Here Today, Gone Tomorrow... Or Rather Gone Last Night Sometime Before Midnight

We didn't have candles so we used matches. The top two = 20 and the bottom one = 1 = 21!

The Boy spent a couple of days with us during the Memorial Day weekend partly because he was bored and out of food at his college apartment and partly because his birthday is this Wednesday and he needed to get around as many family members as possible to get his birthday loot aka MONEY!! Money to buy food since his meal plan for last semester is over.

Sunday I took him out to eat at his favorite Mexican restaurant, Margarita Grill. The same place I went with the Babysitter for Cinco de Mayo and had to leave sans my taco salad because of the wildness of the place. Sunday it was calmer and a very nice day for outdoor dining as well.

Below are some fuzzy pics taken with my new Iphone 5. I now have Instagram. Hope that works better...

Chicken Chimichanga

This time I got my chicken taco salad and ate almost every bit of it. The first time ever accomplishing that feat.  The Boy got a chicken chimichanga with rice and beans and of course we got chips, salsa and cheese dip.  Later we had birthday cake and the first thing the Boy said was, "Why blue roses?" I tell him it's because he's a boy and the other alternative was pink roses. He was cool with the pink roses he tells me. Oh well, too bad. Next year I'll get pink!

Chicken taco salad

On Monday, he and the friend that he was riding back to school with decide they are going to leave around 9 pm, after the Boy gets back from eating out at his other favorite place, The Cheesecake Factory, with his dad and grandparents. I tried to convince him to stay at least until this morning, but he said his friend really wanted to go back Monday night.  Then at 10 pm when the Boy still wasn't home or packed to go back to school, I text him telling him he needed to wait until Tuesday morning to leave since it was so late and he still wasn't home yet.

No response.

Around 10:30 pm the two show up at the house to get the Boy's stuff preparing to head back to school that night which meant they wouldn't get to school until 2:30 in the morning. When I tell him no, it's too late, he called me a jerk and said the PLAN was to go back that night. Staying would screw up the PLAN! He can't mess up the PLAN!!

Neither the Murph nor I could convince them to stay at least until morning even though I felt driving that late was dangerous and I didn't like it one bit.

After much name calling (apparently I'm a huge jerk), I finally tell him he's an adult (21 years old tomorrow!) and could do what he wanted, but I still didn't think it was a good idea. His friend said he wasn't tired one bit since he'd just woke up at 3 pm and would be okay to drive that late, he's driven it before at 4 am, he said.  I told them I was getting ready to go to bed so they needed to be out before I was finished so I could set the alarm.

When the Boy got all packed up he came upstairs to tell me good-bye and wanted to know if he should call me when he got to school. I told him at 2 in the morning I would be asleep, but to text me to let me know he had gotten there safely. He said okay.

In the morning, no text. No text until he finally woke up sometime after noon.

While I really want him to be independent and to do things for himself, I know that things can still happen. He has Asperger's and sometimes not the best judgement. The Murph still says I'm a helicopter parent, but I don't think that applies to me at all anymore. I've loosened the reigns and allowed the Boy to be more independent than I probably would have if I was still single and it was just the two of us. In a way, that's been a good thing for both of us.

The Boy still depends on me to get his financial aid in order for the upcoming school years. Since we just got our federal income tax return back, I had to go to UPS to fax a copy to the school. While we were there, the Murph was telling the owner of the store what a helicopter parent I was by doing all the work for the Boy. I defend myself by saying, "I have to be a little bit of a helicopter parent because my son has Asperger's, have you ever heard of it, it's on the autism spectrum?"

The owner nodded her head toward her daughter who was in the back working on a computer and said,  "She has Asperger's. I don't have to be a helicopter parent because she's right there with me all the time."

I started talking to the daughter who had helped us several times when we were in the store and she told me that she had been to a private college for about a year but had to quit because of severe depression and anxiety. So severe she couldn't even go to class. I told her that the Boy had experienced the same thing his first year and had to go on anti-depressants.

It also helped that he has a friend at the same college that he's known since 3rd grade. They now share an apartment with one other person, but have their own private bedroom and bathroom. It's almost like him having his own private dorm room, which he liked, but more homey and not so lonely because there are others to share a common area with whenever he feels like coming out of his room. (I don't know if any of them come out of their room that often except to go to class though).

