Week 9 Happy Halloween

Week 9 Happy Halloween

Sunday night. 11:11
I am waiting (sort of) to see if the principal of Mac's school is going to email me his article for the school's PTA newsletter, which I am the editor (aka responsible party) of. It's due at 9:00 tomorrow morning to go to the basement and be run off in time to be distributed Wednesday. If I don't get it in on time it won't go out on time and the PTA prez will have something else to harp on me about (she didn't like the fab style of the newsletter last month even tho I have had LOTS of compliments!). But I can't go to press without the principal's letter! And even if he sends it to me this night I can't print on my printer so I will need to go down to my parents' house and print there, which I can certainly not do before 9am tomorrow! As always, this sucks, but you know, it's just not really worth getting upset about, cuz there is nothing I can do! (Tho this glitch will add a bit of flurry to my already over-packed day tomorrow!)
I woke up from a dream last night thinking how I wanted my own place and then I realized I actually am an adult with my own place. I guess this just isn't quite the "place" I have in my mind ... or maybe it's just not really "mine" but a mess of "ours" and I never get to relax here on my own and just sip tea and read (it's not like sitting here online at 11pm with my kids sleeping in my bed behind me is "alone time").

Monday
There is nothing more ego crushing, more totally devastating, more utterly depressing than having your 4-year-old react to your cheerful, “Dinner is ready!” with, “You are a very big problem for me. I wish I sis not ever get born.” It’s enuf to make you sit thru the entire meal in a stupor. Whether he is old enough to understand what he said, and whether he meant it or not, it cuts to the bone. Nonethless, you go forward and bake two batches of ghost-shaped pumpkin muffins for his Halloween party at preschool tomorrow. Yet it is not enough to convince even your hearty, intelligent self that you are not the suckiest mother on the face of the earth, if for no other reason than because your 4-year-old said so.

I do often believe that the sole purpose of my 4-year-old’s existence here in my life is to make me question my every move.

We wake up early this morning after I am used as a pillow by one child and a bed by another. Do not want to be late for school. It’s freezing out. But the house is not too cold. I instruct Mac into the shower while I get Sailor dressed. Sailor is dressed. Mac is still pooping. One for my favorite reasons for not being married is that I don’t have to share the bathroom with a man because men take too long to poop. Sometime within the past year or so Mac has learned to poop like a man. Which is much to the dismay of both Sailor and me. Because we only have one bathroom.

We are halfway to school when Mac notices – probably because of the vast number of families we have to walk slowly behind - -that we are not late! Hurray.

Mac’s animal report on the brown bear is ready to be turned in on time today. I hope he gets an A. I am clearly realizing how important his grades are going to be for me. I helped him with the research so I did not help with the spelling. There is enough that is parent driven about a 1st grader’s homework without my doing the whole thing for him.
There’s a commercial on the only cable channel we watch where a man says, “I look like Britney Spears.” My boys have been trying on their Halloween costumes this week going, “I look like Pripme Spears.”

Sailor is still awake. Gnawing loudly on a pacifier that may quite possibly be older than he is. He spits it to the floor. “This is giving me a sore mouth.” “You’re not supposed to chew on it you are supposed to suck on it,” I tell him. “Oh. Is dat why dey call it a sucker?”

Pardon me while I go ransack the house for Halloween candy. Halloween is Wednesday, by the way, and already I think I have gained 5 pounds. And I have not even bought any candy for the trick-or-treaters, because none come by our house (and even if they did, we are not home to greet them). I have made up a new Halloween candy rule: The children (and I) may eat all (and I do mean ALL) the candy they want on Halloween. But on November 1st, it will all disappear. I explained this to Mac today and he seems ok with it. My sister thinks I suck.

