LifePundit

We Don't Show Our Bosoms before 4:00 O'Clock

I'm in a crisis. It's funny, the things that come to you in a crisis. Things you think you remember but can't find any evidence of. And the headline for this post shows how I am already in the midst of a battle I am losing.

First off, I said "we don't show our bosoms."

And now I'm negotiating not to show them before 4:00.

Didn't Mammy say that in Gone with the Wind? "We don't show our bosoms before four o'clock." I can see her talking to Scarlet while the rest of the girls are napping and Scarlet has A Plan. Hence, she needs to show her bosoms before 4:00. Or was it 5:00?

At what time of life and time of day is it all right to show our bosoms? From the look of things on TV, as soon as you wake up is a good time to be showing your bosoms (note -- I am talking about low-cut frocks, not naked skin). Coffee and bosoms every morning on the news. And do hospital administrators really dress like Dr. Cuddy on "House"? My den overfloweth with images of overflowing, button-stressed tops.

A couple of weekends ago Lily and I went dress shopping for a dress for her for church confirmation and for middle-school graduation. (Didn't I already whine about this? Well, if I did, I'm not done.) There were NO dresses that didn't show bosoms. My child is 14. She shouldn't even have bosoms. I think she should leave them home in a box, under the bed. Save them for later. But no. She has bosoms and the fashion designers have plans for them.

They are to be emancipated. Yes, as soon as bosoms sprout, they are to be displayed, set free, let loose upon the world. Yes, the dresses are even pretty. But pretty doesn't equal appropriate.

On our very painful shopping trip, Lily picked out several dresses. Hmmmm. Lots of spaghetti straps. Dresses that were nothing more than bikinis with skirts attached. So I went through the racks (no pun intended) looking for more modest clothes (we were in major department stores, not your local Hookers 'r' Us), and they were not there. There are no modest clothes. We are all hookers now.

So, we tried to do the best with what they had. Lily looked stunning. Like a sexy 25-year-old. She'd have to wear a nametag that ready, "Sorry. I'm really 14." with any of these dresses.

We haggled. We negotiated. I looked back through the racks. There were two other mothers in the dressing room, and we were all having the same argument with our 14-year-old daughters.

"You're not planning on wearing THAT, are you?"

Why yes. And before 4:00. In fact, before I'm 16. Before I'm 18. Before your very eyes.

Well, one of the dresses was marked down to $12 and actually was lovely, except for the fact that there was no fabric across the bustline. So I told Lily she could get it if she wore a camisole. She agreed. And tonight she tried on the dress with a camisole. She said it looked terrible and made her look like a hillbilly.

Better a hillbilly than something else.

Hear that stomping? That's me putting my foot down. I'm getting quite a rhythm going. Pretty soon it will be a real 'ho-down.

I may have a new play, though. Something that will be a real game-changer. Okay. She can show her bosoms.

Two can play at that game. Or would this make it four? I, too, have bosoms. And I'm not afraid to use them. 

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, though some apples may have fallen a lot farther South than others. But you didn't need to know that.

Yes, I have a plan. Can there be anything worse than having your mother show up somewhere not fully dressed? And there's only one thing that will stop me.

"When I say, 'WE don't show our bosoms,' I mean 'WE.' You show yours, and I'll show mine."

I will win. This time.

The Piano Recital

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To whom much is given, much is expected. 

It's easy to pick on Lily, because she deserves it. She is gifted musically. A few years ago she began to compose her own music. It was good enough to get her some invitations to perform, including in church and as part of a Women Composers Program sponsored by the local piano teachers guild. I don't know how this could be my child but there she is. And she's won scholarships for piano lessons the last two years.

She plays violin in the school orchestra because the alternative is to take gym. When she first started she was a second violin and when one of the first violinists (who took private lessons) would choke and stop playing, Lily would switch parts and play the first violin part to help carry the music. She's not a star -- the first chairs are filled with dedicated violin students (mostly Asians) but she doesn't work at it either.

She has long wanted to quit music. We told her what my parents told me. You can quit music anytime. And that same day you quit riding. 

At the piano recital last night there was a little boy who wanted to take piano so badly that he's doing yard work for the teacher in exchange for lessons. Another teenaged girl has decided she wants to be a piano teacher and had three beginner students playing in the recital. Music is a gift to us all.

