Friday, October 26, 2007

Who's the one needing a life skills coach?

Staffing circumstances have dictated that Jed is back at our house for a while. My empty nest is feeling kinda full.

He has a life skills worker work with him each morning from 9:00 to 12:30. Let me preface by saying I love the woman and she deserves a very large crown in heaven for her work here on earth. And besides, she looks like my mom's sister. But....

Okay, I'm just not into have house staff arrive at my door at 8:45 am. We have always been night people. We stay up late. We sleep in if we can. We eat late at night. I rarely do the dishes at night (This is where you feel sorry for me because I don't have dishwasher.) - I do them about 10 or 11 before I go to work at noon. Now, I feel like I have to be up, showered, dressed and done my chores by 8:30. It bites!

The real issue is that it makes me see how much I, personally, need a life skills coach. As I try to stay out of the picture while another woman instructs my child in the basic rules of life, there are times I wanna crawl into a hole and hide when I realize how many of these rules I don't follow. It's no wonder my kid doesn't have these skills.

What is my response supposed to be when I hear her say, "Any life skill teacher will tell you that you don't iron on the counter. You use an ironing board."

Uh, yeah. Do I interject and say, "Um, actually I haven't owned an ironing board for about 8 years. As a matter of fact I didn't even own an iron for while till Barbee gave me one when she stayed with us couple of years ago." Or do I just let her think my son is a hopeless case. I decide it's easier to let her think negatively of my son.

One morning I realized she had cleaned the bathtub after Jed had a shower. I know this because I had noticed a bathtub ring the day before and just pulled the curtain closed to make it disappear as I headed off to work. The next day it was gone. Am I embarrassed by that? Only when I think about it.

When she threatened to leave one morning if Jed wouldn't greet her when he got out of bed, I hope that the bewildered look that was going through my mind didn't show on my face. Are people supposed to be polite to each other before they've had coffee?

Thank God Jed is my youngest or I'd be thinking I need to head off to a parenting class or something.

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