Monday night. I have just sent Sailor off to wash his hands. He protests and stomps away from the dinner table. I follow him and find him peeing, and so return to the kitchen.
A moment later he emerges. “Mom, you have to come see this.” He is very serious and his anger has dissipated.
“Look!” he points into the toilet bowl. “There is a too-pon stuck there.”
And so there is.
I apologize.
I flush.
I flush again.
Our new toilet has very minimal water pressure.
I grab a tampon applicator from the garbage can and use it to encourage the “too-pon” to disappear.
I apologize again.
Thank goodness the finder of this lovely object was one of my own and not a guest!
Late at night, before I make my before-bed breakfast and bring a book to bed, I am in the bathroom alone (a rarity of course, especially now that we have no bathroom door). I open the large box of “too-pons” that Sailor and I bought today and inside there is a little package of panty liners, free with my purchase. The neatly wrapped package beside the regular tampon box, inside the jumbo tampon box … it all brings me back almost 30 years to the day that my pre-menstrual kit arrived in the mail. You know the one, you had to send for it and when it arrived you took it to your parents’ bedroom and opened it in secret so your little brother or sister couldn’t see what was in your “starter kit.” All the mini pads that made you feel like a grown up just to wear one around the house for an hour and the maxi pads that were so think they scared the crap out of you, and even a belted pad to make you think twice about entering into puberty at all. No too-pons. No panty liners back there in 1978. Just a few well-written pamphlets on what to expect when you are expecting (your first period!). I haven’t thought about my “starter kit” in years. I wonder if it is still under my parents’ bed. I wonder also what puberty will be like with boys.
Wednesday
We oversleep by too many minutes. I have been turning off the alarm and falling back to sleep. I realize the reason I hate to get up on school days and today is a prime example. By the time I am done making Mac and Sailor two separate and different lunches and full breakfasts and cleaning up supplies and dishes from my work I am wondering if things might be easier if I moved the microwave and toaster over to the top of the dishwasher next to the sink. I am exhausted and we barely make it to school as the bell rings. At the enrichment center I pick up Sailor out of his stroller and tell him I want to hug him all day. “But I have a class,” says the boy who, a month ago, cried and begged not to have to attend the same class. “I will always hug you forever, even when I have to go to school, then when I am home I will hug you again.” He admits he will one day go to school. He breezes thru his class and we take a really long walk to the farm in the zoo. We had a great time there on Sunday eating beans and tomatoes with a farmer. The boys have asked to go back and while Mac is at school Sailor ands I are free to visit the garden again. And heck, the farmer was really attentive and cute. But he so busy with school groups and we can’t get near. We play for a little while in the farm house and then meet my dad for lunch.
Late in the afternoon I have Sailor in my lap again. “You can hug me forever now, Mommy.” So I do. I hold him like I will never let go. He leans back and I kiss his beautiful lips. I see a woman smile at us. I hold him tight and lay my head against his. Shortly he whispers, “Mommy? Are you asleep?”
We stop in LUSH on the way home from Mac’s piano lesson. The boys like to wash their hands there with the fun soaps. I am in the middle of learning about a $48 face cream when Mac needs a bathroom. We go back to the music school where Sailor and I bump into a mom from Mac’s school whom we have seen probably no fewer than twice a day every day all week. “We see her everywhere! I think she is a secret agent like Kornorlius,” he says, referring to a character named Kornelius in one of Mac’s Geronimo Stilton books.
We are all tired when we finally make it home after 6pm. I put a pizza in the oven and Sailor in the shower. Tomorrow is Yom Kippur so we will not go to school, which means we can blow off homework and watch a movie. Sailor and I got several movies from the library on Monday. Sailor tells Mac of my pizza and movie plan. “We are going watch a movie called Back to History.” You know the one, the 1985 classic, starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd and the Flux Capacitor.
Sailor has been showing his helpful side lately by toothpasting everyone’s toothbrush, not just his own. The mess is bad but his effort cannot be criticized.
