Mac and Sailor have a picture book appropriately titled Mommies Don’t Get Sick. In our house this rule holds. My mommy friend Michele gets some wicked stomach bugs, my mommy friend Lisa catches absolutely everything her little boys get, and my friend Anna has a habit of getting so sick she makes me think she has a chronic, underlying illness yet to be discovered. But me? I don’t get sick. Ok, a cold here and there (mostly there). A fever for a day. But not sick.
And so what do I get for spending the past week bragging to everyone lamenting about winter illness that we don’t get sick anymore – not since Mac had his tonsils out 2 years ago and we radically changed our eating habits? I get SICK! Cough and fever. And Sailor has it ten times worse than I do. We have just passed two nearly sleepless nights, while he whined, cried, moaned and coughed. At 1:45am last night Sailor has to get up to pee. But he is afraid, “Come with me, Mama.” In the bathroom he barks and coughs so hard he nearly vomits. And his pee is “stuck,” and he is “so afraid!” Finally I make him put on the sweatpants we left in the bathroom, sometime last week, I bundle him in his poncho snuggle blanket and his down blanket and carry him down the front stairs and unlock the door. “Relax and take deep breaths,” I instruct. I have neglected to put on any sort of outerwear for myself and have forgotten that the temperature is plummeting to 0 degrees F by morning. I hold my baby, whose face I see relax significantly as the cold, fresh air relieves him of his barking seal impression. I bring him back to bed where he falls instantly asleep and I am awake, but in deep thought about I have no idea what, an hour later.
We are awake by 7:30 and Mac is begging to help me out. He wants to make me tea, but I don’t want tea, I want to sleep. I have to explain that it’s only helping if it actually helps. I hurt his feelings and feel terrible. When I am up and showered I wait for him to finish watching his special event cartoon to make me some tea. He puts a measuring cup, half full, into the microwave for 40 seconds and attempts to get a glass, which he drops, causing it to shatter and him to burst into tears. I console. What do I care about a glass? It was from the dollar store, I assure him, as I sweep.
Mac spends the day alternating between being extremely helpful, “Can I make popcorn for you?” to typical six-year-old, “Honey, will you get the cards from the table for me?” “Why do I have to do everything around here all day?” Which I don’t justify with an answer. And all his helping is left with a cleanup project for me. I put away the popcorn machine and the popcorn, I put the breakfast cereal back in the pantry (he has made cereal and milk for us, as well as a cup of milk and gummy vitamins for Sailor) and the dishes in the dishwasher. Oh, and I spend the day cooking quesadillas.
By evening I am back to thinking Sailor has pneumonia and wish that I had braved the frigid temps to get him to the ER this morning. He smells terrible and I know it will be a fight to get him in the tub. Another long night looms ahead and I am grateful for the days off we have tomorrow and Tuesday. We will certainly be visiting the pediatrician or the ER in the morning.
Monday
And so it goes. Except while I still wake up today with a fever Sailor’s fever has broken. He has a bad cough but I no longer feel the need to take him out in the arctic tundra of February in Chicago to have his little chest X-rayed. I think he is over the hump.
Mac, who seems to be holding his own and has not come down with a cough or fever – yet – has designated himself chore boy. He cleaned the tv (with baby wipes) yesterday, dusted the living room, and threatened to wake up Sailor and me this morning so he could vacuum. A plan I quickly put the kibosh on. It all seems like a fabulous plan except that Mac expects to get paid for his efforts. He has his heart set on some big StarWars Lego thing that sports a hefty $103 price tag. I am fine with him earning money to buy his coveted toy, but what I am not fine with is his assumption that work around the house automatically equals $103. Perhaps he might have asked first. So he just mopped the kitchen floor, after sweeping up our Valentines art project. With attitude, no less.
It’s just barely past noon and we have already had lunch, made Valentines, bathed, played a little…. So much for a sick day. I am fairly wiped out, so we have plopped down in front of the TV to watch “the movie that tells how Santa became Santa,” as Sailor calls the 1990s movie (which we own on VHS, not even DVD) “The Santa Clause.” A perfect choice three days before Valentine’s Day, to be sure. I had voted for “Titanic” but was outvoted at the last minute. We need some new movies. Unfortunately, even if I update my Netflix queue right now we’ll all be well before the next DVD arrives.
I am having a great time unsubscribing from all the junk emails that I somehow signed myself up for. I don’t need to go to DeVry to further my education, I don’t want a loan, I don’t need to know my “real” age and I am not interested in meeting over-40s in my area!
Wednesday
How many times should I have to think about taking Sailor to the ER before I actually take him? How many times is one meant to shovel snow that continues to fall? How come my 4-year-old is better at nose-blowing than my 6-year-old yet refuses to do it because it’s messy? Why is the Underdog DVD still $20? Why does my 6-year-old still enjoy Sesame Street? How many days in a row can you have a fever?
Sailor has not worn clothes since last Thursday. Mac tried the natural cough remedy recommended by Whole Foods last night: a teaspoon of honey. And hour later I hear him calling me but I can’t find him. I finally locate him in the bathroom. Covered in poop. My bathroom is so small I have a hard time cleaning him up and maneuvering around him without getting covered myself. Both kids wake up when I turn on Janice Dickinson’s Modeling Agency. I don’t understand why. Could it be because the show is so LOUD?! Sailor has a 103.5-degree fever. Again.
Hey, I just found out I can watch Tootsie on my laptop straight from my Netflix queue. Good. The kids are watching Barney and they don’t want to leave my room.
I want to cook a lasagna. I don’t think I have the ingredients tho, as I don’t usually do that caliber of cooking.