Lily's piano teacher is a very stern but sweet elderly woman whose back hurts so much she can hardly sit in the chair while she gives lessons. But she has a job to do, and she's going to teach these children music. No fudging, either. It has to be right. She's an old-fashioned kind of piano teacher. Everybody needs one of those. Lily says Mrs. S is the nicest person in the world until you get on the piano bench. We're all afraid of her. 

When I need to tell her something I know she won't like, I call and leave a message on Tuesdays when she's teaching in another county. I will never feel like a grown up with this woman. I turn into a seven-year-old who didn't practice my music. "Yes m'am" is all I know how to say.

At the end of the piano recital, the teacher gave out awards for the most improved, best student, etc. At the end she had a special award. She described a student who didn't practice and in fact, practiced the least. She said that this student was gifted. Lily immediately knew it was her. The teacher went on to say that she hoped this award, the Most Creative, would encourage this student to use her gifts. 

I hope so, too.

In the car on the way home I tried to talk with Lily about it. (Paul is absent this weekend -- he's part of a Kairos Prison Ministry weekend in Broad River Correctional Institution, a maximum security prison.) 

How do you get a person (a teenaged person) to recognize her gifts and to want to use them? I could use force (take away her cell phone until she practiced) and might end up doing that. But there's something more fundamental here: the squandering of gifts.

She says she doesn't care about piano, though she likes to compose and play her own pieces (yet she's quit doing that). I asked her why when she has been told repeatedly that she's gifted that she doesn't use her gifts. "Because I'm lazy," is her honest and heartbreaking answer.

We will talk about this further. This talk should be called "The Day I Beat My Head Against the Wall Again." 

To whom much is given, much is expected. How about we drop the "much" and say "a little"?

I am out of ideas. 

Her piano teacher says that she has been told a million times by adults that they wished their parents had never let them drop music. And she says that she has never been told by adults that they were sorry their parents made them continue to play.

Choices: punishment, bribery, logic, cajoling. Something creative, like an hour of practice for every hour of riding. Except then I think she'd just not ride, since that passion is wavering with her growing awareness of boys. (Wonder if the boys are aware of her? They're all 14.)

To whom much is given, much is expected. It was given to her, not to me. But she was given to me. 

Need to figure out something. 

The Science Project

(Photo is of my state of mind, not Lily's science project.)

The phone rings, and I'm almost afraid to answer it. The caller ID says it's the mother of one of Lily's friends, and although she is an interesting and nice woman, she seems to have more time on her hands than I do. Or you do. Or anyone else does.

She seems to have more time on her hands than my mother does. My mother has Alzheimer's and is bedridden. Yes, some of us are busy. And others of us are looking for something to do.

This woman is a bit too involved in her daughter's life. She's calling to find out "how we're coming on our science project?"

"I don't have a science project, and Lily is watching TV," I say. I feel like a negligent mother. I'm not sure I remember what the science project is about. Then I remember. I've already finished eighth grade. I don't have a science project, other than what's growing in the refrigerator.

"Are you splitting the (FORGOT WHAT SHE SAID) into different pages or doing it together?" she asks. I have no idea what she's talking about, but I have the urge to be helpful.

"I haven't even looked at it, but I think I'd put things on separate pages. Make the whole thing look longer," I say.

"You aren't working on it? My daughter has been working all day (Saturday) and will be working on it all day tomorrow," she exclaims.

The drama comes from the fact that the science teacher forgot to tell them all until the last minute that they need to include a major part of the project that hasn't been mentioned before -- a booklet -- when they turn the project in on Monday.

Though this shouldn't have happened, I figure it's Lily's problem. Lily seems unconcerned. So when I (finally) get off the phone with her friend's mother, I feel the need to check to be sure that there isn't some adolescent slip-up slipping up right under my nose.

"Your friend and her whole family are scrambling to get her science project finished by Monday. Why are you watching TV?" I quiz Lily.

"Because I like this show, and it's Saturday," she says.

"What about your science project? Why aren't you foaming at the mouth?" I say. "Have you looked at everything you're supposed to turn in?"

"Could you move out of the way of the TV?" Lily says.

"Not until you tell me about your science project." I'm not going to be the negligent mother I feel like I am.

