Feedback

Occasionally I get some feedback from the boys. Not the usual " You never PUNISH him when he annoys me" type. That I get daily. My youngest & I do not agree on "punishment" for his brother, he thinks electric shock, I say make him leave the dinner table is he's not behaving in a socially acceptable manner. I am talking more the broad range " How I ruined their lives" type of feedback.
My first exposure to this was when Alex was a freshman. After asking him for literally his entire 8th grade year to PLEASE let me take him to get a haircut, and being refused ( & I pick my battles, it's only hair); plus when I took him to the awards ceremony that year at school I saw almost all the boys had this mop things growing on their head, (not sure how many had mastered the gravity defying up bang curl that Alex was sporting though). So I said to myself, "OK, he needed to do this, it's a thing." But when in high school, he railed at me " How did you let me have my hair like that?"
 Really?      Really?
Was I going to throw him in the car ( he was taller than me at the time),,, drive to the barber in Bethel, drag him out of the car, strong arm him into the building and sit on his lap while someone sheered off his locks? Really? How did I?? I reminded him I had asked, offered and begged him to get his haircut. He said he didn't remember that. So I got smart. Michael has decided the mop top is in, he too has hair capable of defying gravity, must be from their dad's side of the family, blow drying , mousse and an entire bottle of hair spray cannot stop my hair from sticking to my scalp.
So I had Michael sign this: " I will not hold you accountable for how I looked in 7th grade, as you begged me to get my hair cut frequently." And he did, with a full eye roll. But now I have to find where I put the paper.
I'm just not going there again.
Last night Alex was reflecting on the past two years in high school. Being in a high school of close to 2000 kids, it is tough to get on the sports teams. Alex announced he can't wait to die and get reincarnated so he can stay in sports ( the child works out 6/7 days a week at a gym, and plays basketball in the winter). I am not even going to touch the onslaught of emotion I felt when my son says " I can't wait to die" He said he wished his father & I had "forced him to play sports".  "Forced him to play sport." ???
Now my recollection of the past 6 years goes something like, soccer, then baseball, basketball, then baseball, then basketball over the summer, then baseball again. His youngest brother did Lacrosse, football, basketball, baseball. Not sure what sports we were supposed to "FORCE" him to do. I do recall telling him to get back into soccer when he realized he was not the top 13 kids in his aged group for baseball. In Newtown if you are not the top 13, you are not in. His soccer coaches for years had asked up to have him come back, we did encourage him. He felt he had lost too much knowledge, guess he forgot that too. He had considered wrestling, then was turned off by the thought of rolling around in other people's sweat, I get that. I may need to have him sign something about it though.

Update: I have spent a week since I wrote this trying to find the legally binding document which prohibits Michael from complaining to me about his hair, and guess what he decided yesterday?

A number 2 all over- if you have a son you know what that means, it is not a BM.
The site is not allowing me to put up pictures, so I will put them on FB