We spend our Jewish day off at the suburban zoo. Sailor helps me carry his stroller up 4 steps and I am certain the spinach is working!
Saturday morning, in two separate rooms, the boys are singing, "Upside, inside out ... I'm a believer!" It's little Ricky Martin meets the Monkees!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Week 5 – Make it a Short Week
Monday night. Mac is in Lego Heaven in the playroom, putting together the much-coveted StarWars MTT. Sailor and I are indulging in a late-night movie with popcorn and organic rootbeer. It’s almost 8:30pm. Mac accidentally stopped the movie while we were making popcorn and I have to queue it up again. “Stop! I want to watch that!” Sailor says, as a preview for Stuart Little 3 jots across the screen.
“What?” I ask, not stopping the DVD.
“That was Sewer?”
“Sewer?”
“You know. The little mouse.” He is so darn cute. “Part three-ee.” I laugh at him. I want to squeeze him he is so cute sometimes. Like just before when I sent him into the kitchen to make popcorn. He’s five now; I think he is up for the task. Poor Mac was not even allowed to eat popcorn when he was 6! I instruct him, step by step what to do. I hear kernels of popcorn bounce on the floor and look up from the Lego instructions. “Don’t worry. Everything’s under control,” says my little man as he walks across the kitchen floor in his brand-new and slightly too large boxer briefs from GAP Kids. In one hand he has the 1/8 cup scooper filled with kernels. His other hand hovers beneath to catch potential spillage. I watch him scoop kernels from the big popcorn bowl and load them into the hot air blower. I am laughing so hard at his cuteness. “The baby is making popcorn,” I whisper to Mac.
“Why are you guys so darn cute?” I ask my freckle-nose boy who is so intent on his Lego project.
“Because you raised us,” he says, seriously.
Later: Sailor asks, “Wanna see my snake? It’s a Boa Instrictor.”
Tuesday. We stay home for Rosh Hashanah. No, I am not religious. But my father prefers that we not attend school or classes and hey, who am I to argue with a day off from school. So we sleep in (I do, anyway, til after 8:30) and wake to find Mac has, true to his word finished his homework, which he did not want to do last night. The time noted on his homework sheets is 7:20 and 7:30. As in a.m. Funny how they are so easy to rise on non-school days. We plan a do-nothing day. Immediately upon my arise Mac needs help with the MTT. The colossal Lego project in the playroom. Apparently some pieces are missing from the pile of 4 million Legos Sailor and I sorted on Sunday evening. I find two pieces in something I built that is sitting in wait of its attachment to the mothership. But other pieces are missing as well and I suggest we dismantle the MTT, resort the pieces and begin again. My suggestion is met with hissing and booing.
One of the kids asks me if I am hungry and I request a bagel, knowing full well neither of them is capable of handling the big knife to slice the tiny bagel.
Mac disappears into the kitchen and minutes later returns with a tray. My breakfast. Toast. Soggy toast. “I microwaved it instead of toasting it.” With jelly. Saturday night’s leftover broccoli and tofu – cold and with too much sauce. “I poured the sauce and whoa! A lot came out.” And a glass of hot tea. Perfect. He is 7 now. I think I need to teach him how to cook. I tell him this is a wonderful breakfast and choke down as much as I can.
My mom calls. “Are you going out today?” No, I hadn’t planned on it. She needs the challah, the bread for the Rosh Hashanah dinner. $71 later we have 2 loaves of challah and 4 bags of groceries from Trader Joe’s. By dinner time, Sailor has new shoes to wear to the fancy meal and a haircut (he was starting to look like Sandy Duncan all of the sudden) and Mac has had his bangs trimmed.
We watch a DVD while waiting to go down to dinner. “Mommy,” Sailor whispers, “I know what sex is.”
Oh really? “What is it?”
Whispering still, “You take off your pants. And your underpants. And you snuggle up really close.”
“Yes, that is exactly right,” I tell him. What more needs to be said?
“And when I am a grownup I will do that!”
