There’s a moment in Peter Pan, the one created in 2003, when Peter and Wendy are standing on the threshold of her nursery.

“Forget them, Wendy,” he whispers in her ear. “Forget them all. Leave the nursery, and you’ll never have to deal with grown up things forever.”

She smiles at him, wistfully. Downstairs, her parents are bounding the steps, racing upstairs after a panicked Nana alerted them that something was wrong.

“Forever,” she said with her small smile, “is an awfully long time.”

I write this now in frustrated wistfulness of wanting to escape from grown-up things and go back to being a kid. It’s been a long day, a long week, and an eternity of a month. And it’s only half over. Today was my meeting with my son’s teacher. After our talk last week, I figured that things had been better. We had really tried for things to go better. But little did I know, they weren’t better, and my son had actually been doing everything BUT trying. Wednesday morning he came to school without his homework. His library books are three weeks overdue. He never had his father sign his homework on the night he stayed with him. He had failed to tell me that he needed a nice suit for this Friday, something that is not in his closet and would have to be bought. And he also never told me about the book exchange he was having this Friday. I felt like a dummy as I stood there surprised. I was caught off guard. Things had seemed fine at home. But when I think of it now, I have been so busy at home that I may not have noticed that things were amiss. As we talked, I looked at my son in his ripped up jeans, grass stains covering his knees from his football game at recess, and his unkempt hair poking out from under his hat. And I wondered how his teacher was viewing us. Were we just another stereotypical broken home where the dad wasn’t quite there yet, and the mom was barely holding it together? Well, sometimes that sounds about right.

We left that meeting feeling dejected. My son was upset because he expected his teacher to say really good things about him. And I was upset because my son still didn’t get that he had to put in the effort to receive the praise. It made me ask him why we were even having these meetings in the first place, if all he expected was for his teacher to tell him he was doing a great job while he was still daydreaming in class and neglecting to take care of his responsibilities.

“There’s time to daydream after class. And you can goof off during recess with your friends. School is where you are supposed to be paying attention to your teacher and learning,” I told him, channeling my own mom when she was at her wit’s end with us. “I’m starting to feel like you don’t even care.” And he, already having been shut down after excuse after excuse as to why everyone else got in his way of acting responsibly, gave up and tuned me out. Needless to say, the lecture on responsibility went “really well” (insert sarcastic font here).

The subject was changed to his snowman that he had made for school. He brought it out and showed it to me. I was taken aback by the detail he had put into it, and it was obvious that he was very proud of it. The edges were embroidered together in precise stitches that were evenly spaced together. The shape of it wasn’t lopsided or skinny in parts, but was nice and fat and round. It had perfectly placed dots for buttons, a cut off tip from a sock for the hat, a “carrot” nose, and a wide smile. On a note that went with the gift, my son told me that this was a gift for the whole family, but he asked if he could keep it in his room.

“Son, this is awesome!” I told him. “You put so much detail into this!”

We stopped at the Salvation Army on our way to the grocery store. It was the teacher’s suggestion, and I had bristled at it. But being that I was down to my last scraps of money and still needed to go grocery shopping, I could think of no better place to buy an outfit he would only wear once. Luck would have it, however, that we found a sports jacket that was just his size in navy blue. We quickly found a matching shirt and tie, and with a little bit of searching, some pants to match. I had him try everything on and he looked smashing. He grinned as several people commented on how handsome he was. I brought the clothes to the counter, and with no shame left in me I asked the clerk to ring it all up one by one in case I needed to put anything back. My bank account was that close…. Luckily it was only a $1 less than my limit should be. My son commented on how cheap everything was, how we should shop there more often. I just breathed a sigh of relief.

While the Salvation Army was pleasant, the grocery store was a little more trying. We shopped aisle by aisle, strictly keeping to the list. At least I was….

“Mom, can I get this pack of donuts?” my son asked.

“No.”

“How about this? Can I get this Hostess cupcake?”

“No.”

“What about goldfish?”

“No, son. It’s not on the list. And they are too expensive.”

He spent the rest of the trip asking for things as I repeatedly told him no. And when he wasn’t asking, he was sulking about even being there in the first place. I ignored him as he collapsed in the aisles, cried sitting between the toilet paper packages, and whined about how many items were left to get. Another sigh of relief was breathed as we walked out of the store, and my boy was suddenly full of life again.

Once home, he had several instructions he needed to follow before he could play. He had to do his homework SLOWLY so that it was legible, he had to find his missing library books, he had to pack up for his dad’s house, and he had to finish his essay on his weekly quote. He got as far as whipping out his homework before he was on his video games. I reminded him about his clothes, book, and essay. He got his clothes out and went back to playing. Then I reminded him again about the books. He spent a half hour, much of it crying, trying to find the books.

“Can I just take a shower?” he asked. “I just want to relax.” As if making dinner and putting groceries away while keeping on top of him was much more relaxing….. More arguing ensued as I reminded him about the quote. You know what? Words just don’t do this justice. Here’s a video of my precious little one and the scene that kept playing on repeat tonight:

Homework Troubles Video

Frustrated, my son finally sat down to do his essay. He wanted help from me, but my suggestions weren’t up to par. He decided to write the whole thing himself.

Quote: “The impossible is often untried.” Jim Goodwin
Essay: One day I was about to clean my room and I thought it was so hard that I thought it was impossible. It had blankets, toys, clothes, food, dirt, rocks, cards, and shoes all over the place. I moaned and groaned and sighed. “Oh how on earth will I this done?” I yelled, and said, “I can’t do it!” No one answered. Then I cleaned my room until it was spotless. There is a silver lining to cleaning up. You will find your toys that you lost, or you will make the people you live with very happy and they will think you’re very respectful and responsible. This quote means that you need to try things for them to be impossible or possible.

There are times when I want to be whisked away to Never Never Land, to escape the land of money troubles, teacher conferences, writing checks at the grocery store against a paycheck two days away, my messy home, my arguing children, responsibilities, bills, obligations, time that is slipping away faster than I can use it….. But then I’d miss all the good stuff, things like laughing with two younger versions of me who know me the best, having pride in maintaining a home all on my own, goodnight hugs and kisses every night before bed, cheery felt snowmen, and reading with pride (and tears in my eyes) a piece of writing that was done without any help from me and with more insight than I even knew they possessed. Yes, Never Never Land can feel inviting. But like Wendy says, forever is an awfully long time.

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