A Battle of Wills

Are you kidding me? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

I admit it. Over the years I have made many New Year's resolutions. And, yes, I have not always followed through with them. For example, a few years ago I resolved to achieve a somewhat ambitious goal--I resolved to invent the sarcastic font. My sarcastic font was basically applying bold, italic, underline and strike through on the the same sarcastic word or phrase. It never really took off as I had hoped...maybe because it was time consuming. Or because it was confusing. Or because I was too late. There seems to be an official sarcastic font movement already online.

Anyway, that's why for this year I vowed to choose something a little easier to achieve. Something closer to home. Something more appropriate for a mother of three testing-the-boundaries-while-Dad-is-on-a-business-trip teenage sons.

My goal for this year was to try to be a more patient parent and to do a better job picking my battles.

And, apparently, tonight is a Battle of Wills. Oh, yeah son, it's on.

I'm no Tiger Mom. But I'm no Mousy Mom either.

Breathe. Breathe. Count to 10 in English.

"Honey," I said to my middle son as I sat across the table from him. I decided it would be best to begin the discussion with a positive comment. "First, I would like to thank you for your punctuality. When I called everyone for dinner, you were already sitting at the table. I really appreciate that. Second, I would like to applaud you on a great year in your strength training class. Clearly you have been working hard. Well done..."

I took a deep breath.

"However, although never verbally expressed, I grant you, we do have some fundamental dinnertime rules in this family beyond punctuality. For example, during family dinner, we are all supposed to share about our day. We all need to be polite and help clean up. We all turn off our smart phones. And....and... I never really thought I would have to remind you of this...another rule is that we all come to dinner with a shirt on. There are no shirtless suppers in this house."

Breathe in. Breath out.

"There are many reasons. First, of all, it's disrespectful. Second, it's distracting and unsanitary. You are passing around platters of food for goodness sake. I don't want any of your...your beach body in my Caesar salad. Come on! Third, it's Sloppy Joe Sunday. Sloppy Joe Sunday. It's sloppy. You might burn something."

Patience. Patience. Count to 10 in Japanese.

"I am not asking for much. I am not asking that you wear formal attire, although a top hat, monocle and bow tie would be an improvement. I am just asking that you come to dinner with a shirt on. OK, son? A shirt. Just so we are clear:  there's a new dinner time ruling: everyone comes to dinner wearing a shirt. We all just have to face the facts that we are all too old for topless time."

Breathe.

"Any questions?'

"Um, Mom," my youngest son leaned over to me. "I have a question."

"Yes," I said as I inspected my forkful of salad. "What is it?"

"Just wondering," he said as he surreptitiously pointed to his older brother. "Do you have a dinner time ruling on pants?"

I looked back at my middle son and bellowed:
"Are you kidding me? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  YOU ARE NOT WEARING PANTS?"

So much for my patience resolution.
At least I made it to June.