Oy!
“Yes. When you are a grownup. That means you have to be at least 18.”
Wednesday, 1:23pm. Sailor should be just finishing up a soccer class make-up right now. Instead he is in his bed. Why? Because he refused to play soccer and so we left. Why? I have no idea. “I hate soccer.” That is all he had to say. We will talk about this when he wakes up at 3:00 to go get Mac from school. I am way too stressed about Mac’s field trip tomorrow to even get into this with Sailor right now.
Mac’s field trip. I asked the teacher if I can drive him to the destination. She said to ask the principal. He ran it by the Public School Board. And emailed me back with very specific instructions. What a hassle. This morning Mac says he wants to go on the field trip tomorrow but he does not want me to drive him. So my choices are: drive him anyway; let him go on the bus and accompany him; let him go on the bus and stay home; take Mac and Sailor to the aquarium on our own field trip. No matter what I do I will be unhappy. I will be a bad parent. He will probably be happy if I let him go on the bus and accompany him. I have always hated field trips both as a student and as an adult and now as a parent I have no reason to feel any different. In desperation I post my problem on a mom website. I get all sorts of responses that pretty much all tell me to send him. Many suggest I go on the bus with him. But what I neglected to mention in my post was that I hate the bus for myself too. What good will it do to go on an unsafe bus to protect my child and leave behind my other child in my wake? I am so stressed and worried about this! What is my problem?
This morning Sailor went to his enrichment class. When it is over the parents get to come in and watch a video of the kids. They perform a very short play – acting out a story, really. “Did you get to play the bunny?” I ask him. “No. I played the mom,” he says. I watch the video and the thought of Sailor making his theatrical debut playing the mom is so funny I am biting the insides of my lips trying not to laugh out loud. I am shaking in my seat. This is hilariously funny to me but also I am so proud of him.
10pm. Mac changed his mind and is now afraid to go on his field trip cuz they do a mock fire and he is afraid it's real. And both boys are snoring so I think they may be getting sick. This school routine and all of Sailor's classes (and his mood swings all day!) are SO much more exhausting than our summer routine, even tho our summer days were jam packed. I feel so trapped by the 7am alarm and our need to be at school on time and today's freezing morning did not help one bit! I'm sorry to sound like I am complaining but the school year is starting to crash in on me again and it does not feel good at all!
Thursday
Mac backed out of the field trip so I slept in with Sailor in my arms becuz he wet the bed.
After French I take the boys to Erehwon in search of winter coats (baby, it’s COLD outside!), which we are sure to need sooner rather than later.
“These are so cute!” I say.
“But those are girls’ coats,” says Sailor.
“I know, but they are cute.”
“Yeah, but Mom, we are not girls!”
After dinner I find this note on the kitchen table. It was from yesterday sometime.
Sailor: I know King Fu! [Demonstrates some punching moves.]
Mac: That’s boxing.
Sailor: I know something what’s not boxing.
Friday. Sailor and I have been recruited to assist with picture day at Mac’s school. Sailor is a trooper, traipsing up and down the stairs and across the school over and over to get the classes and bring them back down to the auditorium. We encounter 7th graders who were worse at lining up than kindergarteners; 4th graders taller than me; teachers who treat their students with no respect; Mac’s teacher who was the most respectful of all to her students; and 12-year-olds who looked like they were 15. It was a very revealing day. And the witch who taught Mac last year was by far the worst, even deliberately mispronouncing my last name. For our morning of work we were given complimentary photo packages. A $33 package. What a nice perk!
“What?” I ask, not stopping the DVD.
“That was Sewer?”
“Sewer?”