So Lily gets her scrawled notes. "It's supposed to have a title page, a contents page, a summary, research method..., Mom, why am I reading you this?"

"I'm just making sure there's no Sunday night surprise when you go to put it together," I say.

"There's nothing to this," she says. "All I have to do is reformat what I've already done."

"Then why is your friend's family working all weekend?" I ask.

"Because they're not us," she says. Then, "Thank you, Mom, for not getting so involved in my stuff."

"You're welcome. As long as you're getting good grades and acting normal, I won't."

What she doesn't realize is that at this point, I probably couldn't pass eighth grade, so that's why I'm leaving it to her.

Sick Kids and Field Trips

The bus taking the eighth graders on their much anticipated field trip to Washington, D.C., just left. Lily's not on it. She caught a bad cold on the church retreat over the weekend.

She's a healthy girl who rarely gets sick. But she gets sick every time she goes on a field trip. It's partly a matter of not enough sleep (there's not even eight hours scheduled for sleep on these trips), getting run down and getting exposed to the sick kids on the trip. Because there are always sick kids on the trip.

I agonized all yesterday and last night over whether or not to send Lily. If sh'es just got a cold, she could power through. But what if it's the early stage of something else, and she gets worse?

And whatever it is, who else might catch it?

I was surprised to find myself rationalizing all the reasons that Lily should go anyway. I was surprised because every time she comes home sick from a field trip and tells me that so-and-so was on the trip and was sick from the moment she got on the bus and sneezed on everybody, I feel like calling so-and-so's mama and asking her just what was she thinking to send a sick kid on a trip? It can't have been fun for the kid, and it's sure not fun for the rest of the  now sick kids.

When Lily was in private school she went on a field trip to Williamsburg, Virginia, that was nearly a week long. A doctor's daughter got on the bus sick. And by the end of the field trip, one-quarter of the children were sick. At least one-quarter. And one-quarter of these kids missed the next full week of school. I know this is unusual, but one of the children developed lung-scarring and missed part of the next year of school as well!

Lily is still talking about how awful it was to be sick and to be marched all over Williamsburg. Not the memory we were hoping for.

But even with those experiences behind me, I tried to rationalize a way it would be all right to send Lily. Oh, she's probably not contagious. Probably all of them have colds. She'll feel fine by tomorrow and can just rest on the bus. We don't want her to miss anything. And for goodness sakes, we've paid our money which we probably can't get back!

But Lily was so droopy this morning. No fever but not well. I didn't have the heart.

I called the lead teacher to tell her that Lily wouldn't be going. And although I heard disappointment in the teacher's voice, I heard something else: Relief! She said that two other sick girls were going and she was worried about them. They've been sick with something and had been running fevers. I could tell the teacher was concerned that they weren't as well as their mothers thought or claimed.

The group is going to be walking a lot in what we consider cold weather. They're going to be walking all day. That's not how you get over being sick. The lead teacher said that Lily would be miserable, and I'm sure that's true. Unless she suddenly gets well tomorrow. Oh well. That is life.

I'm surprised that the two other sick girls are going. And I'm even more surprised with what mental gyrations I was willing to perform in order to justify sending Lily, too. I was going to use the time alone this week to power through NaNaWriMo.

And I'm glad that the child is in bed, getting better (I hope). That's where she needs to be.

Even though I'm not happy about an Obama administration coming in, I do expect that Washington will still be there later and available for exploration.

Forgot to Tell You -- I Need Three Mice for My Science Project

The science fair project proposal was due. The night before, Lily said, "I forgot to tell you. I need to get three mice for my science project. The teacher said that they can be class pets when I'm finished with them."

When she's finished with them I'll be the class pet.

"We're not getting any more rodents, don't you remember?" I said. We had six hamsters in succession. We got the rabbit in an agreement with her that  we wouldn't have any more rodents.

"But these are for school."

I'm a soft touch, so I did try to think of a way to make it work, but all I could do was smell rodent urine in my mind. "How long will your experiment last?" Rodent urine makes a special imprint, even if you think rodents are cute.

"I don't know. A few months?"

Her experiment was about learned helplessness, which is how I was beginning to feel.

