In Which I Realize How Boring I Am Without All My Children
August 27, 2009
We walked into the house this morning. Miles let out a big deep sigh.
No one is here. It’s just me and you.
Yup, day three and the novelty of being home all alone with me has worn off.
This is so booooorrrrrrring.
I may have to do that thing… what is it callled? Play?
*****
My daughter has already come home with a party invitation. For this weekend. Doesn’t that seem like awfully short notice? I wonder if it would be okay to give the child some leftover spiral notebooks and book covers, because the very idea of having to step into a store and purchase ONE MORE THING might kill me.
*****
This is what morning of Day Three of school looks like. It is decidedly less chipper and more cranky. Yes, my child is resting his head on his cereal bowl. But at least he has on clothes today.
I know everyone reading is probably like, WE GET IT, YOUR KIDS GO TO SCHOOL NOW. Enough with the school talk. But honestly, it is either talk about school or my continuing efforts to unpack my house. I am down to boxes that I just don’t know what to do with. They are filled with completely random items… power cords! puzzle pieces! box of tampons!
*****
Okay, Miles has requested that I bring him to IKEA. He wants one of those 50 cent ice cream cones or maybe a cinnamon bun, he hasn’t decided. And honestly, I can not think of any good reason to say no, other than going into a store might just kill me, an excuse that Miles refuses to believe. So off to IKEA it is. I hope I make it out alive.
Internet, I am going to tell you a secret. Something that will make you feel much better about your parenting today.
I sent my child to school today in his pajamas.
Not on purpose.
He had clothes laid out to wear. A cute new vans t-shirt and some shorts. Somehow he never put them on. And I never noticed. Until we were standing at the bus stop and I saw the bus rounding the corner. I looked over at my kids to make my mental note about what they are wearing. (Am I the only one who does this? So that in case they go missing I will be able to tell the police what they have on?)
What should I do, I briefly, oh so very briefly, asked myself.
Then I let him get on the bus.
In all fairness his pajamas were elastic waist shorts and a t-shirt that is on the small side and relegated to the “play” clothes pile. So it isn’t like he was getting on the bus in footie pajamas. But still. They were rumpled and mismatched. Day two of school, already a parenting FAIL.
So I baked a cake. I am trying to skew his memories. Hopefully they will remember me as being a much more adept mother than I really was. They don’t have to know that the cake came from a mix. Just like my son will never know that one day in third grade he went to school in his pajamas.
The kids all came home from school shouting their stories over each other. I really am not certain anymore what the hell they actually did all day since most of the stories seemed to involve non schooly things, like earning tickets for behaving. I still have no voice, as in no voice AT ALL above a whisper so I really couldn’t ask that many questions.
I would like to say that I am embracing the silence and learning to listen to my inner voice, you know all the new age crap. But really alll I have learned is that I like to talk. A LOT. And that gesticulating wildly does not have the same effect on my children as shouting. Also, my charades skills can use some work.
What did Miles and I do? We watched vintage Sesame Street videos on youtube. We made miis. And then watched the miis march in a parade over and over again. We tidied up the house. He was never more than two steps behind me at any given point during the day.
We baked cookies.
But don’t be too impressed they are the kind that you buy for fundrasiers and are already made and frozen into tiny discs . So I literally baked them and that was it.
But the kids don’t seem to care either way.
My 10 year old son insisted that he was not tired. Not one little bit! This is him on the way to football practice, moments after he had declared he was NOT TIRED SO STOP ASKING HIM THAT. Ah yes, that is the look of wide awake right here.
I can not believe the amount of paperwork I got home yesterday. Holy crap, I apologize to my fututre grandchildren for the complete lack of forests in the future. All the trees were chopped down to send home endless IDENTICAL notices.
I filled everything out. Stuck it all back in their folders and backpacks. Wrote out checks, this free public education has become very pricey.
My 8th grade son had homework. For himself AND ME. Two teachers had questionaires with getting to know your child type questions. Which is all well and good except when said child is being a royal pain in the ass and I am tempted to just scrawl across the entire paper GOOD LUCK.
Elementary School Kids, who were up at o’dark thirty so great was their excitement. They are going to be exhausted tonight.
Off to the bus stop. The boys told me that wearing your backpack on your back is not cool. Apparently it is much cooler to just drag it along, banging into your leg, on the crook of your elbow. I mean, doesn’t it just look cool?
Middle School. They don’t have a bus. Today they got a ride to school, but usually they will be riding their bikes.
The Thinker. Probably thinking about food, girls, and football. Most likely in that order. It is also not cool to tie your shoes tight so that they actually STAY ON YOUR FEET.
Mom? You aren’t going to come take photos at the bus stop, are you?
What if I just quietly hide in the bushes and take photos? Would that be okay?
Miles and I walked back in the house. I had wondered if he would be upset that everyone was gone. He looked up at me:
Finally! It’s just me and you!
He has big plans. So far he has eaten breakfast with cookies for dessert. Played wii, doing all the annoying things that drive his siblings crazy, like making endless miis and quitting mid-game. And jumped on the couch. I hope he paces himself it is only 9:25. We have lots of hours to kill.