I am starting to notice an annoying pattern to our lives that we never had before. It’s the early-to-rise scenario. I do not like getting up at 6:30 am in the dark to hustle myself and the children to eat, shower, get dressed and walk quickly to school every day. And as it gets colder outside it will only get worse, I fear. I never liked my alarm clock. It’s all more morning effort than I am up for. Sigh. Maybe we should home school. Mac is doing well with the workbooks again and I am sure we could get where he is supposed to be without the help of his lying, teasing, manipulating classmates in 1st grade. I don’t like his class this year. Not as much as I liked his class last year, anyway. One of his so called best friends is going to be a bad influence and get him in trouble, either at school or with me. So today I asked Mac to please not play with this boy. I just have a really bad feeling about him.

Tuesday
I just sat thru the entire DVD of Chariots of Fire, you know, the 1981 Academy Award winning movie, only to not get to hear “the music” til the closing credits. I did not actually watch the movie, which I missed the first time around in the theatre, because I am busy working on Sailor’s preschool class list for his teacher. I have no idea if this was a good movie or not, but 2 hours and 9 minutes later I am regretful that I was not able to pay even a minute of attention to the TV screen. The boys wanted to stay up and watch with me, but it was already past 7:15 when I started the movie. They were not happy when I turned it off to let them have a chance to fall asleep. They really wanted to watch “Chicken Fire,” which is what they heard me say when I told them the name of the movie.

Wednesday
The best night of the year – Halloween!

I have rearranged my afternoon and, with my sister’s invaluable assistance, juggled my children so that I may be in Mac’s classroom for the afternoon of festivities. I dress as a pirate and run to school wearing my boots. We parade, we snack, we color, we decorate cookies – I learn about Mrs. S’s weakness for icing. And at 3:45 we are home and ready to set out on our trick-or-treating odyssey. Except it takes us until 5:30 to get out the door. Sailor’s make-up needs a touch-up (this morning he put on his waaaay too small clown costume and announced that he no longer wanted to be Harry Potter), Mac needs to put his costume back on (why he took it off after school I don’t know), we have to order pizza to be delivered later, and so on. Our friends who have come with us are none too pleased that we have asked the pizza place to deliver at 7:30. They want it here earlier, but it’s 5:15, I explain, and we are not likely to be back in two hours. I sense some dissatisfaction with the evening. I guess we can’t expect so much from people we hardly know, but I thought Halloween was sort of a free-for-all night when all bets are off in terms of junk food consumption, early dinner and bed time routines. Apparently there is some disagreement, but since it is my house, essentially I call the shots. More or less. The pizza does not arrive until almost 8pm. Our guests are more than a bit disgruntled and are threatening to leave. Meanwhile the boys are in the playroom making a great big messy potion out of milk, juice and Halloween candy. It’s a good use of all the candy they will not be allowed to eat after tomorrow. And it makes the floor sticky. And my sister gets mad that they have used up al the M&Ms.

I have told the kids they cold eat much candy as they want today, as it will all be gone tomorrow. “Eat til you throw up!” I tell them. Around 8:30 at night Mac walks into the dining room unwrapping his umpteenth KitKat bar. And with a quite serious tone he informs me, “I haven’t thrown up yet.” He pops the chocolate into his mouth.

Thursday the kids are tired. No wonder.

Friday there is no school for Mac and we run around doing errands and then Mac invites my mom to join us for lunch. Mid-afternoon I notice some goop coming out of Sailor’s right eye. I dismiss it. But by the end of lunch Mac’s eyes are red and I realize we have a couple of eye infections on our hands. Our outstanding pediatrician suggests I put tea bags on the boys’ eyes. This is met with much fuss from both kids and offers no relief to their eyes. On Saturday morning I page our pediatrician again and get his again fabbo bedside manner. I call the pharmacy to call the pediatrician for eye drops. Which are antibiotics. Meaning the boys have to be on them for 48 hours before they are able to interact with their peers. In other words, Mac gets Monday off school. To which he replies, “Yes!” Every once in a while he comes back to me with the whole, I’m bored-thing. I don’t know what to think. Will have to talk to his teacher next week on report card pick-up. And so we sped the weekend administering eye drops to alternately squeamish, tantrum-throwing and brave boys. Both of them. It’s such fun, four times a day.