Serenity Now

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

 courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

It's spring break for The Boy this week and he's home from college and in desperate need of a hair cut, among other things.  Today was his six month dental checkup which is something he doesn't look forward to at all.  In fact, I didn't bother to schedule his hair cut appointment on the same day as his dental appointment because one "traumatic" event is enough for one day.   When we got to the dentist office he had this wild, unbrushed hair look.  He kind of resembled the way Albert Einstein looks on the poster he has hanging in his dorm room.  Maybe there's some Einstein channeling going on here.  I wonder what would happen if I hang a Justin Bieber poster in his dorm.  Would The Boy's hair get nicer?

I am so ready for the day when he willingly goes to the dentist all by himself.  He's 19 years old now and can drive himself, but there's no way he will go by himself.  As a matter of fact, every time we go, not only do I have to bribe him to get in the car and drive him there, but I also have to go in the room with him while he gets his teeth cleaned.  I've tried sitting in the reception area when the hygienist calls him back, but he looks at me and refuses to get up.  Today the same thing happened.  The hygienist calls The Boy back, The Boy looks at me, I reassuringly tell him to go on back, that I would wait right there for him, the hygienist asks him "are you ready?", The Boy ignores her and continues to stare at me, finally I give in and get up and head to the door, The Boy follows me and we all go back to the torture chamber.

Once at the torture chamber door, I stop and tell The Boy I will stand right outside and wait for him.  He doesn't believe me and refuses to go inside.  One of the other hygienist sees what's going on and tells me I can sit in the chair inside the room if I want,  so I go inside and sit down.  The Boy tentatively follows.  At least he opens his mouth for them now.  Once upon a time, getting The Boy to open his mouth at the dentist was next to impossible.  Almost as impossible as getting him to brush his teeth everyday.  I had nightmares of his teeth rotting out, but he's lucky he has good teeth and almost no cavities.

Another thing on the agenda today was getting auto insurance quotes for The Boy's car that has been sitting in the driveway for months with a dead battery.  He'll need to drive it this summer when he gets a job.  Unfortunately, it doesn't have insurance and he doesn't want to pay for the insurance.  When he found out how much it will cost per month for him to insure it he said it wasn't even worth getting a job if half of his money is going to pay for insurance.  Welcome to the real world.

And if that's not enough, I noticed today that The Boy has a hold on his college account because he has a $20 parking ticket from last semester when he was driving one of Ken's cars to school.   A ticket, The Boy says he doesn't owe and has tried to dispute with the school.  Then he goes into another tirade about the situation.  We all agree that if he feels he doesn't owe the ticket (because he did have a pass that was clearly visible on his windshield) then he should dispute it.  If however, he can't get them to take the hold off his account and drop the ticket, then he's going to have to pay the $20 or he won't be able to get his transcript.  He didn't see it that way.  Ken stepped in at that point and told him to go read the Serenity prayer - 

                       God grant me the serenity  to accept the things I cannot change;
                                            courage to change the things I can;
                                            and wisdom to know the difference.

Good advise for anybody to live by.  Maybe it will help stop the smoke coming out of The Boy's ears.  He didn't have any cavities today, but I wonder about his blood pressure.  Just like on the episode of my favorite sit com "Seinfeld" -  every time his blood pressure goes up, just yell, "Serenity Now!"  It works for me.