“You know. The little mouse.” He is so darn cute. “Part three-ee.” I laugh at him. I want to squeeze him he is so cute sometimes. Like just before when I sent him into the kitchen to make popcorn. He’s five now; I think he is up for the task. Poor Mac was not even allowed to eat popcorn when he was 6! I instruct him, step by step what to do. I hear kernels of popcorn bounce on the floor and look up from the Lego instructions. “Don’t worry. Everything’s under control,” says my little man as he walks across the kitchen floor in his brand-new and slightly too large boxer briefs from GAP Kids. In one hand he has the 1/8 cup scooper filled with kernels. His other hand hovers beneath to catch potential spillage. I watch him scoop kernels from the big popcorn bowl and load them into the hot air blower. I am laughing so hard at his cuteness. “The baby is making popcorn,” I whisper to Mac.
“Why are you guys so darn cute?” I ask my freckle-nose boy who is so intent on his Lego project.
“Because you raised us,” he says, seriously.
Later: Sailor asks, “Wanna see my snake? It’s a Boa Instrictor.”
Tuesday. We stay home for Rosh Hashanah. No, I am not religious. But my father prefers that we not attend school or classes and hey, who am I to argue with a day off from school. So we sleep in (I do, anyway, til after 8:30) and wake to find Mac has, true to his word finished his homework, which he did not want to do last night. The time noted on his homework sheets is 7:20 and 7:30. As in a.m. Funny how they are so easy to rise on non-school days. We plan a do-nothing day. Immediately upon my arise Mac needs help with the MTT. The colossal Lego project in the playroom. Apparently some pieces are missing from the pile of 4 million Legos Sailor and I sorted on Sunday evening. I find two pieces in something I built that is sitting in wait of its attachment to the mothership. But other pieces are missing as well and I suggest we dismantle the MTT, resort the pieces and begin again. My suggestion is met with hissing and booing.
One of the kids asks me if I am hungry and I request a bagel, knowing full well neither of them is capable of handling the big knife to slice the tiny bagel.
Mac disappears into the kitchen and minutes later returns with a tray. My breakfast. Toast. Soggy toast. “I microwaved it instead of toasting it.” With jelly. Saturday night’s leftover broccoli and tofu – cold and with too much sauce. “I poured the sauce and whoa! A lot came out.” And a glass of hot tea. Perfect. He is 7 now. I think I need to teach him how to cook. I tell him this is a wonderful breakfast and choke down as much as I can.
My mom calls. “Are you going out today?” No, I hadn’t planned on it. She needs the challah, the bread for the Rosh Hashanah dinner. $71 later we have 2 loaves of challah and 4 bags of groceries from Trader Joe’s. By dinner time, Sailor has new shoes to wear to the fancy meal and a haircut (he was starting to look like Sandy Duncan all of the sudden) and Mac has had his bangs trimmed.
We watch a DVD while waiting to go down to dinner. “Mommy,” Sailor whispers, “I know what sex is.”
Oh really? “What is it?”
Whispering still, “You take off your pants. And your underpants. And you snuggle up really close.”
“Yes, that is exactly right,” I tell him. What more needs to be said?
“And when I am a grownup I will do that!”
Oy!
“Yes. When you are a grownup. That means you have to be at least 18.”
Wednesday, 1:23pm. Sailor should be just finishing up a soccer class make-up right now. Instead he is in his bed. Why? Because he refused to play soccer and so we left. Why? I have no idea. “I hate soccer.” That is all he had to say. We will talk about this when he wakes up at 3:00 to go get Mac from school. I am way too stressed about Mac’s field trip tomorrow to even get into this with Sailor right now.
Mac’s field trip. I asked the teacher if I can drive him to the destination. She said to ask the principal. He ran it by the Public School Board. And emailed me back with very specific instructions. What a hassle. This morning Mac says he wants to go on the field trip tomorrow but he does not want me to drive him. So my choices are: drive him anyway; let him go on the bus and accompany him; let him go on the bus and stay home; take Mac and Sailor to the aquarium on our own field trip. No matter what I do I will be unhappy. I will be a bad parent. He will probably be happy if I let him go on the bus and accompany him. I have always hated field trips both as a student and as an adult and now as a parent I have no reason to feel any different. In desperation I post my problem on a mom website. I get all sorts of responses that pretty much all tell me to send him. Many suggest I go on the bus with him. But what I neglected to mention in my post was that I hate the bus for myself too. What good will it do to go on an unsafe bus to protect my child and leave behind my other child in my wake? I am so stressed and worried about this! What is my problem?
