I'm New York City

twenty five

"Ivy, come here please," I called out from the kitchen. I had just gotten off the phone with Joe who received a call from Ivy's school. Apparently they've been trying to reach us for a while now, but with our busy schedules and traveling, I never got to pick up their calls. 

"Yeah?" Ivy asked, walking into the kitchen. She held onto her pickle ball paddle, getting ready to go outside. 

"Why did you dad just get a call from your school?" I asked, wanting to know if she knew what they had already told us. 

Ivy shrugged her shoulders and by that I could tell her whole mood had shifted when she placed her paddle onto the counter. 

"Why haven't you been paying attention in your class? Your teacher said that you haven't been focusing in class and you've been goofing off with your classmates. You know better than that, Ivy," I told her, with a disappointed look on my face. 

"If this continues, I'm going to take you out of all of your activities if you can't pay attention in your class," I said sternly. Ivy looked up, with a shocked expression, probably not expecting me to say that.

I wanted my kids to focus in their classes, no matter what grade they were in, I wanted them to be good in school. I never focused them to get perfect scores or to be over achievers, but I didn't expect them tog oof off and let their studies go to waste. With Ivy having stuff to do outside of her classes, I expected her to be able to keep up with also focusing on class time because she is the one that wanted to be in all of those. 

"But Mom, you can't! I'm smart, I do good on all of my assignments!" she whined, making me shake my head.

"I know you're smart, but I didn't raise you to be a disturbance in your class. I know it's bad because your own teacher had to tell me about it, you can't do that," I told her. 

I didn't have this problem when Sage attended school. Sage was more on the shy side and would never do anything like this, she kept up with all of her work and always stayed on her teacher's good sides. Ivy on the other hand, she's always been in school, made friends easily in her classes and wasn't afraid to try anything new.

"When we go back home, I want you to apologize to your teacher and we will also give her a gift. Take off your pickleball attire, you're not practicing today," I stated. I watched as her face fell, looking down at her feet as Sage walked in behind her. Ivy stomped her feet, but didn't say a word as she walked out of the kitchen. 

Sage looked at me with a confused look on her face. "Just got a call from her school," I sighed, making her nod her head. Sage was also dressed to go out and play pickleball, but since she realized Ivy wasn't going to practice, she changed as well. 

When Ivy came back down, I told her to go sit on the couch and read for at least thirty minutes before she could do anything else. I hated doing this to her, but she needed to learn and this was the consequence. 

"Sage, babe?" I called, walking into her room. Sage sat at her desk, with Netflix on, on her laptop while she was on her phone. 

"What are you doing?" I asked as she looked up at me. 

"I'm texting Lily and James," she said, looking back at her phone. I felt bad that the three haven't seen each other in a while, but James was on a family vacation as well and Lily had been busy in school since she joined so many clubs. 

I looked around her room, looking at her shelves, staring at Piggy who was proudly displayed at the very top next to my 22 hat. I smiled, thinking of that very moment and than thought about all of the times that Sage had freaked out if Piggy wasn't by her side.