Rylee

Today started as they have for the last 2 weeks and will continue for the next 9 months…the alarm goes off at 5:30, I wake Rylee up and I go back to bed for 30 minutes. I don’t normally go back to sleep, I just “rest”. Ok, well some days I might fall asleep. But then I’m up fixing my coffee, making sure he has everything he needs as he’s throwing a lunch together because planning ahead takes too much time. We need to leave the house by 6:30 to get him to school before class starts. I think it’s only happened twice. The first month of carline is always a learning process. Mostly learning how to be patient with the new people. Well, this year, I’m a new people because I’m trying to figure out the upper school carline process. If we leave the house…I’m talking going out the door at 6:30, I will be home at 7ish to do what I need to do to get ready. Like rushing around throwing a lunch together because planning a head takes too much time. Yep…the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Rylee is a great kid but he almost didn’t live through middle school. He didn’t want to do the work and almost didn’t pass. The problem is he’s so stinking smart it wouldn’t be a problem if he’d just apply himself. One day I asked him how it was going to feel next year when I dropped him off at the upper school and all his friends walked in the door but he’d have to walk around to the middle school because he “didn’t want to do the work”? I guess he thought about because he started applying himself and his grades did come up enough for him to pass 8th grade. I kinda feel bad for him because we don’t live in a neighborhood where there’s a bunch of kids to hang out with. He can’t go down the street and see his buddies. They live in Cornelius and Huntersville and Statesville and Davidson. It’s not like a neighborhood where all the kids go to school together and after homework and dinner meet back up to play games or whatever teens do these days. On top of that Rylee has had to grow up really fast this summer. With my diagnosis and my chemo treatments, Rylee had to take care of me while his dad was at work. The first week I just wanted ginger ale and he ran up to the gas station on the corner and bought me some. He made me toast or a sandwich or regulated the thermostat and he makes dinner a lot! What ever I needed, he did it without grumbling. He was at my first 2 chemo session and part of the 3rd session. He asked me if when school started he could take off the Mondays when I have chemo. I asked why and he said, “I just want to be there”. I was kinda surprised because it’s really boring! But it made me feel good that he cared enough to want to be there. Lol the answer of course was no. Terry told him he could be at my last treatment. When it’s over I get to ring the bell and that’s a big deal for us all!

Being a mom of a 14 year old at the age of 59 is not without its challenges. My older kids keep telling him he’s got it way better then they did. (I don’t agree) it’s just different! Rylee is ummm…very strong willed and opinionated! That Apple is not from my tree by the way! He can be very lazy. And as a mother my first instinct is to yell. It’s what my mother did and I did it to the older kids and I do it to him and he hates it. Mom. mom…MOM stop, he tells me but it’s already started. It makes me crazy when I ask him to do something and he doesn’t get up and do it. So I ask him again. Nope! So I yell! He’s like, why are you yelling, I’m going to do it. So I tell him in my time, not his and he’ll say, what difference does it make as long as I do it. My answer…because I’m the mom. Hmmm lame I know. That’s my story and I’m sticking too it!

It’s really a different place to be raising kids these days but I don’t know why! He tells me, I don’t like saying yes ma’am and no sir. I tell him tough beans! He does it but sometimes I think he just wants to buck the system a little. Like I said before, Rylee is a really good person with a heart of gold. I just wish we could get him to get his work done! He puts off until tomorrow what could be done today more often than not and THAT really makes me crazy! Boy Scout merit badges. I hate them. It’s like pulling teeth. But the other night as other boys were getting 2 or 3 or even 4, Rylee got 9. I was so proud of him. Maybe I need to tell him that more often!

This diagnosis has changed him. He’s becoming a young man and I’m really proud to call him my son!

I love you Rylee, you are a blessing to me!

Be blessed,

Diana aka mom

#standbyme