4:45 pm. It’s time to be starting dinner. I am sitting down to watch Shrek III with Sailor. Mac refuses to watch, claiming to hate Shrek. Oh, what I know of this is that when he was maybe 2 or 3 my mother let him watch the 1st movie. She said he loved it. He has always claimed to have hated it. Years have passed and yet he still won’t even indulge me by joining me on the couch. Wait! The sleepy-head, pajama-clad sick boy has just acquiesced. “I’ll sit here and watch it for a few minutes but if I don’t like it I’m leaving.” Is that too much to ask?
I have pretty much reached the end of my limit with this sick stuff. And yet I see no end in sight. The germ-spreading sneezing, the vomit-threatening coughing, the relentless fevers, the stomach aches that are now giving way to some diarrhea. And the attitudes. No one seems to be getting better. At least not significantly. So I am methodically canceling plans, day by day.
I have emailed back everyone I have owed emails to. I made valentines for the kids for tomorrow. I am officially bored. And totally over being sick. I wish we had a magic pill.
I do appreciate the uninterrupted time at home with the children, however.
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Usually I go all out. There is no All or Out to go this year. We are sick. Maybe we will feel like making cookies in the shape of hearts tomorrow. I have to remember to bring Mac’s valentines for his class across the street to the French girl who is in his class. She can pass them out for him. By the time Mac returns to school we will be on our way to the next holiday and no one will care about his valentines anymore.
“Happy Valentine’s Day! Wake up, Mom! It’s Valentine’s Day!” Uh, Honey, it’s not Christmas, it’s Valentine’s Day. There is nothing to get up for.
“Shhhhh….” I say. It is the first night we have all slept soundly without moaning, crying or coughing. I don’t want to wake up yet and I don’t want Mac to wake Sailor.
“I want to see what Cupid left us,” Mac says.
On the table he will find a pair of very adorable underpants adorned with hearts that say “MOM” tattoo-style; a book wrapped in heart tissue paper, sent from our relatives in Canada who would only miss sending the kids a holiday treat if they were dead; a chocolate heart lolli from the same relatives; cookies our friends Mac and Taylor dropped off the other day, which I saved for this morning; and two homemade cards from me, which I made while Mac napped yesterday afternoon. After that it’s just another sick day. So I don’t want to get up yet.
Eventually Sailor wakes up too and I encourage them to either go back to sleep or go play. Finally Mac says, “Bye!” and they leave for the playroom. I have the bed to myself for a few minutes. I fall back to sleep and dream that they have covered the kitchen with beautiful valentines for me.
When I do finally grace them with my tousle-headed presence they rip into their gifts and cards and …. Mac wants to know why his underpants are a size 7-8. “They’re going to be too big!” And Sailor begins in on how he knows there is no such thing as Cupid because he was with me when we bought the undies last month. It’s all happening at the same time – all the noise. So I walk off in a huff and slam my bedroom door. No doubt waking my parents below. Oh, wait, no probably not waking them. I think the boys took care of that with their running back and forth thru the house an hour before.
It takes too long for them to come find me. But when they do Mac hopes his valentines to me will make it up to me. He is a smart boy.
“Are you guys hungry now or do you want to eat later?”
“Later,” Mac says.
“Ok, then I am going to take a quick shower.”
“But I’m hungry,” Mac says.
Am I speaking Chinese, I wonder?
I bring out the blender and set it on the table. “The shake maker!” Sailor exclaims. I give Mac milk, a measuring cup and strawberries. He blends. Sailor hates the strawberry milk. I put chocolate in it for both of them. I cut hearts out of bread and make toast. I make heart-shaped eggs. Cut more strawberries. Sometime later the majority of my efforts are in the trash and the boys are on their way to try to clean up the playroom. So much for Mommy’s grand efforts.
It’s another day at home. I read to the boys. I bathe them – Mac decides Sailor needs his own bath because the skin from his feet is floating round the tub. I rub some pumice into Sailor’s feet and by the time our slow tub drains and Mac gets a turn, bathtime has been an event rather than a mere activity. I blow dry both boys after putting them in their valentine shirts (from 2 years ago! Funny how I hang on to some of their clothes that I really love even tho they have outgrown them – when everything else gets moved along the minute they start to fit properly). These particular shirts are from the GAP and they have a big read heart against a navy background. In athletic apparel style they cay “If Lost Please Return to MOM!” Which is why they are my all-time favorite shirts.
I share Japanese noodle soup with Sailor while Mac lies in bed. I try to bribe Sailor to eat his applesauce by offering chocolate milk. I hate having to work so hard to get healthy food into my kids. Or really what I mean is just food. I was food-obsessed for years. And now I am in a whole new way. At least now it’s about putting healthy foods into our bodies, as opposed to before when it was about not putting food into mine at all.
I am starting to really like staying home with the kids, despite our grumpy morning. I like sitting on the couch watching movies and eating healthy snacks (Mac requested apple slices and then fresh green beans after watching something in Madagascar) all day. I am over being bored. I have gotten all my bills paid, my phone calls made, the house is not particularly messy, and I feel cozy.
We are in the middle of another DVD marathon when my sister arrives with chocolate cupcakes from Whole Foods. YUM! We each take one. My parents stop up and each take one. The children leave theirs. Hmmm…
The little French girl from across the street rings our bell. She has brought Mac’s valentines and his homework. Mac goes thru the valentines, reading each name. “I thought Billy would give me a Pokemon valentine.” There are indeed at least 6 or 7 names missing. This virus has zapped the 1st grade. I send a thank you email to the parents in 1st grade for all the lovely valentines (am I a nerd or what?) and specifically thank the French mom and her daughter for stopping by. We eat sugary things with red dye #40. But not much, just one or two apiece.
7:50pm We have just completed a 4-DVD marathon. It’s time for bed. Sailor climbs up behind me on the sofa. Mac offers me an ultimatum: “You choose, Mom. Either more TV or Sailor gets to smack you in the head.”
