March 12, 2014

An organic vegetable sale. Most schools have bake sales, but no,  not here at Brentwood Middle School. There’s too many gluten free, no carb, macrobiotic, vegan, organic farming whack jobs in this place to be normal enough to have a bake sale.

I didn’t necessarily want to send my son to Brentwood Middle School, my alma mater, but, to be fair, it is the best school in the area. It’s just that it’s full of every Los Angeles stereotype and it’s so easy to get caught up with the wrong crowd. The majority of these kids are so spoiled I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re already doing drugs at twelve. I’m not worried Chris will be one of those kids. I managed to make it through school here and he’s about a million times of a better person than I ever was. 

Since I’m one of the few mothers that actually has a job, I had to get out early to make it to this stupid organic vegetable sale before it closes at five o’clock. I’m pretty sure when I was a kid they had these things later at night so parents could actually attend, but now everyone is so worried about their kids taking French or oboe lessons that everything is right after school. 

I may or may not have changed out of my scrubs in the car to get away from the judging of the other mothers who just don’t understand why I would be working, because obviously we must be poor or something. What other reason could there be? Don’t get me wrong, some other mothers work, but they’re all in “the business” somehow. I’m the only scum of the earth neonatal nurse. 

I grabbed the basket of organic broccoli out of the back seat of my Seaside Pearl Prius and headed over to the mother dressed in a Versace blouse and matching skirt. She plastered a big, fake smile on her face and gave me a once over. I’m sure she enjoys my Old Navy sweater.  “Hi! How are you? 

“I’m good, thanks. How are you? I’m Chris’s mother. I have the broccoli,” I nodded to the basket in my arms. 

“Oh great, Christopher Cole’s mother,” she checked me off the list, “With the organic broccoli?”

“No chemicals here!”

I think she faked a laugh, or made some sound that normal humans definitely don’t make. “It’s so great you were able to leave your shift at the hospital to come to our organic vegetable sale. We were worried you weren’t going to be able to make it.”

I smiled as a response, I’ve always been amazing at coming up with jabs after the fact. She acts like I’m a janitor. I’ll come up with a good comeback when I get home, I’m sure of it. 

“And Christopher’s father? Will he be joining us?”

Deep breaths Mac, deep breaths.  I smiled again, ignoring her question, “Where should I put the organic broccoli?”

She pointed me into the direction of the table, with a smug smile covering her face. I’m definitely not the only single parent at this school, but by the way they treat me you’d think we’re living in the 40s. If my son wasn’t playing  basketball on the other side of the courtyard I’d tell her exactly where I’d like to put that organic broccoli. 

Instead, I placed the basket on the table and made my way to the basketball court to find my son. He’s always playing basketball, usually with his best friend Landon. The two of them have been inseparable since kindergarten and it’s always a challenge to get either of them away from the basketball court.

I sat on a bench, giving him some more time to play. Chris smiled and waved when he saw me, then turned back to his game. He’s growing up so fast I’m starting to really appreciate when he even acknowledges my presence. 

“Hey Mac. Landon, let’s go!” I looked up to see Landon’s father, Shane, holding a bag of organic vegetables. His hair was slicked back and he wore those big, movie star sunglasses. He always wore those movie star sunglasses, even when it wasn’t that sunny, because he is, in fact, a movie star. He’s one of the biggest actor parents at the school and he’s just as sick of all the bullshit as I am. It’s amazing how it works. The majority people who believe they are better than the rest of us are married to some studio exec and have never worked for anything in their lives. “How’s it going?”

“Good, did you get your organic vegetables?”

He held up the bag with an eye roll, “What a joke, huh? Whatever happened to bake sales?”

I laughed, “Seriously, I was just thinking that!.”

“We like our pesticides,” he smiled before turning back to the court, “Landon! Now!”

“How’s everything? How’s Jenna?”

“Yeah, everything’s good. She’s doing this music video for Beyonce so she’s been working like crazy. It should calm down soon. This kid, I swear to god. LANDON. NOW!”

“Chris, come on!” I called out then turned back to Landon’s stressed out father, “You ok? I can take Landon if you want. Have him over for dinner.”

“Thanks,” he chuckled with a yawn, “It’s alright, just been at auditions all day and am exhausted. I’ll take a raincheck though,” he smiled as the boys made their way over to us,  “You can take this kid out of my hair some other time.”

“Absolutely, anytime I’m happy to have him over.”

“Oh hey,” Shane spoke sarcastically as he pulled his son into a headlock, “Nice to see you.”

“We were in the middle of a game,” Landon answered with a smile, maneuvering out of his father’s grip “What, we’re supposed to forfeit?”

