Not really. But nearly. And quite frankly this 1st grade year has been so dismal already that I feel absolutely no desire to relive it thru my fingertips on the keyboard. Nor do I feel the need to do so, as I have done my fair share of bitching and moaning to everyone who will listen, including my unfortunately over-friendly bank tellers.
So the highlights (or, more accurately, the low-lights – which reminds me… that I got my hair cut last week. By a man who had a better head of curls than any woman I know. He insisted that my hair color is all wrong and that I really need to make it a little darker to match my complexion. I explained to the pockmarked, crooked-teeth’ed, chin-and-eyebrow-pierced probable drag queen, that I really like my hair color, but that as my tan has faded a bit I do realize that I should make my hair a little darker. Soon. When I am really and truly ready to look like total winter crap and have zero self-esteem left. But he went on and on. And on. About the chocolates I should add and the lowlights and highlights. And when a client walked by with foils in her hair to make the top of her head match the sooty grey-green locks that hung down her back, I vowed I would never again be insulted when the professionals ask me, “You do your own color, don’t you?).
Anyway, where was I? Yes, our wonderful week. Let’s start at the beginning. At least as far back as I am willing to recall. (These weeks are LONG!) Monday. Right. I think that was the morning my mom had to drive my almost-ex and me downtown for a court date. He was a nervous wreck, which made me the calm one. I don’t think I did much after that. I hate going downtown so that zapped my umph for the day. In the afternoon Sailor and Mac and went to tap. Except Sailor didn’t want to go to tap. He wanted to scream and cry and make an enormous fuss. That lasts most of the class. When he does finally get his tap shoes back on and rejoin the class he taps only a short while before wetting his pants and most of the dance floor. Which I have to clean up with those brown paper towels that are truly more suitable for writing stories on. Then we try to pay for Mac to take the class but after 15 minutes I get fed up with the office girl’s inability to do math. Somewhere between the dance class and home we lose Mac’s lunch box. The new Spiderman one. With the $15 Spiderman thermos inside.
Sailor throws no fewer than 5 tantrums on Tuesday. It's a fun day. All day. I shoe-shop, but come home empty-handed, while Sailor is at school. I pick up Mac. Which, instead of being the highlight of my day, turns out to be the absolute low point of the entire past month. All over chocolate milk. Which Mac want. In a box, not from Starbucks, after school. My boys love Starbucks as much as I do. So he cries. I lose it. Completely. “Are you actually bitching at me for wanting to do something nice for you and take you to Starbucks?!” He keeps crying. I am incredulous.
We turn a corner, both physically and emotionally. “Can’t I ever do anything right for you kids?!” I scream. Have I mentioned that at this point I have lost all control? Right. I have. Mac starts to cry. And he takes my hand and we walk all the way home this way. I give him the box of chocolate milk I have in my bag for Sailor. But then we have to stop home for another for Sailor so that I don’t have to listen to yet another fuss on the way home from preschool. I want this day to get better. But at preschool Sailor runs right into Mac’s arms and completely ignores me!
I am beside myself and drop my ungrateful offspring with my parents. I am on the phone seaking solace from one of my best friends when my mom comes up. She wants to take me for coffee. I know I am the worst mother ever.
Mac gives exhaustion as his reason for his unfortunate behavior. I give the fact that I have realized we’ve been unhappy for 4 weeks as the reason for mine. Sailor gives his personality as his.