I'm really glad the Boy is doing well and WANTS to get back to his own apartment and school. It could have so easily gone the other way and he could be back at home. Fortunately (I guess),  he doesn't even like it here anymore. It's tough sometimes knowing when to let go and when to pull in the reigns. As the Boy gets older it is REALLY tough! He still needs me when he needs me, yet he needs me to back away when he needs me to back away. It's usually up to me to figure it out.

I might not like it sometimes, but I think that this "helicopter parent" is doing her job helicopter or not!

Helicopter Parent

Yesterday someone I went to high school with who is now a college professor updated her status on facebook with -


"Dear helicopter parents of the 1990s: thanks so much for making college teaching harder. Explaining there are no trophies for showing up and that rules apply to everyone makes for a long, tedious day."


I was confused because I had no freaking clue what a helicopter parent was.  No clue.  So being the inquisitive, google savvy person that I am, I did a google search of the term and learned that a helicopter parent is one that is overly involved in their children's lives to the point that they smother the child by their "hovering" much like a helicopter hovers.


These parents are the ones that never let their children out of their sight to play outside because they might get hurt or abducted.  Jungle gyms and swing sets can be too dangerous and so they are banned from the playground.  If a teacher grades the child's work too harshly the parent is at the school to confront them.


 As the children get older these parents pick colleges, majors, fill out applications, etc for these children.  Parents have even been known to negotiate salaries for their adult children getting their first jobs.  


This kind of over involvement cripples the child making it almost impossible to make any decisions in their lives.  They have no respect for authority figures and they grow up feeling entitled.  Shouldn't they get extra credit just for showing up to class?  Those deadlines don't really apply to them,  do they?  


 I can understand why this would drive college professors and employers crazy.


My heart sank when I read all those things because I came to a very disturbing realization.  


 Oh no!  That's me!!  I'm a helicopter parent! 


Now I have the correct terminology for something I have been for years.  And college professors HATE me.  Now I understand why The Boy's college tried (notice I said "tried") to refuse to talk to me last summer when I was doing whatever I could to get him accepted last minute into the college he decided he wanted to go to. (I thought he wanted to go to a Junior college near home for a year or two).  He changed his mind. 


 Now I know why the college wouldn't let any parents within a 20 mile radius when it was time for the student's to register for fall classes at orientation. 


 Now I know why after a brief intro meeting the first morning of orientation, the took the students in one direction and put all the parents in a big bus and sent us on a "tour".


My one saving point is that I didn't become a helicopter parent willingly.  Really, I didn't.  It was a necessity brought on by the fact The Boy has Asperger's.  I did encourage The Boy to become independent and do things on his own.  I would push, but I would always be nearby.  In part because if I wasn't nearby The Boy would refuse to participate in birthday parties, sports, playing outside, swimming etc.  


Believe me, I would rather NOT know what the top of the tunnel in the germ filled playground at McDonald's or the inside of the ball pit at Chuck E Cheeses is like.  Fact is if I didn't agree to go up in them, The Boy never would have either.  And bribery doesn't work.  I tried.


It is a fine line for parents with children with special needs to walk.  On the one hand we want our children to become independent, but on the way they do need us more than other children.  Does that really make me fall into the helicopter parent definition?  I hope not.  I took this survey online to find out if I fit the definition of helicopter parent (yes, I'm that paranoid) and the results were that I have found a balance.  


Whew!  What a relief!  To think for a second I might be one of THOSE! 


This helicopter parent phenomena really explains a lot though.  Now I know why the outside park down the street doesn't have real grass.  It has this fake squishy stuff that looks like grass but has cushioning for falls so no little tyke gets bruised or scraped up.  What was our parents thinking when they made us climb on jungle gyms with packed dirt or gravel down below?  Or concrete!   


The Murph and I were in the park a while back and went over to the playground to check out all the fancy play stuff.  A kid's dream world.  And all we had was plain silver bars to climb on when we were kids.  If you fell off one you fell on dirt and broke your arm.  Did our parents just not love us enough?


Now I realize this is the perfect example of a playground designed by our generation, the helicopter parents to help preserve and protect and smother and cripple the next generation, our kids.


Don't get me wrong, the playground is AWESOME!  I wish I had that as a kid.  I feel deprived!  I can't say I turned out ok.  I guess I did though.  My mother never had to do any of my homework for me and she didn't negotiate my salary in my first job out of college (although I sure wish somebody would have) and I 'm certainly not negotiating The Boy's salary when he gets out of college.  


His dad will have to do that.