“Yeah, you’re supposed to forfeit,” he answered, again wrapping his arm around his son’s neck. 

“Hi Miss Cole,” Landon said as he, once again, got out of his father’s grip. 

“Hey sweetie, awesome hair!”

He ran his hands through his black faux hawk and smiled, the perks of having a mother who also happens to be a hair stylist. I swear this kid is more stylish then any kid I’ve ever seen. I chuckled as I looked over at my son, whose dirty blonde wavy hair was out of control. He wears only jeans and t-shirts and that’s when I manage to get him to put pants on in the first place. 

“We’ll see you guys later,” Landon’s father said as he bounced the ball out of Chris’s hand and tossed it back to him,“Oh, happy birthday, buddy. When is it, tomorrow?”

“Friday,” Chris answered tossing the ball to Landon. 

“Cool, we’ll see you then,” Shane shouted over his shoulder as they made their way to his Lexus. 

I stood up and gave my son a quick hug,trying hard not to embarrass him too much. “How was your day?”

“Fine,” he shrugged. 

“Fine,” I mimicked, “Are you excited to pick out some vegetables?”

“Oh yeah,” he answered sarcastically. 

“I’ll tell you what. You can pick out any vegetable you want and I’ll cook it for dinner.The freedom!”

“Wow, an early birthday present!”

“Am I the best mom ever, or what?”

Chris took that as a challenge, and picked the weirdest vegetable he could find. I’m still not sure what it is, it looks like some kind of bumpy squash. It was disgusting. I added brown sugar and then it wasn’t so bad, although that kind of defeats the whole purpose of an organic vegetable sale, doesn’t it? We’re rebels in this house.

After dinner Chris worked on his homework while I made him cookies. The whole organic vegetable sale just makes me mad. My kid is a kid and is allowed sugar and wheat and all the fun stuff. He’s tall and lanky enough with all the running around he does, if I only fed him organic stuff he’d whither away. 

“What kind of cake do you want for your birthday?”

“Chocolate! What kind of a question is that?”

I laughed as I placed the tray of cookies in the oven, “Of course!” I sat down next to him at the counter and checked his finished homework. 

“Am I going to get an iPhone?” he asked, looking down at his homework. 

“For your birthday? No, you’re going to be thirteen, not twenty.”

“Twenty? Are you serious? Everyone has iPhones now.”

“You have a cell phone, you don’t need an iPhone. I didn’t get a cell phone until I was in college.”

“That’s different. You went to college when there wasn’t electricity so you couldn’t have even charged it,” he answered with a half smile

“Yeah, cause that’ll get you an iPhone, you brat,” I laughed, “Spelling words. Give me a sentence and spell the word. Literally.”

“Literally. L-I-T-E-R-A-L-L-Y. Literally every kid in my school has an iPhone except me.  And that’s including the elementary school.”

“Good, glad you know what it means. Next word, exception.”

“Exception. E-X-C-E-P-T-I-O-N. All of the kids at school have iPhones. I am the one exception.”

I ignored him, “Good. Last one, compromise.”

“Compromise. Com-promise. c-o-m-p-r-o-m-i-s-e. OK, we’ll compromise and you can buy me an iPhone.”

“Not the correct use of the word, Christopher. Try again.”

He took a deep breath and rolled his eyes, “We had to compromise and neither of us got what we wanted.”

“Thank you,” I smiled and signed off in his planner, “All done now?”

“Yeah, all done,” he quickly stuffed his books in his backpack.

“Wait for your birthday, buddy. Don’t think you need to get something just because everyone else has it. You know it doesn’t work like that. We’re going to have a fun day.”

He nodded his head and spoke under his breath, “A fun day without an iPhone.”

“A fun day with cake. And ice cream. And I’m letting you bunk school. Forget about stupid technology and pay attention to the important things in life. Have I taught you nothing?”

I saw a smile slide to his face, “The important things in life, like cheesecake and root beer floats?”

“Yes, thank you!” I laughed as he grabbed a warm cookie and stuffed it in his mouth, “You do listen to me!”

“Of course I listen to you,” he said with a mouthful and stuffed one last cookie into his mouth. 

“Good. Now go take a shower and get ready for bed. We can watch Big Bang Theory when you’re done.”

Instead of responding, he left his backpack in the middle of the kitchen floor and went upstairs. Yeah, he listens to me alright. I grabbed it and placed it on the hook by the door before cleaning up the mess in the kitchen and putting some water in the kettle for tea. 

Sometimes I feel like I have this parent thing down, but to be honest, it seems like most of the time I’m still completely clueless. I mean, I definitely know more than I did, but it seems like every day there’s something new that’s making me question if I’m doing a good enough job raising my son. Luckily Chris is amazing, so things aren’t nearly as difficult as they could be. 