I was the one who told her about learned helplessness. I heard a podcast about it and wish I could find it to link to it. The basic story was this: Somebody did an experiment where one group of mice got to go play in the equivalent of a mouse Disney World and the other group had to sit in sad, unstimulating confinement. I don't know what the control group did -- probably housework -- not enough to make you off yourself, but enough so that you felt like your world wasn't toppling in. Over time, the mice that went to the mouse Disney World were confident and ready for anything. The mice that sat in sad confinement day after day grew to believe they were in sad confinement even when taken to mouse Disney World. They were stuck because they thought they were stuck. They had learned helplessness.  I think there's a good life lesson here for teenaged girls. If you don't believe you can do something, you can't.  That's why I'd told Lily the story to begin with.

I could see her attraction to this experiment. More pets. Mice are cute. Get to build a mouse Disney World (would she be able to make the other mouse sit in sad, non-stimulating confinement? I'm sure she couldn't. All her mice would end up in Disney World, I promise.)

But dern it all, I'm done with rodents. The smell! The smell! I told her that she might be able to do it, but she had to buy all the cages. Three different ones. And they had to be where I couldn't smell them.

When her father got home, she gushed to him about it. He isn't a soft touch. "Heck no you can't have three mice. You've got a rabbit -- and no more rodents."

Very clever to try to slip three mice by us in the last minute. "But my proposal is due tomorrow!"

She came up with something else, which was a lesson in non-helplessness on its own.

School Starts Right as the Money Runs Out

School started yesterday with an abrupt change in schedule that I'm sure we'll all be accustomed to by Easter break. Lily gets up too early for good sense and gets fully dressed in a calculated casual indifferent sort of way -- a look that says -- I really don't care what I look like but you should see all the clothes I tried on that didn't make the cut this morning. Makeup so carefully applied as to look unmade up (Thank God!), hair blown dry to look like it dried naturally. And jeans. Always jeans. ($10 jeans from Target -- am I lucky or what?)

Anyway, she does all this in time to come down by 5:30 a.m. to wake us up by playing Reveille on the piano, then collapses on our bed because she's exhausted. (We are currently in discussions about doing the math for what time you need to go to bed in order to get eight hours of sleep before getting up at 5:00. She is never tired at night.) All I have to do is get my gym clothes on, my teeth brushed and yes, I do make her lunch just because I like to.

She's the punctual alien, the person in our family who is determined not only to be on time (not my best thing), but also to be there early. So, if she wants to be on time that badly, I take her, work out on the way home and can be at my computer at work by 9:00 -- clean, exercised, fed, horses fed, even some procrastination thrown in. It's a good thing. Except for the part where I see her running out of steam....

I miss her. It was fun to work at home and have this wonderful, interesting person at home with me. But she needed to go back to school. I was running out of money buying school supplies. No clothes. Just supplies and things to put the supplies in.

Tell me, why does an eighth grader need a $100 calculator? And how long do any of us believe she can keep up with it? Shall we take bets?

Maybe it will help her do the math on what time to go to bed in order to get enough sleep....

And how did she talk me into a Vera Bradley purse? She has to carry a purse at all times because she needs to have her Epi-Pen in case she gets exposed to nuts and goes into anaphylactic shock. I used to buy purses for her at Target and hand them to her when I got home. Now she wants to pick out her purse, and I have to admit, I don't want anybody else picking out my purse so I cooperate.

So after we looked at every purse ever made, I caved and went to the Vera Bradley store. How can those things cost so much? But I got her one, and even a couple of things to go with it. I asked her if this purchase would make her happy forever, and she said yes. Happy Forever.

So there you go. We're all Happy Forever. And very, very sleepy.

Overheard in the Father's Day Card Section of Wal-Mart

I'm looking for a Father's Day card in Wal-Mart. There's a woman and her teenage daughter standing next to me doing the same thing. The daughter hands the mother a card. The mother looks at it.

"That card don't say nothing," the mother says.

"Well, he ain't nothing," says the daughter.

The mother makes her put it back. They leave without buying anything.

Accutane Appears to Make Some People Grumpy

I'm not naming names, but Accutane appears to make some people grumpy. This surprises me, because when I took it eons ago I was my usual self until I started to see double. (True story.)

Then again, just how can you tell if a 13-year-old is grumpy? What part of the grumpiness is being 13, taking exams or being on Accutane?