This morning Sailor went to his enrichment class. When it is over the parents get to come in and watch a video of the kids. They perform a very short play – acting out a story, really. “Did you get to play the bunny?” I ask him. “No. I played the mom,” he says. I watch the video and the thought of Sailor making his theatrical debut playing the mom is so funny I am biting the insides of my lips trying not to laugh out loud. I am shaking in my seat. This is hilariously funny to me but also I am so proud of him.
10pm. Mac changed his mind and is now afraid to go on his field trip cuz they do a mock fire and he is afraid it's real. And both boys are snoring so I think they may be getting sick. This school routine and all of Sailor's classes (and his mood swings all day!) are SO much more exhausting than our summer routine, even tho our summer days were jam packed. I feel so trapped by the 7am alarm and our need to be at school on time and today's freezing morning did not help one bit! I'm sorry to sound like I am complaining but the school year is starting to crash in on me again and it does not feel good at all!
Thursday
Mac backed out of the field trip so I slept in with Sailor in my arms becuz he wet the bed.
After French I take the boys to Erehwon in search of winter coats (baby, it’s COLD outside!), which we are sure to need sooner rather than later.
“These are so cute!” I say.
“But those are girls’ coats,” says Sailor.
“I know, but they are cute.”
“Yeah, but Mom, we are not girls!”
After dinner I find this note on the kitchen table. It was from yesterday sometime.
Sailor: I know King Fu! [Demonstrates some punching moves.]
Mac: That’s boxing.
Sailor: I know something what’s not boxing.
Friday. Sailor and I have been recruited to assist with picture day at Mac’s school. Sailor is a trooper, traipsing up and down the stairs and across the school over and over to get the classes and bring them back down to the auditorium. We encounter 7th graders who were worse at lining up than kindergarteners; 4th graders taller than me; teachers who treat their students with no respect; Mac’s teacher who was the most respectful of all to her students; and 12-year-olds who looked like they were 15. It was a very revealing day. And the witch who taught Mac last year was by far the worst, even deliberately mispronouncing my last name. For our morning of work we were given complimentary photo packages. A $33 package. What a nice perk!
Week 4
9:49 Monday night. Sailor is in his own room. Screaming. “I.Want. To. Stay. With. Yoooooou! Not. By. Myself!” We have had months and months of him goofing around at bed time and my threats to send him back to his own bed have been empty. Until last night. He fell asleep and lasted til roughly 5am.
I am biting my cheeks to keep from laughing at him as he stomps into the dining room. A very tiny man in oversized boxer briefs. “I don’t want to! Whenever you put me in there I will get ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut. So I want to do what I want to do. Not what I am doing. I want to do is go to sleep with you. I have other plans to do! Not same plans as you-ooo-hooo.”
Except I am not sleeping. I am trying to work and trying really, really hard not to start screaming myself.
So the boxer briefs. Sailor shows up at dinner tonight clad only in a pair of little underpants. Mid-meal he notices that his undies have made a mark around his belly. Everything else he owns has been upgraded from size 4 to size 5. But he is still wearing the little size 4 unnies, as he used to call them. He is 5 and he needs new unnies. Momentary thought process: Do I buy him all new underwear or do I buy Mac the next size up, which is 8 and give Sailor all the hand-me-down size 6 unders? Poor Sailor. An underpants shopping spree for him has quickly turned into an underpants shopping trip for Mac. Second Child Syndrome strikes again.
Mac has a friend over after school today. I think it might be fun for the boy’s little sister to play with Sailor. The mom and the nanny agree with me but the look of horror on the boy’s face at my suggestion is priceless! The little sister is eager to come over though and so we trek back home and I bring out snacks and Sailor wakes up and Mac shows off and is snotty and I have to keep a running dialog with a foreign nanny who is actually quite nice and when it is over Mac is hot and sweaty and smelly and I send him to a shower, which he thankfully can take on his own now.
