Sunday, August 30, 2009

Don't Take it So Personally

At one a.m., after a fairly decent evening for us, I awakened for one of my many nightly trips to the bathroom to hear a lot of noise coming from Ivan and Leon's room. They were talking to a girl, on speaker phone, which is totally not OK. These are the guys who I thought were doing what I asked of them all the time. I hate feeling like they haven't been all along and I just haven't caught them.

I was very frustrated with myself for not being able to go back to sleep and being so upset with them. Minor infraction, I've dealt with much worse. Stupid teenage behavior.

But sometimes I can't help but take it personally. We have gone out of our way to let Ivan move into our house without complaining. We have included him in every activity all summer and not received any financial help from anyone to do so. And so in order to not get his phone taken away, Leon relies on Ivan's phone to break family rules. And Ricardo, who is really supposed to be sleeping downstairs, has been given a break and allowed to sleep on the floor in their room because apparently he thinks he is too good to share a room with Jimmy and Tony. So to find them all, up far after bedtime, breaking a rule they know I care about (I think it is completely rude to be on the phone late at night --call me old fashioned) it just frustrated me.

So I had to talk myself down, remind myself that it really wasn't about me, and that it was a minor infraction. But I hate feeling deceived. It's definitely my pet peeve.

Just when I think I have something conquered, it comes back to haunt me. Again.

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