My 16 year old got a "tardy" notice for one of her classes yesterday. I had to sign off on it. When I asked why she was tardy, she informed me that she had stopped at a machine to get a bottle of water.  Grrrr!

See, usually such occurances would not be a huge concern. However, one day, just before Spring Break last month, I got a call saying she had cut 2 classes one day. Lord knows I never cut classes in high school...yeah right.  Finally when confronted, oh, and this has been verified, she confessed to hanging out for an hour and a half at her friend's house.

So of course, because of these two instances, on the way home from school in the car, her future flashed before me. My ire rising quickly, in my mind, within ONE MINUTE, I see her travelling down a slippery slope and immediately envision her destitute in a crack-house. Because I'm a mom. We can do that. It's a magical, mystery tour of doom whenever your kid messes up, because this could be "the big one".

Pole vaulting over rat shit, my middle daughter Linda calls it. I, am an Olympic champion. You may call it, making mountains out of mole hills, but I like the pole vaulting analogy because I'm originally from New Mexico and we had no moles.

Anyhoo, I digress. I do that. I'm a mom. (Yes, I use that excuse alot.)

I started yelling at her. 'I can't believe you did this! What was the emergency? Had all the fountains gone dry? Your job is to go to school, go to all your classes and get  there on TIME!'

Scarlett, sitting next to me, staring, with her mouth twisted in that teenaged way they do, then says the wrong thing.  "Mom, it was no big deal! You are making such a big deal out of this!"

Oh, no, you didn't.

Then it hit me.  I spent two hours talking about this during the Buddhist group I host on Sundays. Precisely this. I sat in my living room and spoke of a sermon that Joel Osteen gave that very morning on not "Making Mountains Out Of Mole Hills". (He's in Texas, I assume they have moles there. But I do digress, yet again.)  I titled my little "speech" that day, "Pole Vaulting Over Rat Shit".  I spoke to the group about the Dalai Lama having to work out the fact that he still gets angry, not sweating the small stuff, (we DO sweat in New Mexico) and not letting anger live in you, and let go of it if it isn't important, bla, bla, bla.

I lived up to my own words for exactly 46 hours.

Because that's what we humans do. We know things, but practicing what we "preach" is the ridiculously hard part. It's a process, I grant you, but seriously, 46 hours?!

So, as usually happens when we "over react", "make mountains", etc., "pole vault", I had to eat delicious crow. Yum, so tasty.  This morning, "Ok, here's the thing, Scarlett. While I absolutely don't want you cutting classes or being tardy, I want to apologize for over reacting yesterday. I really did make a big deal out of it, and I'm sorry. But, I honestly do not want you to ever do it again!"

And Scarlett said, "God mom, you're still thinking about THAT!"

Here I go! Hand me that pole.

 Sending Love, Light and Laughter,

Star