Summer = Artistic Challenges

There is only a week left of high school, then my lovely teen son will be home for almost three months.  On the "I'm trying to be an artist!" front, the summer worries me.  His plans tend to change, unannounced, in a way that pulls me out of the studio and turns me into a grumpy troll.  Last week is a perfect example.  He's in jazz band and they have a final coming up.  Of course, he can't tell me when.  First he said Saturday evening.  Duh, I think not.  Then he said sometime next week.  School is out on Wednesday.  Now he's just not sure again.  But they need to practice, he tells me, and they want to come here because we have more room and their parents all said no.  Oh, and they all need a ride.  All of them, because they live so far away and it's too hot to walk and they're carrying instruments and their parents won't bring them...the reasons go on at length.  They all manage to get here, when I find I have to take my husband to the hospital for what appears to be a spider-bitten finger.  He's diabetic, so a swelling, hot and red finger is a serious worry.  We make it to Urgent Care, he's given antibiotics, and we make it home in time to find an impromptu pool party going on.  I should note a pool party with toys flying, breaking the horsetail bamboo around the pool two weeks before a huge pool party.  Then there are the soda cans, chip bags and cookie crumbs all over the house.  Sigh.  We have a rule about kids swimming with no adult home.  My son apologized.  More sighs.  He doesn't seem to get that apologies don't unDO the mess and the rule-breaking.  It's been two days and the broken bamboo is still all over the yard.  I send him out to clean it up, then I hear digging.  He has a thing about digging.  It's very weird.

Summer means Kevin staying up late, wanting to sleep until 1 p.m., then inviting friends to come over at 4 p.m. to go swimming.  The stay up late & sleep in thing is fine.  It's summer vacation.  But summer also means that every directive (get up earlier if you wants friends over today, invite the friends at least a day ahead of time and let them know they MUST go home before dinner so your working father can have peace on weekday evenings), is met with daily attempts at negotiation on his part.  I am a pretty tough mom.  If I tell him that arguing gets extra chores and he argues, he gets extra chores.  Heck, I can get the whole house clean on those penalties alone.  But I'm tired of it.  Exhausted.  The life is sucked out of me.  All day every day is full of conflict.  Not screaming, ugly conflict (well, not often...but it can happen), but the frequent efforts to try to get the preferred answer out of me that makes me just nuts.  I grew up getting the crap beat out of me for just existing and making the mistake of showing up in a room, and have little to no patience for someone who talks back or tries to negotiate everything again and again and again.  I would not have survived to see a sunset if I had even squeaked, much less argued. 

I need an air horn.  It worked when he was five.  I'm getting an air horn.  Argue, he gets the horn.  Sass me, and he gets the horn.  It will save me time and effort, but what will the neighbors think, hearing that stupid air horn blasting every two minutes?!?

So how much art work will I get done this summer after 1 p.m?  How much time will I spend arguing, fussing or fuming instead of painting, sewing or gluing?

If he makes me nuts, I think I'll make him wear a tiara.  That'll do it!

I may get some artwork done after all.