I plaited Edda’s hair this morning. First summer ‘do – all the hair up off the neck, tightly constrained.
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In a probably unwise parenting move, I had signed Vince up to take his first SAT this morning right after the Kendrick Lamar concert. (He got home at 1 am, Maxi barked her head off waking us all up, he had a great time. There were lots of people smoking pot, but not him.) This is primarily a baseline SAT which is discretionary, and I kind of hinted that maybe he could skip it earlier in the week, but on Wed, he was like – no, I’m up for it. It was a slightly different story when I tried to nudge him awake at 7 am. I signed him up for it in the wake of all our college trips this spring. I will admit that this spring was tough for me (and Vince) college-wise and figuring out what kind of parent I want to be through this whole college admission process. I have the stereotypical Asian-mom in me and I could see it coming out in many ways this spring to the detriment of my relationship with Vince. A lot of college admission is wrapped up in my own ego – where the status of the college can be a quick shorthand for how excellent of a parent I am. And, of course, I want to be the most excellent parent. It’s also wrapped up in the fact that I get to do it only once, when I thought I would get to do the whole thing twice. So I had to take many, many steps back and take a look at what I wanted to do the last two years I get to parent Vince at home. I know what I want to do, I know what things I want to show him, I know the relationship I want between us. Of course, one would think that I could calmly do this, but it is not true.
Jeremy & I sat in the car waiting for him to finish the exam. We thought we’d take him out to lunch to celebrate. Maybe celebrate isn’t the right word.
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Vince was tired and just wanted to head on home, so we dropped him off and went to our neighbor’s house where he was hosting a common cause gathering. A short speech by Jamie Raskin, our rep. And I ate a lot of BBQ pulled pork.
