Jalapeno

Jalapeño

Jalapeno is my niece. She moved in with me when she was 17, she, at the time had a 1-year-old we will call tooter. Jalapeño was still in high school. Jalapeño had down pat being a good mom. There were a few things Jalapeno was not good at. Cooking, I think maybe she could make ramen in the microwave, that is rather impressive I suppose. Communication, you could hear every swear word known to man by the look on her face. Basically, there were a lot of things I was going to have to teach her. One thing I did not expect to have to teach her was English. Jalapeno was not getting the best grades. She may or may not have taken advantage of the fact that I was not real attentive. My fault. I however cannot remember if my parents ever asked me if my homework was done or how school was going. Not an excuse, I should have been more attentive. Jalapeno always sat at the kitchen table, I think maybe she was afraid of me. It was late in the evening when she told me she had an F in English. I said, “you have a what?? How do you have an F in English? Ok, well, I cannot be too mad, it isn’t like she is blowing it off. She was a rather odd teenager. Yes, she had a child, however had she EVER asked me, she could have gone and done whatever within reason. We all make choices that we wish maybe we had waited to make. Did I mention she was and is a good mom? I think the part that she was afraid of me kept her from ever asking. She needs help writing a paper that is due tomorrow. So thankful she gave me plenty of notice so that we did not have to stay up all night. I am trying to help her fumble through this. She would write a little, I would proofread, and half of the words were spelled wrong. At first, I thought she was either nervous or tired. I politely corrected her. It is well after midnight; my eyes are burning something terrible. Ok, just let me write the paper, my goodness the sun is going to be coming up soon.

 If Jalapeno was going to be later than normal because she needed to get gas or she talked to the babysitter longer than usual, she would always message me and let me know. She was a good and respectful teenager, at least to me. Jalapeño sent me a message that afternoon telling me she was sapose to stop by her mom’s house. You read that right, sapose. I looked back through my messages and my word; she has always spelled it like that. A long with many other misspelled words. I would imagine I was in tip top shape after spending the night helping her write her paper/writing it for her. I don’t think I even responded. It is all making sense to me now. Jalapeno comes home and she asked me if I got her message. I said Jalapeno, what exactly is sapose? I sounded it out just as she has spelled it. She looked at me like I was the crazy one, (she wasn’t wrong). I said Jalapeno, English is our first and only language, doesn’t your smart phone have that word underlined in red? She said no, what are you talking about. I said oh my goodness you are so dumb that you made your smart phone dumb. No worries, she did not crawl in a corner and cry. We managed to get her graduated, it was not the easiest task, but she did it. Jalapeno also turned into quite the cook as well. Jalapeno moved out just a few years ago. She was not in a rush to fly the coop. She is all grown up now, married and expecting her second child. Tooter is now 9. I sure do miss those days. Even though it was a hard adjustment for both of us, we made it. She is still a good mom as well as a good person. I am proud of that kid!

Today’s lessonmaybe don’t have the same approach to address learning the English language with the smart phone as I did with jalapeño. I could have been a little gentler about it.  Be attentive, every day that passes, is a day you cannot ever get back. Teenage pregnancy happens, no, it is not ideal, it does not mean they are bad kids, it means maybe they did not fully think through consequences of actions. They are kids, it happens it is not the end of the world. With the right amount of support and a touch of independence, it doesn’t have to completely alter the course of their lives. It absolutely makes it more challenging; I was 40 and it was a challenge for me. Help them through it, allow them to be kids themselves occasionally, they have their entire lives to be an adult. Stay tuned for more Jalapeno and tooter stories. To da loo!