NEWBIE PARENTING

Okay, I guess it was just ALL TOO MUCH to discuss metaphorical algebraic connections in poetry and then have Michael be able to regurgitate, I mean, explain all that meta stuff to his 7th grade class -- particularly as he is just five months into learning English and mi muy malo espanol was not up to snuff. So, instead of doing a math poster on his poet-Mom viz FOOTNOTES TO ALGEBRA, he did a math poster instead on his lawyer-dad. I'm not bitter of course (even as the hubby grins): after all, the required math example of billing x number of hours and then multiplying it by a billable rate is merely multiplication (that is soooo second grade)...I was going off into algebraic horizons, y'all. Sigh. Anyway, here is Michael with his math poster absent my poetry:



And continuing on to newbie parenting, do you see how he looks like a marine? Yep, Mommy Moi screwed up. He was so handsome, but when I took my boy to the barbershop, I yelled out with my funky sense of humor: "Take it off! Take it all off!"

This is to the same barber who'd previously given Michael a stylish haircut, and which I assumed he would know to replicate. But the dude took me literally...and unfortunately, it wasn't until he had done half of Michael's head that I realized he really was taking it all off with a razor! Just picture me with my jaw dropped to the barbershop floor as I realized his/my mistake...but also knowing there was no way I could correct it as it was too late. So I had to sit there all wide-eyed as he continued to scalp my son who, by then, was mewling out, "Me no like. Me no like" about his inadvertent new hairstyle!

Afterwards, I lied like the shyster Moi am and informed Michael that this was a one-time scalping and which I did only to allow all of his new hair to grow out healthier in the future.

But, btw, the haircut occurred just in time for today's "Picture Day" (when the school takes official school pictures) so that my mistake will be memorialized in this year's school photos which also will be replicated in the future yearbook. As the hubby drily said when he saw Michael's haircut:

"Nice work, Eileen..."

Well, at least his new braces aren't my fault.

*****

P.S. But this morning, Michael asked for a poetry book of mine....so at least maybe the earlier discussions about FOOTNOTES TO ALGEBRA were not for naught if it got him more interested in Mom's poetry. That's something, right, she asks herself as her wingtip reaches towards the computer screen to caress the almost-bald scalp of her son....her still handsome son...