddy bears, but you take ‘em where you can get ‘em.

But as it approached 1am, I noticed that my throat really didn’t feel very good. Ali was down with a throat thing last weekend, and despite repeated doses of Airborne -lucky me- it’s boomeranged back (again). Then she announced that lice is going around the school (again) and she’s totally freaked out about it (again) and she’s spent time with some of the girls who’ve been sent home (again).

So some things just never change. She still drags home every bug- literally and figuratively- home from school. She still waits until the last minute to finish her homework.

And she still wants my help. Not such a bad tradeoff.

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PS- She begged me, after all that, to take her picture down, because, of all things, she hates her arms in it. lol

PPS- She also screamed that I made it sound like she actually GOT the lice. She didn’t. There. Happy, kiddo?

So Alison took me to task this weekend. Frankly, I think she’s a little jealous because the bird’s gotten top billing of late – she complained that there aren’t any recent pictures of her on the blog, and not much information about her life.

Here we have what is, perhaps, a generational issue. I thought I was giving her her privacy, etc etc…if I thought my mother was off telling the world about me when I was her age, I’d have died. My mortified shrieks would be heard from coast to coast.

But here in this age of myspace and such, I guess things have changed. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I’ll roll with it.

Anyway, here’s a photo taken of the baby girl just this evening as she revamps her own portal to the world, and I promise to be more forthcoming about her doings.

“What is WRONG with you??”