For more on our family's Accutane adventures, go here (one month report) and here (our Kafka-esque beginning).

We're supposed to be looking for signs of depression in her, but this grumpiness might make us all depressed.

By the way, her skin is clearing up. The doctor has reduced the dose, so perhaps the grumpiness will reduce as well.

Unless that's not what's causing it and we have to wait until she graduates from college.

Government Regulations on Accutane Completely Out of Control

I'm too tired to even rant. Need some exercise? Want to jump through hoops? Then Accutane is the acne drug for you.

 

Accutane is the wonder drugs of acne cures. However, like all wonder anythings, it isn't entirely safe. If you get pregnant while taking it your child will almost certainly have extremely serious birth defects. (So don't get pregnant.) And a senator's son committed suicide while on it, so they've made it extremely difficult to get and issue all kinds of warnings about depression. Depression, such as you will certainly come down with while trying to fill your prescription and hitting obstacle after obstacle after obstacle.

I took Accutane when I was 30, which was back when people had sense. Not many, but more than now. My doctor made me take pregnancy tests and did blood work every month. He was being responsible and I was 30, not 13. The drug worked beautifully and my skin cleared up and stayed mostly clear. In fact, I grew beautiful new skin all over. That was fun. (New skin is now old, however.)

So, now that Lily has taken increasingly stronger acne drugs, treatments, potions, washes, pills and even many visits to a professional zit-picker who also did a good job of picking my pocket since the insurance didn't cover it -- not to mention all the clothing and towels that are now bleached out and spotted from the strong medicines and washes -- it's time for Accutane. The acne medicine of last resort.

She's only 13. This is a strong drug and I really don't like letting the doctor put her on it. But after exhaustive, almost OCD research on my part, I've decided that it is a good choice and our best option. And she won't be on it but for a few months.

How things have changed since I was on it! Now the government is involved. There's a new way to spell "bureaucracy, " and it is iPledge.

You'd think you could just follow the rules and all would be well. But of course the world is not set up to make following any rules other than gravity easy.

Here's how it works. (This is from memory so I may have left out a step or ten.) Your dermatologist has to give your 13-year-old a talk about how any baby your daughter conceives while on Accutane will have birth defects. Then you have to discuss birth control. All of you together.

Your child has to be on birth control. TWO forms of birth control. I explained to the doctor that she is on two forms of birth control, an active mother and father who will kill her if she gets pregnant. Good enough for the doctor, but not the government. So we decide that for the purposes of the Accutane iPledge program, she is on "abstinence" and "condoms" in that order. When I go on-line to pledge all kinds of hooey I have to key in "abstinence" and "condoms" in that order, or my daughter will not be allowed to receive her acne medicine.

There's more. Pregnancy tests. Blood tests. A book we all have to read about birth defects, depression, birth control and way TMI for even a sophisticated, biologically knowledgeable 13-year-old. And all kinds of things to sign. All kinds of pledges, the main one of which was, "I pledge to jump through hoops because I love my daughter and the stupid U.S. government is not going to keep her from getting a drug that will improve her quality of life."

Then there are the timing issues. The dermatologist has a certain window in which she can prescribe Accutane following the pregnancy tests and blood work. First she has to enter some kind of magic words online at iPledge, probably, "The government is good so that means big government is even better. iPledge allegiance to even bigger, more intrusive government." The dermatologist's staffer was a few days late doing this, so when we went in to get Lily's prescription, the dermatologist couldn't write it that day but had to wait a few days. Okey dokey. Few days here, few days there. We're still moving forward.

So I got a call on Saturday from the dermatologist's office that the appropriate time had elapsed and the prescription had been faxed to the pharmacy. I was told to go back online and do the iPledge patient part. The questions I had to answer on the iPledge website were difficult (yes, they were!) but I'm proud to report that I got 100 percent. We have until Friday to get the prescription filled. The prescription will expire on Friday and we will have to start the process over if we don't get it filled by then. And we're going to have to do this same blankety-blank thing every month that Lily is on the blankety-blank drug.

Sounds easy, right? Just go get the blankety-blank stuff at the pharmacy. But wait! The pharmacy we use has let their iPledge status expire. When I went to pick up the Accutane on Saturday, my pharmacist couldn't give it to me. My pharmacist is going to have to go home and read a book so that she can answer the pharmacist questions online and be allowed to fill the prescription. (Even though the dermatologist has done her part and so have Lily and I.)

