The Mama Gut-Rod Chronicles

The other day I got fed up with chasing my kid about his homework. Every day it was like pulling teeth. When I would bring up his homework it was always accompanied with him whining about how hard it is, how he doesn’t want to do it, wants to do something else, will do it later and would even start crying because its too much. It’s enough to make you lose your goddamn mind. I blamed the school, I blamed myself and I blamed him. Then I made a decision one weekend. I sat my kid down and gave it to him straight. “Baby, I’m not responsible for you doing your homework. Ok?” “Huh?” “Everyday I chase you to make sure you do your homework and I get so frustrated as though it’s my responsibility. I feel like I’ve failed and done something wrong when you don’t do it and I get mad at you when you don’t really seem to care. But I’ve realized it can’t be my responsibility. Doing your homework is your responsibility. Okay?” He’s confused, “ok…” “So when we get home, I wil

His loud moaning keeps me checking in my rear view mirror to make sure he’s still properly fastened in his seat. “I have a stomach ache!” He groans loudly We’re on our way to school in the carpool lane and its rush hour on the 405. Just to be clear, we are literally going to make it to school right on time. There’s no room to deviate. If he’s going to puke he’s gonna have to do it on the way. We start going through what he ate. “I don’t knooow!!!” I think his discomfort is making him cranky. “Well you had oatmeal, two quesadillas” He sounds like a sad and angry alien monkey, “I KNOW!” I stay silent. Waiting to see how close to dying he actually is, I’m also multitasking and managing LA traffic. I’ve got a dude in front of me that keeps breaking sporadically and an SUV behind me with someone, I hope is paying attention. Aside from that, I’m checking when to move over for motorcyclists and of course obsessively checking the time at least once every minute.