So Friday we got to go to the school, drop off all of the school supplies that we had to purchase*, and see their classrooms. It was an exciting time.
My 10 year old knows three boys in his class, one who is a friend from the neighborhood, one from his football team, and one from god only knows where because this child is a social butterfly and everyone knows him.
My 8 yr old knows no one in his class, but his teacher seems fabulous. And the very best part? I was briefly giving her a heads up that my son is struggling with reading and that at this point I am thinking he has some type of dyslexia. I told her this just to let her know when they cracked open those textbooks he was not going to be able to read them. She said that her classroom has a special ed reading teacher assigned to it because two of the kids in her classroom have services. So the teacher is there in her classroom all day, everyday. She is going to start him working with this teacher on the first day.
My baby girl? She was thrilled to see her name tag on a desk and sit in her chair. She is still nervous.
So tomorrow morning I will be sending them all off on the school bus, their little lunch boxes in hand. Everyone keeps asking if I am going to be sad. Am I going to miss them?
I anticipate that Miles and I will sort of look at each other and wander around the house aimlessly for a little bit. But the time will fill itself and before you know it the time will come for the bus to bring them home. And all those extra hours that I thought I would have to solve world hunger, work for peace, or finally get caught up on the laundry will have been frittered away.
But today I will be running around. Securing last minute school supplies and getting my 7th grader the last immunization he needs. Thank God for the numerous free immunization clinics here. Our pediatrician only does immunizations one day our of the week, when the moon is full, and the breeze is blowing the right way. Apparently TX decided to have extra requirements for incoming K and 7th graders. And I am more than a little peeved* that no one mentioned this to me when I registered them for school months and months ago and now I have to run around like a crazy person today so that he can attend school tomorrow.
Have I mentioned here that I am more than a little sick myself? I have belabored my illness endlessly over at twitter** I have NO voice. At all. Six days ago I began losing my voice and it sounded, according to Susan, “sexy, raspy.” Well it quickly moved to 10 pack a day smoker, then to Tom Waits, then to pubescent boy whose voice is changing***, and finally to not much more than a whisper. I am on a bunch of drugs. So far? No voice. I have some funny no voice stories too.
I would insert some photos of everyone in their new classrooms and my 7th grader looking panicked, but who the hell has time for that today.
*Much MUCH more than a little peeved.
** if you want to follow me on twitter(@chrisjordan) do so at your own risk. I will go for months with out writing anything and then suddenly it is all mucus all the time.
*** I had to sing the Brady Bunch song a few times during this period to amuse my sick self. Remember that episode when the Brady Bunch kids made a record? but Peter’s voice was changing and he kept messing up the song. So they wrote a new song? “When it’s time to change…”
Yesterday my fabulous neighborhood got even more fabulous. I know. How can it possibly be? I feel like I have stepped into some freaky Norman Rockwell like universe.
Yesterday my younger children’s elementary school teachers stopped by the house on a “welcome walk.” It is the time when the kids find out who their teacher is for this school year. It is a much anticipated visit. With the amount of excitement in the neighborhood you would think that Santa Claus himself was coming to visit.
Kids were riding their bikes up and down the streets, going to their friends’ houses to tell them which teacher they got. The names of teachers seen driving around the neighborhood were shouted out like celebrity sightings.
My 8 and 10 yr old boys along with their friends decided to mark this occassion by having a huge water ballooon fight in the front yard so that when their teachers came they were dripping wet and the lawn was littered with popped balloons. Add to this the bad laryngitis that I have which makes me sound like a 10 pack a day smoker and well, I fear we were that “special” family.
My daughter’s teacher was the last one to come. She had sat patiently waiting, scanning each car that drove by the house.
Are you excited to meet your teacher?
Yes…
Mama?
Hmmmmm?
But what if she is mean?
She won’t be mean, sweetie. I think it is a rule that 1st grade teachers have to be nice.
But what if she doesn’t like me?
Not like you? That is crazy talk! There is not one thing about you not to like!
Finally her teacher arrived.
So what do you think now?
I think I like her, Mama.
Tonight we get to go to the school and see their classrooms. And lay to rest their fears that they will get lost in the school and be forced to wander aimlessly through the corridors for the rest of their lives.
1) I had never been to a skate park. I had no idea what it was like. My children had been numerous times with their friend and there was never any mention of helmets or danger or 12 ft drops.
2) It just never even occurred to me to have them wear helmets. Before we left that morning I turned to them in the car and said, “Should you bring helmets?” and they all scoffed that they only have bike helmets and you don’t wear bike helmets to skateboard. And furthermore, no one wears helmets at the skatepark. Okay.
3) At the skate park there were at least 30 other kids there. Not one had on a helmet, or any other protective gear. My kids were not lying about that. So I am not the only “negligent” parent. There were also several adults and the only one with any protective gear was the man I mentioned in the post. Which brings me to…
4) I did not write that the man needed a valium because he was wearing protective gear. I wrote he needed a valium because he was totally hyper and talked really loudly and well, he was just strange.
