Week 28

Late last night after the boys were asleep (they were out by 7:55!) I received an email reminding me of a meeting I have at school this morning. At 8am. Now, when I was single – without kids – I would have been able to get up 30 minutes before my departure, leaving enuf time to get where I was going, I might have arrived less than an hour after waking. I am up several times in the middle of the night to be sure I have not overslept the alarm clock. At 6am I grab the clock and silence it, tiptoe to the bathroom and begin my day. I am brushing my teeth when not one but both children join me. “MOM! It’s too bright in here!” this from Sailor as he waits in line behind Mac to pee. It is still dark outside. I invite them back to bed but they would rather play. Per my instrux they are dressed when I come out of the shower. I am not in the mood for hair and makeup yet and contemplate making breakfast. It is really early.

Over breakfast Mac and I discuss the substitute teacher who will be in his classroom for two week starting tomorrow, while his teacher accompanies the 8th graders to France. Why, I have no idea. She does not speak a word of French and she will be apparently leaving her two small children at home with their father. I will not miss her.

I am helping Mac lean over his plate to get his ketchup covered scrambled eggs into his mouth. He rolls his eyes at me. I remind him not to be rude. He does it again. I can tell already how much fun we are going to have when these children turn to teenagers. I ask him to look me in the face and apologize.

I retreat to the bathroom and dry my hair. This behavior is heartbreaking to me.

Nearly two weeks after Mac brought Mrs. S a jar of homemade icing and a flowering plant from Sailor in celebration of her 39th birthday I have yet to see a thank you note in Mac’s backpack. And seeing as how she is off to France in 2 days I doubt we ever will see one. That is not the way to teach children.

I am generally very disgruntled over the way things have gone this year at school. I am happy to have been able to release Sailor from preschool, but that school was not giving me any sort of problems. I wish I could pull Mac from the big school. I wish it were that easy. I should know in the future not to involve myself with anything school-related if it is not directly Mac-related. That will be my new rule, except that I have already agreed to edit the school’s monthly newsletter for another year. I job I do nearly entirely thanklessly.

I am not sure whether or not Mother Nature has her own calendar, but she seems to be personally unaware that she set Spring in motion nearly a week ago. Our near-50 degree temperatures of yesterday afternoon have given way today to a raining snowstorm. It’s the kind of weather most people would simply describe as “gross.” It’s grey. And everything is wet.

Sailor and I spend this morning playing vigorously at one of those indoor inflatable playgrounds. I am exhausted, as is he. At lunch he swears he will not be taking a nap this afternoon and all the way home he negotiates with me until he finally asks what he has to do to not take a nap. I suggest he fold, distribute and put away (correctly) all the laundry. To which he asks, “And then can I have stories?” It’s only noon, so I explain to him that the reason he does not want to take a nap is that it isn’t nap time yet. So we decide to turn around and go back to the bookstore that has the train table. I can get a coffee! He can get a chocolate milk. We can look at books. “But I will not ask for a toy!” I am so proud of him. We pull into the parking lot and I catch a phone call. By the time I hang up 11 minutes later he is asleep. I start the engine to drive back home until I realize that I am in a parking lot that requires a validated parking ticket. Shoot. I drive up and call the attendant, whom I can see from the windowed booth she sits in across the side walk. I watch her let the phone ring twice before making a face at it, slowly picking it up and painstakingly pressing whatever she has to press to talk to me. The look of disgruntlement on her face is priceless and I wonder exactly how much she gets paid to do this job and precisely what she was doing before I so rudely interrupted her. I explain my situation. “Well, put your ticket in the slot [stupid lady! Don’t bother me!]” I call a generous thank you out to her as the card reader says I owe $0.00. By the time we get home, find parking and I am completely out of breath from not only carrying my winter-coat-clad 35-pound child up two flights of stairs, but carrying on a cell phone conversation simultaneously, Sailor is awake. “I thought we were going to the book store,” he wails plaintively. “Do you want to go?” I ask halfheartedly, tho we do have the entire afternoon ahead of us and the bookstore is always a good choice. He whines a little and I tell him to hang on a second while I go to the bathroom, the real reason I have carried him a block and a half and up two flights of stairs while on the phone. When I come out a minute or so later he has climbed up into my desk chair and is again fast asleep. The flash of my digital camera capturing this precious moment does not wake him. The house is so quiet. I should sleep a bit myself, but I don’t, of course. Instead I plug my new digicam into my laptop and find out how bloody easy it is to down load a photo! Wow, this is so cool.

I also contemplate dinner. We are way overdue for a trip to Trader Joe’s. But sometimes, just for fun, I like to hold out and see just how far we can get when we run out of food, because in truth we could never run out of food! But we are down to our last 3 apples. And while we can do without a gallon of milk due to the endless supply of milk boxes and organic soy milk my mother has so generously bestowed upon us, I just cannot turn a banana granola bar into a real piece of fruit.

Mac had homework to finish this morning, which of course ended in a battle of wills as he attempted to write sentences while balancing his worksheet on the corner of the bathroom sink. He does not understand the directions I am giving him in my smart mommy way of telling him how to spell “when.” This is one of your “wh” words, I remind him. He has no idea what to do and I am frustrated. More evidence when I try to explain further and he tells me that his teacher never comes by his desk to help him, that she is not teaching him well. Have I mentioned that I am completely over Mrs. S? Done. Finished. Caput. I will allow her to teach my child for the remaining three months of school but I will not be nice anymore. We are still waiting for her thank you notes from the gifts my boys brought her on her early-March birthday. Not a major error, true, but a very bad example to set for the children. And even worse when I am still disgruntled over her comment that even tho we moms do all the work it is really the father and his family who count. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!! I will not allow this woman to tell me how to raise my child or what name to call him. As I said, I am over her.

My 4-year-old sits at the dining room table while I fold his laundry. He plays with a set of plastic clothes hangers and two tiny plastic army men. There is a lot of shooting noise and moaning sounds. “Repair to die!” I overhear one army guy tell the other army guy.

After school Mac tells me he has learned to patch people up from like the movies, like that guy Fredrick Newtongale.

Saturday morning Sailor has changed his mind about wanting to go tot the strore for healthy donut ingredients. “What should we do then?” I ask him. “Settle down,” he suggests. “Settle down?” I ask. “Settle down, have a coffee, do what you want, do art studio business,” then he adds, “Take a rest.”
Mommies don’t get a rest, I tell him. But he disappears into the playroom and I am left to contemplate his wisdom. I guess in all practicality I could sit down and read a book…. Except I have to prepare my taxes. And I both boys’ rooms are terribly messy (not that it really matters since they don’t sleep there – tho Sailor’s room, still housing both his own and the living room rocker is too crowded to get to his clothing easily). And I do have work to do for the art studio…. Sigh…. There is no rest time for the Mommy. I just want to spend my day with my boys. Not in the same house as they are, but actually with them. Tho I don’t really want to play StarWars.