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Week 21
Who knows what happened to Week 20.... Just try to keep up with me here....
It’s barely 6pm and I am dragging ass. I have shoveled snow to the point where I am very rich and very sore. I am able to pay for Sailor’s French lessons this month in cash, but I can’t lift my right arm. I am practically begging Mac to finish his homework so we can go to bed.
One morning last week I woke up and I was 40 years old. I don’t know how it happened, really. I was just going along, minding my own business being 39 and BAM! 40! One of my favorite birthday cards hit the nail on the head: “Inside every 40-year-old there’s a 39-year-old wondering what the hell just happened!”
So I am 40. I have been 40 for 4 days. Nothing has changed except that thanks to my family and friends I was celebrated for 5 days straight with manicures, coffees, cakes, massages, dinners, lunches, shopping, parties, brunches, pottery painting…. It was blissful, to be certain. But there was no stopping the regular flow of my days of making lunches, bathing children, folding laundry (oh, wait, I did take a mini-break from that telling my mother not to send any laundry up until Monday), helping with homework. We really let a lot slide and we went to bed so late every night I think we will need at least a week of early bedtimes to catch up.
And today it’s all over. Back to the grind. No one wanted to get up for school this morning but when we did finally it was only 7:20 and not late enough to warrant staying home. Mac had 4.5 days of absence on his report card last week, which was circled but not notated, so until someone tells me my child stays home too often I am not going to worry about it. Last Friday it snowed for 24 hours straight and I shoveled three times. And hauled Mac to school, which took almost 30 minutes. But no one was marked tardy and I had a PTA meeting in the overheated cafeteria, during which I spent a great deal of time in the hallway fielding phone calls from parents assuming our art studio was closed. Which it was not.
We had surprise snow last night and while I thought maybe they would close the schools today, I remembered that our city’s public schools were the only ones open in a foot of snow last Friday and so we trudged thru slush – it got warm out and a fog rolled in – all the way to school and back. Alec looses a mitten on the way, despite the mitten clips I recently insisted the kids use. I am too weary and my feet are too wet to go back and look for it. We'll find it in the next thaw, I am sure.
After school Mac brings home his backpack containing the first hot lunch menu we’ve seen since mid-November. And last week’s spelling test with an appalling 60%. I ask him how he feels. He does not like the bad grade. I ask him what he will do this week. He says he will study harder and let me drill him on the words on the way to school. And right now we sit at the kitchen table and he grumbles about his assignment to write each spelling word three times. I HATE his homework! And I HATE the relationship his homework is causing us.
“I wish I could just graduate now,” he says.
And Sailor still does not want to attend preschool at all. Last week he went to the annual pajama party preschool day, which he loved. But in anticipation of it Mac tells him all about what he can bring: “Your teddy bear, your favorite blanket, your slippers.”
“I am not bringing any of that,” Sailor tells his big brother, “And I am not bringing me!” Sailor’s teachers tell me Sailor is being manipulative. I think he is just tired and it’s a long afternoon for a child who still really needs to be sleeping after lunch. A few friends tell me to just give in and pull him out. I agree that this is not worth it. He is 4 and has a whole ‘nother year of preschool ahead of him. And then as I am anguishing over this matter he spends all last Thursday morning begging to go to the pajama party at preschool. Sigh.
It’s Friday. We start the day with a phone call to the mother of a 2nd grade boy who has been, according to Mac, trying to kill Mac at lunch recess this week. I know the mom and feel comfortable telling her what I have heard from my son. She assures me she will call her son at school right away and that she is not surprised because the same thing happened last year to her son when he was a first grader. That’s no excuse, she realizes, but she is sympathetic, as am I. What a horrifying phone call to receive, but also what horrifying news for me to hear that my baby is being harassed at recess.
Sailor has a fever and a tummy ache and I leave him home with my dad while I walk Mac to school.
It’s barely 6pm and I am dragging ass. I have shoveled snow to the point where I am very rich and very sore. I am able to pay for Sailor’s French lessons this month in cash, but I can’t lift my right arm. I am practically begging Mac to finish his homework so we can go to bed.
One morning last week I woke up and I was 40 years old. I don’t know how it happened, really. I was just going along, minding my own business being 39 and BAM! 40! One of my favorite birthday cards hit the nail on the head: “Inside every 40-year-old there’s a 39-year-old wondering what the hell just happened!”
So I am 40. I have been 40 for 4 days. Nothing has changed except that thanks to my family and friends I was celebrated for 5 days straight with manicures, coffees, cakes, massages, dinners, lunches, shopping, parties, brunches, pottery painting…. It was blissful, to be certain. But there was no stopping the regular flow of my days of making lunches, bathing children, folding laundry (oh, wait, I did take a mini-break from that telling my mother not to send any laundry up until Monday), helping with homework. We really let a lot slide and we went to bed so late every night I think we will need at least a week of early bedtimes to catch up.
And today it’s all over. Back to the grind. No one wanted to get up for school this morning but when we did finally it was only 7:20 and not late enough to warrant staying home. Mac had 4.5 days of absence on his report card last week, which was circled but not notated, so until someone tells me my child stays home too often I am not going to worry about it. Last Friday it snowed for 24 hours straight and I shoveled three times. And hauled Mac to school, which took almost 30 minutes. But no one was marked tardy and I had a PTA meeting in the overheated cafeteria, during which I spent a great deal of time in the hallway fielding phone calls from parents assuming our art studio was closed. Which it was not.
