She’s trying to hold it together in the off chance there’s still a sliver of hope she can convince me. Oh, how she barely balances steady while she awaits her fate.

“But Mom, I didn’t exactly do my homework because I edited as I was writing the other night.”
“I understand. But you didn’t talk to me about that when I told you twice to get it done, and as I’m looking at it now, there is work we must finish.”

She starts to waver, feeling her case falling.

“I erased an “s” on one of the words and I changed a letter to capital,” she says.
“I think you barely looked it over because you wanted to watch T.V. And that’s the point, isn’t it? That you didn’t really do it.”
“But Mom.” Her voice cracks as it dips and heaves like waves. She crosses her arms and plops down angry. I try not to laugh.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “You don’t get T.V. today. We’ll fix your story together tonight before you write the final draft.”
She pouts silent and in a flash I’m back to my third grade year. Arguing with my mom about why I should stay up late, the valid reasons other kids got to linger after the college basketball games. They were perfectly good reasons, I tell you. And they would have worked for me too, if she would have just listened.
The begging, the pleading, the drumming up of any excuse that sounds legitimate. The trying to sound mature and the severe incompetence to do so, what with the sobs and hysteria when I didn’t get my way.
I had a friend that would sneak to her phone and call me. She’d whisper into the receiver, “I’m grounded. What do I say?” I’d look over my shoulder for the enemy (my mother) and whisper back. “Sound super sincere, and tell her you’re sorry and that you’ll really try to do better.” She’d call back twenty minutes later. No whisper. “I’m still grounded.”

These flashbacks happen in odd ways now that I’m a mother. I connect dots I never would without having my own children, because I see the other side. Was my mom thinking what I’m thinking now? You see, dear one, I know this scene. I’ve been where you’ve been. And I know what you don’t. How much more it will benefit you if I teach this lesson instead of acquiescing and teaching you another. I promise with all my heart, I get how this sucks. (no, she would never think the word “sucks”) I recognize the game. Though you might think you aren’t winning, you are with what this is cultivating: character.

There was great weeping and gnashing of teeth as her siblings started cartoons. More desperate pleas were tried without success. She made her brown-sugared toast. I poured some coffee.

“I want you to sit in the front room.”
“But I’m not watching.”
You know that look where you aren’t even weighing the options, you just mean what you said? I did that. It was awesome. “Go in the other room, please.”
Mighty stomping, crumbs flying.

We sat with the sun making stripes all around us. I didn’t check Facebook like I really, really wanted. Instead I engaged, surprising even myself.

“What are you going to be when you are grown up?”
“I have no idea.” She chews a bit. “I like art.”
“You are great at art.”
“I learned this thing at school where you hold some clay between two fingers and you stretch it.” She tips her chin and clanks the spoon against her teeth. (Yes, my children save extra brown sugar for scooping at the end.) However I’m more interested in the fact she’s telling me something I hadn’t heard yet. I always wonder how to pull these details out of them each day. Yank electronics and watch them bloom, I suppose.
“That’s cool. You could go to college for design or architecture.”
“I want to make a house with secret passageways and stuff.”
“I love that.”

Before I sense it, a connection is born and a morning is changed.
Who cares about homework? Not me.