5) My kids were not dropping in on the 12ft drop, thank you baby jesus. They are still waaaaay to inexperienced to attempt that. The last photo of my 8 yr old balancing on the edge with his skateboard is only about a 2- 3ft drop with a much gentler slope. Frankly at the level of skating they are I am more worried about them breaking their wrists.
6) I have nothing against helmets. My boys will be getting some skate helmets if they think they are going back to that park. And that fact has nothing at all do do with being chastized on the internet.
I’ll be back later to tell you all about back to school shopping (kill me, now), picking up schedules and textbooks at the middle school for my middle schoolers (really, I am begging you to just shoot me), and the elementary school teacher visit that is happening tonight (clearly this will be the highlight of my day).
My boys have been begging me to bring them to the skate park for awhile. So yesterday I decided to bring them and one of their friends.
Because 100 degree sunny weather, a gigantic reflective surface, and skateboards go perfect together. If you are a boy. Or the one overly enthusiastic grown man wearing full body protective gear. For those of you who have ever watched The Office, imagine Michael Scott in full protective gear at a skate park and you will have the perfect visual image of this guy. I felt like I should slip him a valium.
The skating area is much larger and steeper than I had imagined. I stood on the edge of the bowl and looked down and felt a little bit of vertigo. Along with that feeling that my body was just going to jump, completely out of my control.
My 8 yr old told me that when you balance your skateboard on the edge and then tip and go over the side that it is called “dropping in.” I think that makes it seem way more civilized than it really is. I can’t help but think that the term was invented by some kid telling his mother was he was doing on his skateboard. Because skating over the edge of a 12 foot straight drop does not have the same ring to it.
If I had known that there were SCORPIONS I might not have moved here. At least mice don’t look like prehistoric cockroaches, nor do they hide just waiting to attack you.
There is only so much that good neighbors, ice cream trucks, and sunny weather can make up for.
1) The house we bought is right around the corner from the one we had been living in. The kids did not want to leave the neighborhood, and after moving them half way across the country how could I not honor that? I didn’t want to leave it either.
Honestly, how could you leave this neighborhood?
I have created a visual aid, using my mad photoshop skillz. I was tempted to say that Miles created this masterpiece, but I am all about keeping (mostly) real.
The rectangles are houses. And 150 steps is the distance walking around on the sidewalk, not hopping over the fence and cutting through the neighbors yard. The people that we used to share a backyard fence with, we now look at the front of their houses. I am thinking that the elderly old man who lived directly behind us was ECSTATIC that we were moving out… until he realized that we were moving directly in front of him. Now he can hear AND see us.
2) I moved all of the Christmas stuff out of my kitchen. But not to the attic… SCORPIONS MIGHT LIVE THERE! Also, numerous emails told me that the heat would ruin my stuff. I moved all the boxes to the closet in my “office” which right now is just a repository for random things for which I need to find a home. This is unlike the foyer and formal living room which are currently holding boxes of crap I would like to just set on fire. Because once I go through them I think I still need that crap. But I don’t.
3) I am tired. The kind of tired that goes right down to your bones and is not relieved by a good nights sleep. Not that I ever sleep well anyway. It is ironic that now when all of my children sleep through the night that I can’t sleep. But between unpacking boxes, getting the kids all ready for school, driving them all over hells half acre to their various activities, buying school stuff, cooking meals that no one even wants to eat, doing piles upon piles of smelly laundry, convincing a certain 8 yr old that he really does need to wear socks with his sneakers, well, I need a vacation. A sleep vacation. A sleepcation.
4) When I was in Chicago Melissa bought me a copy of the 30Day Shred. Her and Susan were both going to do it and wanted me to be tortured also. My stomach muscles are non-existent these days. I am not even sure how I am able to hold my body upright. It has been three weeks and I have not yet opened the package. I have, however, bought athletic shorts, an athletic tank top, hand weights, and new socks. This week I hope to remove the shrink wrap from the package. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.
5) About sending the kids to school. Wow this is a long one. But to summarize everyone wants to go. I am ready for them to go. I have always said that I take it year by year. The schools here are excellent and there really is no reason for them not to try it out. It is time.
6) Buying lunches at school are expensive! As in, it is pretty much out of the question. I can’t afford to spend that amount of money everyday. Hello sucky economy, house that will not sell, and dwindling freelance income. Yes, I was let go from yet another of my freelance writing jobs. I am repeating the mantra that something else will come along. But I am having a hard time believing it right now.
7) Wow, I don’t want to end this post on such a downer note. So here is a funny video. At least I thought it was. I bought the kids to McDonald’s last week when we moved and the gas was still not hooked up to cook. Yes, let’s pretend that is the sole reason why I found myself at McDonalds on a Sunday night.
When we got up to the counter, before I could even order, Miles did this little chant to the kid who was working there. The employee was entirely not impressed. But I thought it was funny enough that I made Miles do it again while we waited for our food. Food which did not live up to its “fast food” reputation.
Also, notice his black eye… he ran right into the kitchen counter. He told everyone who asked that he had a fight with the counter, and lost.