We had surprise snow last night and while I thought maybe they would close the schools today, I remembered that our city’s public schools were the only ones open in a foot of snow last Friday and so we trudged thru slush – it got warm out and a fog rolled in – all the way to school and back. Alec looses a mitten on the way, despite the mitten clips I recently insisted the kids use. I am too weary and my feet are too wet to go back and look for it. We'll find it in the next thaw, I am sure.
After school Mac brings home his backpack containing the first hot lunch menu we’ve seen since mid-November. And last week’s spelling test with an appalling 60%. I ask him how he feels. He does not like the bad grade. I ask him what he will do this week. He says he will study harder and let me drill him on the words on the way to school. And right now we sit at the kitchen table and he grumbles about his assignment to write each spelling word three times. I HATE his homework! And I HATE the relationship his homework is causing us.
“I wish I could just graduate now,” he says.
And Sailor still does not want to attend preschool at all. Last week he went to the annual pajama party preschool day, which he loved. But in anticipation of it Mac tells him all about what he can bring: “Your teddy bear, your favorite blanket, your slippers.”
“I am not bringing any of that,” Sailor tells his big brother, “And I am not bringing me!” Sailor’s teachers tell me Sailor is being manipulative. I think he is just tired and it’s a long afternoon for a child who still really needs to be sleeping after lunch. A few friends tell me to just give in and pull him out. I agree that this is not worth it. He is 4 and has a whole ‘nother year of preschool ahead of him. And then as I am anguishing over this matter he spends all last Thursday morning begging to go to the pajama party at preschool. Sigh.
It’s Friday. We start the day with a phone call to the mother of a 2nd grade boy who has been, according to Mac, trying to kill Mac at lunch recess this week. I know the mom and feel comfortable telling her what I have heard from my son. She assures me she will call her son at school right away and that she is not surprised because the same thing happened last year to her son when he was a first grader. That’s no excuse, she realizes, but she is sympathetic, as am I. What a horrifying phone call to receive, but also what horrifying news for me to hear that my baby is being harassed at recess.
Sailor has a fever and a tummy ache and I leave him home with my dad while I walk Mac to school.
Week 18 -- Found it!
What week IS this? I don’t even know but I don know we are halfway through it already. This morning I am up at 6:30 expecting at least half an hour to myself but Sailor wakes and follows me to the bathroom. He wants me to come back to bed but I cannot. At 7:00 our friend Taylor is coming over to stay for the morning while her brother Mac goes in for some minor surgery. I make pancakes for the occasion. Mac wakes and comes to the kitchen. His nose woke him, he tells us. He smells our pancakes, which I have slipped Sailor’s dead banana from yesterday into. It is past 7:00. I wonder at our little friend’s tardiness. Sometime after 7:30 I call to check on their early arrival’s status. She is still sleeping, her mom tells me. She arrives just after 8:00, right at the moment when I finally decide to go to the bathroom. The boys enthusiastically answer the door and proceed to spend the morning making noise and acting silly. Mac is showing off and I remind him that this is a friend we see all the time and that there is no reason to show off. My mom comes up to play hide-and-seek while I take Mac to school.
When I return I follow my never-ending cell phone around answering biz calls and then I vacuum until my vacuum cleaner tires out. Sailor and Taylor run around the house carrying as many stuffed backpacks as they can. When we are ready to leave a short while later these are the same children who protest having to carry their own backpacks of clothes and lunchboxes to French class. “Why do I have to carry this?” the little girl asks me, after I call her to me 4 times to come get said backpack. It is packed with Sailor’s clothing. Today is pajama day in French class so the two are dressed in footy pj’s. Sailor’s white t-shirt sticks out at the neckline of his green and blue striped pajamas. Taylor is wearing white pajamas adorned with pictures of motorcycles. No doubt a hand-me-down from her brother. She looks cute. But when I ask her if she has undies on underneath her pj’s she tells me she does not. I send her off with Sailor to Sailor’s room, instructing Sailor to find her some undies. I pack them each a bag of clothes for later in the afternoon. I am sure this little girl can wear a sweater and jeans of Sailor’s without too much fuss. I drop the children. We are so late we find the teacher wandering around looking for us. The other girls in the class is late as well.
I spend a lovely hour sipping tea with my favorite French mom and her adorable baby. Then fly back to pick up the children, late again. I don’t like to wait. So I am always late. I figured that out the other day.
A few things I remember from the first days of this week: On Sunday night the kids and I are settled in bed to watch something on DVD. I make macker cheese and serve it on a tray so we can all hang out together. Sailor has requested ketchup on his macker but now denies the request, in typical Sailor fashion. He tells me he is going to eat my macker and I can eat his. I remind him that I don’t like ketchup. “Just deal with it,” he says, as plain as can be.
Thursday is Harass SuperMommy Day. We wake early enough for the children to play and for me to not have to rush around or yell at anyone or even prod anyone to get ready. We simply have enough time. Clothes were set out last night. Pancakes from yesterday are in the fridge. Mac’s lunch is half made. It’s an easy morning. I even have time to shower, dress, and dry my hair before I head out to do the garbage cans. We leave early and walk slowly to the car. It feels nice to take our time for a change. We pull around to the side of the school. I slide my car in between Claire and Sophie’s mom’s car and someone else’s car. There are too many minutes left to just hop out and leave my car there. So I look for my gloves. I unstrap Sailor from his car seat. I gather Mac’s lunch box and backpack. Our school’s crossing guard, Officer Dick, who according to many wears a halo and according to me lives up to this name I have given him for the sake of his anonymity, saunters over to the car queue, flapping a handful of parking tickets. “Don’t park there again or I’ll give you another ticket,” he warns in my direction. I don’t know what he is talking about because he has never given me a ticket (except maybe in his dreams). “I’m trying to drop my child off at school,” I call back. He flaps his parking tickets again in my direction. Mac and Sailor are ordered back into the car. We drive off, me spewing a list of expletives that my children repeat with gusto when I have my sister on speaker phone a few minutes later. I will have to warn them about the possibility of getting soap in their mouths for saying the words I say. I will have to learn to watch what I say around my loyal children. The children choose a DVD to watch while I attend my 10:00 meeting in the ‘burbs. The reason why we chose to drive to school today. At 10:10 I overhear the secretary calling the drug rep I am supposed to be meeting with. I never called her, the rep tells the secretary. I never called her?! I was never meant to have called her. This meeting was arranged through the doctor’s office. I was asked to come meet with this lady. And she knows nothing of the meeting. We get back in the car and return to school. It is after 11:00 a.m. and Mac wants to stay home with Sailor and me. I tell him how fun it’s going to be to go to school so late. We have a chat with the office ladies, who are much nicer to me than they were 4 months ago. Mac doesn’t want to go upstairs alone. I ask the office ladies to call one of his classmates down to fetch him. I have learned how they run things here. They decide it will be too disruptive and offer me a pass “just this once” to take him up myself. We have all learned to play the game. I am so sick of this shit!
