Anthony Says

Anthony had detention again yesterday. He left a voicemail on my phone telling me in a very matter of fact way, "I made some bad choices today so I have detention". No regret or even concern about how or when he would get picked up with that change. In fact, he never even made sure I got the message.

I was already not happy that he got in trouble again. BTW, you only get detention if you receive 4 or more checks marks in one day. So he had plenty of warnings. And it's been less than a week since his last detention. And only two weeks that he's been allowed back in the bus following that fiasco.

I was already scheduled to pick Riley up from track at 5:15 but now would need to get Anthony 4:30. So I asked Taylor to watch Sophia and then I put Zeke in the van to get Anthony, knowing that we'd end up sitting at Riley's track practice for 45 minutes. Which upset me even more because I had so many things I was supposed to be doing.

So I pull up to Anthony's school, he sauntered over to the van, opens the door, slings his backpack inside, climbs in and calmly says, "So when we get home, can I go play at my friend's?"

SERIOUSLY!!!! Kid, do you have no concept of the fact that you did something wrong and seriously inconvenienced at least 4 other people in our family!?!

I tried the old HeadStart trick of Stop, take a deep breath & relax. After about a minute of this, I finally just said no.

We start driving towards Riley's school. After a few blocks, I'm a bit calmer so I tell Anthony that it must not have been a hard day for him because he got so many checks at school.

He shrugged his shoulder and said, "Only 4."

My run of good calm parenting was over. Done. Finished. I stomped on the breaks and pulled over the van. Zeke was terrified but Anthony just looked at me. I turned around in my seat, gave Anthony a death glare and forcefully informed him that even one checkmark was to many to be ok with!!! He had made all of us change our entire day just for him and he didn't even care.

This kid wears me out.