We have barely started and I am already over this iPledge program. Why can't the pharmacist just put the *&$*($)&# pills in a bottle and let me pay for them? Lily has been to the dermatologist, read an inappropriate book showing her how to put a condom on her partner's parts, had pregnancy and blood tests and stopped all her other medications. I have been online to prove that I can still take stupid tests, remember more than I ever needed to know about birth control and even the stupid rules of the stupid iPledge program. Heaven knows what the dermatologist and her staff have had to do. So why can't the pharmacist, who only needs to know how to read a pill bottle label and count said pills into a bottle with Lily's name on it (no, I'm not discounting the pharmacist's need to know about drugs, but this is just so over the top), just dispense the stupid pills?

Because the government is looking out for our health. Oh, what a great use of resources. An obstacle course that an over-educated, reasonably intelligent mom can barely get through. Lots of trips to lots of places. Extra stuff for the doctor and pharmacist to do. And a time limit. Tick tick tick. The clock is running on getting this prescription filled and my pharmacist is home reading a book and taking tests online. If we don't get it filled by Friday, we start over.

So my pharmacist, who has become my friend, calls me after hours on Saturday to tell me that she has found another pharmacy that can help me, but because of the iPledge program, she can't just transfer the blankety-blank prescription over there. She has talked at length with the other pharmacist and has given him my insurance info., etc. However, I need to call the dermatologist Monday morning (since the pharmacist is off and thinks it gets too complicated if she leaves notes to the Monday pharmacist) to get the prescription faxed to this other pharmacy. So I do and the prescription eventually gets faxed to the other pharmacy.

Sounds like I'm almost in business, right? Not so fast. Once the pharmacy receives the faxed prescription, I'll need to bring them Lily's iPledge card and they'll have to go online to get authorized to fill her prescription.

So I went to the pharmacy and waited. A long time. Yes, they had the prescription, but they only had half as many Accutane pills as are prescribed, even though their pharmacist, knowing that we were coming in today, had ordered what we needed. They will order again and "hope" that the pills come in.

?!?!?!?!?!??!

"Why can't I get half the pills today so Lily can get started and pick up the rest when they arrive?" I ask.

"Can't do a 'partial' on Accutane," they say. Too expensive.

"I have to have this prescription filled by Friday or we have to do it all over again," I insist.

"Maybe the pills will come in tomorrow. Call us in the morning," they say.

In the meantime, they take Lily's iPledge card and call The Government to start the authorization process (or possibly to really booger it up for me if the pills don't come in -- again). The assistant pharmacist is on the phone with the iPledge people answering endless questions. At some point she has to put in a fingerprint. It goes on and on.

When she hangs up, she announces to the rest of the pharmacists, "Can you believe we've got to go through all this again every month for a refill?" (I guess that's why they stuck the young assistant pharmacist with the job.)

So, we don't have Accutane. If the pharmacy doesn't get it in in the morning, I'll have to find someone who has it, and somehow unhook the current pharmacy from our iPledge registration.

No wonder none of the pharmacies are prepared for this. It can't be worth their trouble.

And to think we get to do this every month.

Another Reason Why Teenagers Need Cell Phones

I don't work for any cell phone company. Yet I keep finding more and more reasons why a girl (or a boy) needs a cell phone.

Tune in to Dateline tonight to see this story. In 2006 S. C. teenager Elizabeth Shoaf was kidnapped and placed in an underground bunker where she was held captive and sexually assaulted for 10 days. Though would-be rescuers were searching for her everywhere, the bunker was so well hidden that they couldn't find her. Because she was able to trick her kidnapper and sent a text-message to her mother, she was rescued.

Nobody should go what she went through. Here's an excerpt from her story:

I think that Vinson, the man that kidnapped me, is just stupid. He isn’t crazy because if he was, he would have killed me or done something worse.  He knew what he was doing and he got outsmarted. Not to be snobby, but he thought he could get away with kidnapping and raping me for 10 days and I, 14 years old, outsmarted him -- a 36-year-old man.

A cell phone is sometimes the next best thing to a gun.