Sailor plays nicely while I answer my constantly ringing phone for the next hour or so and I tell him that when I am done we will play. But by the time I am done it is 12:30 and I call Sailor to the table for lunch. He refuses to eat. The clock ticks. He stomps around crying about the game he wants to play. I bundle him for school. Fetch my purse. Find him unbundled. I rebundle him and take his hand. He cries all the way to school. I know he is tired and now probably hungry but he napped in the car on the drive back from the 'burbs and he refused his lunch. He is still sobbing when we get to school. He wants to go home to go potty. I escort him into the school’s tiny bathroom. “
I’m done,” I tell the teachers. “Just leave him,” the teachers tell me. I know they are right from a teacher’s perspective, but from a mom’s perspective it’s just too much. “School is not working out for me,” are Sailor’s exact words and I just don’t know what to do to make him like it. And I hate to leave my baby hysterical. I get half an hour at home and am about to make myself some popcorn when my sister’s call for caffeine comes in and I make the Starbucks run. When I pick up Sailor from school he is happy. Until I ask him if he had fun. He says, “Yes,” and I say, “See, I knew you would.”
“I mean I didn’t,” he rebuts.
And then he climbs into his brother’s car seat. Which, to my knowledge, is not safe for him. And it’s raining/snowing and getting dark. We have to go back to the art studio to help my sister with class, where I have left Mac 15 minutes earlier. Sailor refuses to leave Mac’s carseat. I climb into the backseat and attempt to move him. It takes what seems like 10 minutes to hoist him into his own seat and strap him in. He is giddy and laughing hysterically at his folly. I remain calm and say nothing. I struggle with him. Hurt my hand. Drop my sunglasses from my head. There is nothing I can say to this child to make him understand how angry he is making me and I don’t have it in me to yell at him. When he is strapped in I kiss him and return to the driver’s seat. “What did you bring me?” he asks. Is he kidding me? The child is an all-out Jekyll and Hyde. He proves it over and over for the rest of the evening until I finally bring him to his bed. Which he leaves and returns to my room to disrupt Mac’s attempts to study and correctly spell words such as temperature, piece, peace and meteorologist. For heaven’s sake! “Where do you belong?” I ask him while he sits on the floor playing with his pajamas. “IN MY ROOM!” he screams and runs off. He falls asleep in his own bed for the first time in weeks. I am wiped!
When I return I follow my never-ending cell phone around answering biz calls and then I vacuum until my vacuum cleaner tires out. Sailor and Taylor run around the house carrying as many stuffed backpacks as they can. When we are ready to leave a short while later these are the same children who protest having to carry their own backpacks of clothes and lunchboxes to French class. “Why do I have to carry this?” the little girl asks me, after I call her to me 4 times to come get said backpack. It is packed with Sailor’s clothing. Today is pajama day in French class so the two are dressed in footy pj’s. Sailor’s white t-shirt sticks out at the neckline of his green and blue striped pajamas. Taylor is wearing white pajamas adorned with pictures of motorcycles. No doubt a hand-me-down from her brother. She looks cute. But when I ask her if she has undies on underneath her pj’s she tells me she does not. I send her off with Sailor to Sailor’s room, instructing Sailor to find her some undies. I pack them each a bag of clothes for later in the afternoon. I am sure this little girl can wear a sweater and jeans of Sailor’s without too much fuss. I drop the children. We are so late we find the teacher wandering around looking for us. The other girls in the class is late as well.
I spend a lovely hour sipping tea with my favorite French mom and her adorable baby. Then fly back to pick up the children, late again. I don’t like to wait. So I am always late. I figured that out the other day.
A few things I remember from the first days of this week: On Sunday night the kids and I are settled in bed to watch something on DVD. I make macker cheese and serve it on a tray so we can all hang out together. Sailor has requested ketchup on his macker but now denies the request, in typical Sailor fashion. He tells me he is going to eat my macker and I can eat his. I remind him that I don’t like ketchup. “Just deal with it,” he says, as plain as can be.