I made us each a cup of tea and waited for Chris to come back downstairs. I count it as a victory when I only have to ask him once to shower. He’s a twelve year old boy who doesn’t care about simple things like bathing. God, he’ll be thirteen in two days. I don’t even want to think about that. 

Chris plopped on the couch next to me and grabbed the remote. He laid down, placing his legs over my lap as if I wasn’t even there. 

“Do you think Matt will come?’ he asked during the first commercial break. 

“Where? To your party?”

He nodded his head and I felt my heart beat in my throat. 

When you have a kid, someone should explain to you how to deal with certain situations. Specifically, how you’re supposed to raise him to be an intelligent, strong, kind, good man when his father is nowhere to be found. At first, I thought I could do it on my own. But the truth is a boy need a male role model, and although my father is great, a grandfather doesn’t really cut it. 

When Chris was eleven I met Matt. I was extremely cautious and put up so many walls it was a miracle Matt even tried to knock them down. But he did. I finally learned it was ok for me to fall in love again and to open up that part of my life. It took a long time for me to trust Matt enough to meet Chris, but when I did they had an instant connection. I really felt like my life was finally coming together. 

I was so worried about protecting Chris that I forgot to worry about what would happen if Matt and I ever broke up. If I thought about it then, I probably would have had even more walls up, but maybe that would have been smart. 

Of course, after two years Matt and I realized it was no longer working. Breaking up is hard enough without throwing a twelve year old into the mix. Chris acts strong, like it doesn’t bother him, but I know how much he misses Matt. I know he’s afraid I’ll think he’s picking sides, so he keeps it all inside instead of talking to me about it. 

I’m afraid he takes after me with that. 

“I don’t think he’ll be able to come to dinner on your birthday, but maybe we can figure out another day that we can do something fun with him, ok?”

Chris nodded his head, and turned his attention back to the television. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing. Maybe I shouldn’t have ever dated Matt in the first place. Maybe if Chris never met him he wouldn’t miss him so much. Maybe I should have worked harder to make it work with Matt. 

God, I really feel like I’m failing this whole being a parent thing.  

I cleared my throat, “I’m sorry sweetie, I know you miss him.” He ignored me and continued watching television, “Nana and Gramps will be here. And Kelly. It’ll be fun.”

When the show ended Chris turned off the television and turned to me. He was clearly afraid to tell me something, and that gave me a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. “What’s going on sweetie?”

He bit at his lip, a nervous tendency he somehow managed to get from his father. “So, Matt texted me when I was upstairs. He said he’d take me off roading for my birthday. He promised me we’d go, you know back when you guys were still…” he trailed off and looked up from the ground. 

I offered a smile to calm my son down a little. He shouldn’t have to feel nervous talking to me, especially about this. I know how much he loves Matt, I know he’s seriously missing everything they used to do. God knows I’m not good with the off-roading and camping trips.

“He said I had to ask you if it’s ok and if it is then we can go this weekend.”

“Do you want to go?” 

“I don’t have to go. It doesn’t matter.”

“Sweetie, I want you to go.  I know this whole thing is kind of weird and we’re still trying to figure it out. But Matt was a big part of your life and just because Matt and I broke up doesn’t me you and Matt have to.”

Chris shrugged, “I kind of want to go.”

“I know you do,” I smiled, “I think you should go. It’ll be fun. You need some boy time.”

“Are you sure you’re not mad?”

“Christopher, I am not mad! I obviously think Matt is a great guy and I love the relationship you have with him or you never would have met him in the first place.”

“Then why’d you break up with him?”

I reached over and pulled my son into my arms, “I know you miss him, I’m sorry. Relationships are very complicated and sometimes they just don’t work out.”

Chris nodded his head and pulled away from me. Talking about feelings has never been my strong suit and it seems like this is something I passed on to my son. 

He stood up and headed towards the stairs, “I’m going to bed. I’ll tell Matt we can go Sunday. Tell me if you change your mind, ok?”

“I’m not going to change my mind,” I promised, “Good night.”

I fell down onto the couch once he made it upstairs. Imagine how amazing it would be if my son wasn’t worried he’d hurt my feelings when he spends time with my ex-boyfriend. That’s not how these things are supposed to work. I’m the mother, I’m supposed to have this stuff figured out and he’s supposed to be a young, careless boy. 

God, this sucks. Why am I so bad at this stuff?

All I care about is making Chris happy. If going off roading with Matt makes him happy then I’m all for it. He needs some sort of male influence in his life, and lord knows he’s not getting it from his father.