The Chart of Emotions

You learn a lot when cleaning out your son's room. It's like sitting in a dark smelly room of history. One of the first things I found was a half coke bottle in a bag full of empty knife boxes where we had been to the Smokey Mtns 6 weeks ago!! HISTORY. I waited until he left before I attempted the overwhelming task of ridding the room of pure garbage. You see, he's almost a full-blown hoarder. He finds purpose in keeping trash....he might need the used bottle of water. I mean what if the room caught on fire and he needed to put it out quickly right?


As I walk around with my garbage sack, filling it full of unmentionables, untouchables, etc., I see something under his chest of drawers that catches my eye. It was a laminated school project I had never seen before...apparently from 7th grade (he's in 8th). At first, I smile at his chart of ...whatever. Apparently his math teacher made them draw out, and graph things in their past, both good and bad. If you look at the scoring system, the positives are in the first quadrant where the numbers are also positives. The lower end show things he didn't like...

As you may or not be able to tell, getting his Xbox, a phone, etc, ranked waaay up there while a first grade paddling, dead dog, etc, was way at the bottom. Understandable. But take a closer look...

If you look just above the neighbor dying and just below Grounded Forever....you'll see that I made his chart...terribly singing Mama???? How did that happen? And did I mention......THIS IS LAMINATED!!! Thanks guy, I appreciate it. The only thing worse than my singing is death and he'd rather be grounded forever than listen to me sing.