Thursday is Harass SuperMommy Day. We wake early enough for the children to play and for me to not have to rush around or yell at anyone or even prod anyone to get ready. We simply have enough time. Clothes were set out last night. Pancakes from yesterday are in the fridge. Mac’s lunch is half made. It’s an easy morning. I even have time to shower, dress, and dry my hair before I head out to do the garbage cans. We leave early and walk slowly to the car. It feels nice to take our time for a change. We pull around to the side of the school. I slide my car in between Claire and Sophie’s mom’s car and someone else’s car. There are too many minutes left to just hop out and leave my car there. So I look for my gloves. I unstrap Sailor from his car seat. I gather Mac’s lunch box and backpack. Our school’s crossing guard, Officer Dick, who according to many wears a halo and according to me lives up to this name I have given him for the sake of his anonymity, saunters over to the car queue, flapping a handful of parking tickets. “Don’t park there again or I’ll give you another ticket,” he warns in my direction. I don’t know what he is talking about because he has never given me a ticket (except maybe in his dreams). “I’m trying to drop my child off at school,” I call back. He flaps his parking tickets again in my direction. Mac and Sailor are ordered back into the car. We drive off, me spewing a list of expletives that my children repeat with gusto when I have my sister on speaker phone a few minutes later. I will have to warn them about the possibility of getting soap in their mouths for saying the words I say. I will have to learn to watch what I say around my loyal children. The children choose a DVD to watch while I attend my 10:00 meeting in the ‘burbs. The reason why we chose to drive to school today. At 10:10 I overhear the secretary calling the drug rep I am supposed to be meeting with. I never called her, the rep tells the secretary. I never called her?! I was never meant to have called her. This meeting was arranged through the doctor’s office. I was asked to come meet with this lady. And she knows nothing of the meeting. We get back in the car and return to school. It is after 11:00 a.m. and Mac wants to stay home with Sailor and me. I tell him how fun it’s going to be to go to school so late. We have a chat with the office ladies, who are much nicer to me than they were 4 months ago. Mac doesn’t want to go upstairs alone. I ask the office ladies to call one of his classmates down to fetch him. I have learned how they run things here. They decide it will be too disruptive and offer me a pass “just this once” to take him up myself. We have all learned to play the game. I am so sick of this shit!
Sailor plays nicely while I answer my constantly ringing phone for the next hour or so and I tell him that when I am done we will play. But by the time I am done it is 12:30 and I call Sailor to the table for lunch. He refuses to eat. The clock ticks. He stomps around crying about the game he wants to play. I bundle him for school. Fetch my purse. Find him unbundled. I rebundle him and take his hand. He cries all the way to school. I know he is tired and now probably hungry but he napped in the car on the drive back from the 'burbs and he refused his lunch. He is still sobbing when we get to school. He wants to go home to go potty. I escort him into the school’s tiny bathroom. “
I’m done,” I tell the teachers. “Just leave him,” the teachers tell me. I know they are right from a teacher’s perspective, but from a mom’s perspective it’s just too much. “School is not working out for me,” are Sailor’s exact words and I just don’t know what to do to make him like it. And I hate to leave my baby hysterical. I get half an hour at home and am about to make myself some popcorn when my sister’s call for caffeine comes in and I make the Starbucks run. When I pick up Sailor from school he is happy. Until I ask him if he had fun. He says, “Yes,” and I say, “See, I knew you would.”
“I mean I didn’t,” he rebuts.
And then he climbs into his brother’s car seat. Which, to my knowledge, is not safe for him. And it’s raining/snowing and getting dark. We have to go back to the art studio to help my sister with class, where I have left Mac 15 minutes earlier. Sailor refuses to leave Mac’s carseat. I climb into the backseat and attempt to move him. It takes what seems like 10 minutes to hoist him into his own seat and strap him in. He is giddy and laughing hysterically at his folly. I remain calm and say nothing. I struggle with him. Hurt my hand. Drop my sunglasses from my head. There is nothing I can say to this child to make him understand how angry he is making me and I don’t have it in me to yell at him. When he is strapped in I kiss him and return to the driver’s seat. “What did you bring me?” he asks. Is he kidding me? The child is an all-out Jekyll and Hyde. He proves it over and over for the rest of the evening until I finally bring him to his bed. Which he leaves and returns to my room to disrupt Mac’s attempts to study and correctly spell words such as temperature, piece, peace and meteorologist. For heaven’s sake! “Where do you belong?” I ask him while he sits on the floor playing with his pajamas. “IN MY ROOM!” he screams and runs off. He falls asleep in his own bed for the first time in weeks. I am wiped!
Monday, February 11, 2008
Week 19
I think it must be week 19 by now. Or maybe 20. I don't know what happened to Week 18. It is the end of the 1st semester, this I know. But just barely. Mac and I are walking home from school on Thursday afternoon. “What do you have for homework?” I ask him, handing back his granola bar, which I have taken a bite of to stave off my sudden starvation. “No homework, tonight,” he informs me. Wonderful planning, I think. Tonight is open house and I have been wondering how we might get homework done and spend two hours at school and be in bed reasonably on time. But then he finishes with, “No school tomorrow.”
“No school??” What are you talking about, Kid?
“Nope.”
“Really?” How do I not know this? I am the most on-top-of-things Mom in the school. I know more than the room parents usually know. And I am the editor of the school’s monthly newsletter. Besides, I am all about days off. I am incredulous.
So we have a surprise day off on Friday. This after Martin Luther King Day on Monday and Mac’s stay-at-home day on Tuesday due to fever. Lucky us! It has been incredibly cold this week. Hovering near 0 degrees every day. By the time we get home from school on Thursday afternoon, after picking up Sailor, I have been out in the elements for over an hour. My face feels as if it has been dipped into an ice cube. When we get home we have just enough time to thaw our toes before heading down for an early dinner and leaving for school again to the open house. At the last minute Sailor realizes he will have to re-bundle to join us and opts to stay at home with my parents affording me a nice, leisurely "date" with Mac.