Wednesday morning we putter. I have no energy to prod the boys to get ready quickly. I am still reeling from last night and Mac remains upset as well. We spend long minutes just hugging and trying to fill the space between us with love and understanding. Sometimes being a mom feels a bit like being a wife. Except the (little) guy is, thankfully, much more understanding and forgiving. Sailor won’t get dressed, and I truly want to keep Mac with me today, so I don’t insist on anything. We arrive at school some time after 9:00. Mac is given a tardy pass and I am told he is to walk upstairs to his classroom. Alone. I am more than a little unsettled by the office lady’s tone. So I ignore her completely and acquiesce when Mac says he is scared and wants me to walk him up. He is 6. He is small. He has never been late to school before. (And he will never be late again, after this experience.) We are almost to the 2nd floor when we are stopped. I have been followed. I am told parents cannot be on the classroom floors. I tell her, in no uncertain terms, that Mac is MY CHILD! And that "you people can’t keep telling me what to do with him!" It is a beautiful moment of how not to behave at your child’s school in front of your child. I offer Mac the option of coming home with me. He declines. I kiss him and Sailor and I leave. I am sobbing. Sailor is as furious as I am. “Those people owe you a serious apology for making you cry, Mommy!”
I find out late in the day that I have inadvertently blown off a meeting with the principal. “I never got confirmation,” I email him.
The only thing that makes the day halfway decent is that Sailor is well-behaved. And I find metal thermoses at Borders for $6. By the time I get Mac from school late in the afternoon I have already arranged to take him on a tour of a charter school on Thursday morning.
Which Mac is uncertain about. “I have to miss school?”
I decide that he will have the whole day off. With me. Without Sailor. We visit the school. Mac says he likes the new school. But he prefers his own school. I decide it’s his call. We go to lunch. Mac buys flowers for my mom. We buy jibbitz from a very cool new kids’ book store. And some books. Mac chooses a book on slavery and for Sailor we choose a book on finger painting. We play in a small park district playground and Mac makes friends with a few little boys. We go inside to use the bathroom. We buy a necklace for Mac’s kindergarten teacher from last year who is about to have her 1st baby and will be leaving our school for good on Friday. We drive to Target. We have a very nice day together. I realize just how big is this child, whom I insist is still just a baby, when I see toddlers lunching with their mothers. My child seems large. Slightly messy with his crazy hair and glasses, and just out of place. I enjoy my time with him immensely while also longing for those days of our original togetherness.
Thursday relaxes us. We are together. We settle our decision about school. We don’t have to listen to Sailor whine about anything. And so it goes.
We have all learned some important lessons on how to treat one another this week. Sailor runs right to me at pick-up: “My mommy is here!”
Some time during the week Mac brings a form home in his folder that says we are poor enough to receive not the reduced price hot lunch but the free hot lunch. I am mortified. I can afford the full price of $1.85 a day on the rare day that I allow Mac to eat a coveted hot lunch. And I can certainly afford the 40 cents of the reduced price. But based on the numbers I supplied (no, I did not lie) Mac can get his lunch for free anytime he wants to.
At another point my mom brings up some groceries from Coscto. Or more accurately Sailor brings them up.
“Nana is very nice to bring us food,” Mac says.
“That’s beez she is our gather fooder,” Sailor says.
At another point Sailor suddenly decides he needs crutches. “Croutches,” he calls them. “Here’s my croutch!” he says, picking up a tube of cardboard. I am laughing hysterically. I have not heard that word since I was 7 and had a strangely dysarthric friend.
I bring Sailor to the PTA meeting on Friday morning where he earns a well-behaved child comment and gives me an excuse to leave early. We gift Mrs. K and she cries. I cry. Sailor refuses to take a photo with her or of us. We cry some more. I pass on some unsolicited advice regarding epidurals, wipes warmers and strollers. We say goodbye. And then I come back to tell her one more thing, “More important than goodbye is thank you.” This one will be sorely, sorely missed!
We book- and shoe-shop (I am sensing a trend here, are you?) but forego lunch (Sailor has been on a long hunger strike) and play in a playground. It’s summer-warm outside. I am exhausted when we get Mac from school and take the kids to the playground near school. I have no plans to stay up past 8:00 tonight. We are watching StarWars. I won’t give the boys back their lightsabers, despite their daily requests. So they are “battling” with lightsabers they’ve made from a connecter toy. It’s been a long and very stressful week.
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