Disagreement – Thankful Thursday

Today I am most grateful for being able to agree to disagree with family. It wasn’t always something we could do and it doesn’t always remain, but for the most part we can. It might seem like a small thing to be thankful for, but it really stands out for me today.

The irony is that I remember first learning about this from the book (and later movie) “The Phantom Tollbooth”. It’s ironic because we watched that movie for years, but it took a lot longer to realize that was a thing we could do in real life. I kind of miss watching it as the cassette it was on got lost in one of our moves. (But is likely still holding together and able to be used. Those cassettes were sturdy.)

But being able to agree to disagree and move onto something else is a wonderful thing when dealing with teenagers.

Layabouts – Day Twenty-Six

You sleep in bed all morning long,

Waiting till the last to join the throng.

You say you got to bed quite late,

And that is why the rest must wait.

So every five minutes you hit the snooze

Because your sleep you don’t want to lose.

 

Well that will change sometime soon

Because you see, we have a boon.

You shall awake because it’s late

And I shall not continue to wait;

 

Wake up!

image: from martha0stout’s phone

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Written in honor of my sister’s kids every morning that they don’t have school. They’d sleep until 1:00 pm if I let them. The picture is of my cat, Usako.

Also using today’s NaPoWriMo prompt: http://www.napowrimo.net/2014/04/day-26-2/

Kind of Defeated

The day was going along great!

No one late, no one sick,

No one arguing about what makes them tick.

The day is sunny, no clouds in sight.

For some reason, it doesn’t feel quite right.

 

Slowly my family starts to trickle home,

Children arrive first, at least an hour before Mom.

And suddenly that feeling is explained,

My niece has been avoiding homework.

*long sigh, let it out*

 

Hold in your anger, she’s just a teen,

Still trying to figure out her place in between.

Several hours later the other shoe drops.

I had believed she’d not finished somethings

Since the middle of Fall.

Turns out I was wrong,

Wrong about it all.

 

Several packets undone since the first week of school.

Must not tear my hair out and scream,

It really won’t help.

I’ll just go curl up in a corner

And wait it all out.

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I’m kind of drained, so the verses aren’t even. Yesterday kind of defeated me and this morning followed along. I’m just tired and kind of want to crawl back into bed, but I can’t. Have laundry to do so that we’ll have enough clothes until next week’s laundry day and maybe I’ll bake something. That usually helps.

Anyway, I used this week’s prompt from Dungeon Prompts: http://theseekersdungeon.com/2014/01/23/dungeon-prompts-season-2-week-4-anger-management/

No First Day Jitters

She smoothed down her hair and settled the skirt that Kelly was wearing. Kelly giggled and swung their joined hands once they’d left the house.

“Kelly, my love, you seem more excited than me.” her voice was warm as her daughter skipped alongside her, hand still firmly in her mother’s.

“Course I am, Mama! It’s the first day of school!”

She nodded to any others in the halls once they’d entered the building that wasn’t far from their small home. She had chosen a house close enough to walk to her new job at. The Junior High that she had been hired at had a day school for children not yet old enough to attend the community’s kindergarten. That as well as the small military fort just outside of the seemingly small town’s borders helped her to feel safe even if the odds of said people being able to protect her and her child weren’t good.

She listened to Kelly’s chattering through the school’s halls on the way to the rooms that the day school was held in. The day classes were a small part of the school’s child development program, but from what she had been able to discern from the few people she had already met (and if she was being honest, the few waves of intent she had sent out) she knew that her Kelly would be safe.

After dropping Kelly off with her new teacher, and boy had Kelly made a lovely impression with her exuberance! She turned her path back towards the main entrance hall of the school. There she found the library and let herself in with the small key she had been given at the end of the hiring process.

There were already a few teens waiting for her to open up the small library and they were more than willing to chat with the new librarian for a few minutes while she finished opening the doors.

“I’m glad you were able to come in so early on your first day!” more than one of them took the time to tell her after introducing themselves, “The last librarian was always opening the library maybe ten minutes before the first bell rang, Ms. Smith!”

She smiled, “You don’t have to be so formal all the time,” she would tell a few of them, “I’m not just Ms. Smith, call me Hailey.”

She’d always felt more comfortable around children, no matter what age they were, than she had with adults. They didn’t feel threatening, even if they had threatened her, which none of these teens had done.

One boy smirked playfully, “Whatever you say, Ms. Hailey.”

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Written for this week’s FreeWriteFriday prompt.

http://kellieelmore.com/2014/01/03/fwf-free-write-friday-time-place-2/