We check out the book fair in the gym and spend our $30 down to just $0.65 in change. We visit his classroom where he proudly shows me around the room I hardly recognize for its sudden neatness (I wonder where Mrs. S has stashed the monstrous pile of papers that usually teeters atop the block of 4 unused desks.) We eat cookies outside the lunchroom. We return to Mac’s classroom. We make a stop in kindergarten, which Mac resists, but then he finds a stash of Legos and I can’t get him to leave. Just for fun we make a foray into the classroom of the teacher I had hoped Mac would get this year. The desks in this classroom are smaller and it looks more like 1st grade than Mac’s classroom, which more resembles 5th grade. The teacher greets me by name. I have never so much as said hello to her and I have no idea how she knows me. I am bold. I ask her. She says she knows I am a mom who is around a lot and the kindergarten teacher showed her my own kindergarten photo last year. I think it is very odd when you find out someone knows you. You know then that this person has an opinion of you. We have a nice chat and I enjoy her classroom. Only one thing disturbs me. Our children have recently completed an alphabet book. Mac has done his using the photo holiday cards we received in December. A thru Z! Most of the children have done their books on animals. But one little girl, a child who was in Mac’s circle time class when they were both 2, has done hers on fashion. Fashion! She has used words such as Haute couture, Hérmes, diamonds, Prada, and my all-time fave: B, Black, “Women like to wear black because it is slimming.” SERIOUSLY! Her illustrations are pictures cut from trendy fashion magazines and feature such young starlets as the Olson twins (one of them, anyway), Hayden Panatierre, and the like. Perhaps this alphabet book ought to be turned in to the principal for evaluation. The child is SIX!
We hustle home in the cold and dark. Mac is not used to being out after dark and he professes not to like it much. Knowing we have nothing to get up for in the morning I give the boys some much-needed play time and we push bedtime off for awhile.
I am now on my last week of being 39. One week from today I will turn 40. I had planned to write about this for a year but it’s been too hectic. And all I really have to show for myself being almost 40 is that none of my friends (except the closest ones, of course) realized I would be 40 this year and only learned it when they received the party invitations my sister sent out a few weeks ago. Otherwise I have recently succumbed to the Mom Look and it is clear that I have other things to worry about these days than whether or not I am wearing a great sweater or the right boots or that I have styled my hair just so. No, right now I am becoming one with my furry Crocs, the shoes I not long ago proclaimed only appropriate on health care workers, gardeners, and children. Well, 39, 40, mom, whatever. It’s all the same. I will grow old this next coming decade and before we know it we will be celebrating 50 and I know I won’t look as good as Oprah or Ellen or any one of a hundred fab stars!
“No school??” What are you talking about, Kid?
“Nope.”
“Really?” How do I not know this? I am the most on-top-of-things Mom in the school. I know more than the room parents usually know. And I am the editor of the school’s monthly newsletter. Besides, I am all about days off. I am incredulous.
So we have a surprise day off on Friday. This after Martin Luther King Day on Monday and Mac’s stay-at-home day on Tuesday due to fever. Lucky us! It has been incredibly cold this week. Hovering near 0 degrees every day. By the time we get home from school on Thursday afternoon, after picking up Sailor, I have been out in the elements for over an hour. My face feels as if it has been dipped into an ice cube. When we get home we have just enough time to thaw our toes before heading down for an early dinner and leaving for school again to the open house. At the last minute Sailor realizes he will have to re-bundle to join us and opts to stay at home with my parents affording me a nice, leisurely "date" with Mac.
We check out the book fair in the gym and spend our $30 down to just $0.65 in change. We visit his classroom where he proudly shows me around the room I hardly recognize for its sudden neatness (I wonder where Mrs. S has stashed the monstrous pile of papers that usually teeters atop the block of 4 unused desks.) We eat cookies outside the lunchroom. We return to Mac’s classroom. We make a stop in kindergarten, which Mac resists, but then he finds a stash of Legos and I can’t get him to leave. Just for fun we make a foray into the classroom of the teacher I had hoped Mac would get this year. The desks in this classroom are smaller and it looks more like 1st grade than Mac’s classroom, which more resembles 5th grade. The teacher greets me by name. I have never so much as said hello to her and I have no idea how she knows me. I am bold. I ask her. She says she knows I am a mom who is around a lot and the kindergarten teacher showed her my own kindergarten photo last year. I think it is very odd when you find out someone knows you. You know then that this person has an opinion of you. We have a nice chat and I enjoy her classroom. Only one thing disturbs me. Our children have recently completed an alphabet book. Mac has done his using the photo holiday cards we received in December. A thru Z! Most of the children have done their books on animals. But one little girl, a child who was in Mac’s circle time class when they were both 2, has done hers on fashion. Fashion! She has used words such as Haute couture, Hérmes, diamonds, Prada, and my all-time fave: B, Black, “Women like to wear black because it is slimming.” SERIOUSLY! Her illustrations are pictures cut from trendy fashion magazines and feature such young starlets as the Olson twins (one of them, anyway), Hayden Panatierre, and the like. Perhaps this alphabet book ought to be turned in to the principal for evaluation. The child is SIX!
We hustle home in the cold and dark. Mac is not used to being out after dark and he professes not to like it much. Knowing we have nothing to get up for in the morning I give the boys some much-needed play time and we push bedtime off for awhile.
I am now on my last week of being 39. One week from today I will turn 40. I had planned to write about this for a year but it’s been too hectic. And all I really have to show for myself being almost 40 is that none of my friends (except the closest ones, of course) realized I would be 40 this year and only learned it when they received the party invitations my sister sent out a few weeks ago. Otherwise I have recently succumbed to the Mom Look and it is clear that I have other things to worry about these days than whether or not I am wearing a great sweater or the right boots or that I have styled my hair just so. No, right now I am becoming one with my furry Crocs, the shoes I not long ago proclaimed only appropriate on health care workers, gardeners, and children. Well, 39, 40, mom, whatever. It’s all the same. I will grow old this next coming decade and before we know it we will be celebrating 50 and I know I won’t look as good as Oprah or Ellen or any one of a hundred fab stars!
Week 17 Back to School!
YUCK! Winter Break is over and school is back in session. We start the day on time. And we spend breakfast listening to Mac whine about how he can’t cut his pancakes. He puts his whole body into the effort – of the whining and the attempt to make his light fluffy pancakes into bite size pieces. Serious whining and fussing. I am patient. I help him use his fork to make his pancake edible. Then comes more whining over I don’t remember what. Oh, right. The phantom stomach aches have returned. I know he is not tired. He just does not want to return to school.
It is now 7:45 p.m. We are 45 minutes late for bedtime. Both boys are at the dining table eating cereal. The same cereal they both professed to hate this morning. Mac has a page of 12 spelling words in front of him. He has to write them each three times. He wrote two words in 20 minutes before dinner and then burst into tears when I wrote, “Mrs. S, Mac can’t do this homework because he is moaning. Sorry! SuperMommy.” “I don’t want to get an F on my report card!” he wails.
He understands the ramifications of not doing his homework. Yet he still won’t do it.
Perhaps there need to be some other consequences, such as toys taken away or something. I will have to think about this one.
So now it is nearly 8pm and Sailor is telling us stories of Ratatouille, the movie we watched multiple times over break. My agitation is mounting. If Mac would put half the concentration into his homework that he is putting into scooping up the last grains of cereal from his bowl of milk we would be done already.
“Why does my knee itch?” he asks no one.
“Can you pour me some more cereal, please.”
He drops his pencil.
He picks it up with his toes.
“Can you pour me some more cereal, Mom?” I didn’t answer him the first time.
“Who are the muffins for?” he asks when I fetch a few from the kitchen for myself. “Me,” I answer.
“Darn,” he mumbles, “I need a muffin.”
While in the kitchen I see I never put away dinner. Sailor’s pasta still sits on the table. While he sits in the dining room eating his 2nd bowl of cereal.
Mac is on his 8th spelling word. “Mom, what kind of homework did you have? Did you have to do it on a typewriter?”
I tell him I didn’t have homework in 1st grade.
He is shocked. “That is so weird!”He gets up. Looks at his spelling list. Declares himself almost done.
“That music is driving me nuts,” he says about the radio playing in his brother’s room. “That’s what’s stopping me from doing my homework.” I am trying to be patient but it is hard, so hard. And when he moans it’s even worse.
It’s January 7th and outdoors it is nearly 60 degrees! Really. It’s as if spring has come early. The ground is wet. The snow piles are nearly gone. Everything is filthy. It’s windy. There is dog poop everywhere. We don’t need coats today.
I think it’s time to take down the Christmas decorations. We turn the holiday photo cards into Mac’s Alphabet Book, a project due for all 1st graders in 2 weeks. I can’t fathom why they are asked to do such a babyish project. This seems like something we should be putting together for our preschooler.
We are none of us happy about Mac’s return to school today. Sailor and I got a lot done to pass the time.
And it is worth noting that it took the full two weeks of winter break to get the stink out of Mac’s lunch box. I wanted to throw it away but worked hard to get it clean. And Mac spilled something in it at school today.
Ah I love school. Thrilled to bits to be back at it!
It is now 7:45 p.m. We are 45 minutes late for bedtime. Both boys are at the dining table eating cereal. The same cereal they both professed to hate this morning. Mac has a page of 12 spelling words in front of him. He has to write them each three times. He wrote two words in 20 minutes before dinner and then burst into tears when I wrote, “Mrs. S, Mac can’t do this homework because he is moaning. Sorry! SuperMommy.” “I don’t want to get an F on my report card!” he wails.
He understands the ramifications of not doing his homework. Yet he still won’t do it.
Perhaps there need to be some other consequences, such as toys taken away or something. I will have to think about this one.
So now it is nearly 8pm and Sailor is telling us stories of Ratatouille, the movie we watched multiple times over break. My agitation is mounting. If Mac would put half the concentration into his homework that he is putting into scooping up the last grains of cereal from his bowl of milk we would be done already.
“Why does my knee itch?” he asks no one.
“Can you pour me some more cereal, please.”
He drops his pencil.
He picks it up with his toes.
“Can you pour me some more cereal, Mom?” I didn’t answer him the first time.
“Who are the muffins for?” he asks when I fetch a few from the kitchen for myself. “Me,” I answer.
“Darn,” he mumbles, “I need a muffin.”
While in the kitchen I see I never put away dinner. Sailor’s pasta still sits on the table. While he sits in the dining room eating his 2nd bowl of cereal.
Mac is on his 8th spelling word. “Mom, what kind of homework did you have? Did you have to do it on a typewriter?”
I tell him I didn’t have homework in 1st grade.
He is shocked. “That is so weird!”He gets up. Looks at his spelling list. Declares himself almost done.
“That music is driving me nuts,” he says about the radio playing in his brother’s room. “That’s what’s stopping me from doing my homework.” I am trying to be patient but it is hard, so hard. And when he moans it’s even worse.
It’s January 7th and outdoors it is nearly 60 degrees! Really. It’s as if spring has come early. The ground is wet. The snow piles are nearly gone. Everything is filthy. It’s windy. There is dog poop everywhere. We don’t need coats today.
I think it’s time to take down the Christmas decorations. We turn the holiday photo cards into Mac’s Alphabet Book, a project due for all 1st graders in 2 weeks. I can’t fathom why they are asked to do such a babyish project. This seems like something we should be putting together for our preschooler.
We are none of us happy about Mac’s return to school today. Sailor and I got a lot done to pass the time.
And it is worth noting that it took the full two weeks of winter break to get the stink out of Mac’s lunch box. I wanted to throw it away but worked hard to get it clean. And Mac spilled something in it at school today.
Ah I love school. Thrilled to bits to be back at it!
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