For dinner he wants me to make “something you have never made before.” A great idea, except it is 5:15 when he suggests this and so we end up with last night’s spaghetti and the end of the frozen meatless meatballs. Maybe tomorrow I can “just look in my cookbook and come up with something new” as Mac says.
After school Wednesday I learn by calling one of the Room Parents that the field trip next week will have to be reached by bus as it is nowhere near our school. So now not only do I have to fake Mac an illness next Thursday morning but I have to somehow figure out how to recant my offer to chaperone this trip. My instinct is to go straight to the teacher with a note stating that I withdraw my permission for Mac to attend the upcoming field trip. But I am not keen on airing my personal issues with Mrs. W just yet. I may just tell her I can’t chaperone after all and apologize for the inconvenience and then just call Mac in sick next week. No further explanation needed. And yet the whole thing already has me feeling unsettled. How can they send home a permission slip without stating the exact location of the field trip?? Don’t blind side the parents!
My boys, in a snit of obstinance, decided not to heed my request for goodnight kisses tonight. How many times can a girl have her heart broken in a week?
Thursday.
Sailor and I spend part of the morning with our eye doctor, a man whose daughters I babysat every Saturday night through high school. His manner today is decidedly cheery and he is great with Sailor. After completing many tasks and being praised for doing so well, Sailor is declared mildly nearsighted, a half diopter. -.50. As compared to Mac’s -1.25, which allowed him to spend the summer completely glasses free. And my near -9, which renders me nearly blind. This comes as little surprise and I know that by 1st grade Sailor will also be wearing glasses to school.
While waiting outside school to pick up Mac my sister calls to tell me Dad is sick again and may be heading back to the ER. Tonight is open house at Mac’s school and she is going to fill in as sitter for my boys. All my regular day-to-day problems fall to the side as I contemplate the possibility of my dad re-entering the hospital. And yet, I go along as if nothing is wrong, willing – if you will – my father to be well.
Sailor is grumpy after his nap and does not want to go to French class. Mac is game until he sees the substitute teacher. What’s with these two today? I do some calm and patient and gentle bribing: If you want to go play at your friend Michael’s after school on Monday, you will have to go to French today, otherwise we will have to do a make-up class on Monday instead. It works and I spend the remainder of the 1 ½-hour class talking with a beautiful Black French mom, who happens to be a neighbor of Barack Obama, about why it is imperative that we get Mr. Obama into the White House. When we get home my dad is eating dinner and all seems well. I change clothes and take a phone call with my college best friend and make it to school just as the principal is about to speak.
After the State of the School address I snag a mom whom I like a great deal but whose son caused my son quite a bit of trouble last year. We eat from the massive buffet in the gym and then head up to our respective sons’ classrooms.
Most of the parents had their time in the classroom while I was eating, so I share Mac’s teacher with only three other parents. It’s nice. Except one of the parents, an obnoxious, loud mom has taken the smallness of our group to mean that this is her time with Mrs. W and sees fit to comment on her every comment or ask a question following each. I wait until everyone has left to share my thoughts about Mac riding a school bus to go on a field trip (I won’t let him). She understands. What a difference from last year! "Can I try to talk you out of it?" sh easks. "Yes, you an try," I acquiesce.
In Mac’s desk he has left a “Surprise” for me: A note with a math quiz that he has written. I happily fill in the answers. I am pleased with this open house.
I don’t get home until nearly 9pm, the time of the season premier of the final season of ER. I let the kids stay up and watch with me. A huge mistake as tonight’s episode is remarkably gory and a major cast member dies. I am in tears, sobbing on the couch. Sailor alternates between asking me not to cry and bringing me tissues and reassuring himself that this is not real, “Right, Mommy? He is just pretending.”
He is visibly upset after the show. “We should not have watched that stupid movie!” Not sure which upset him more: seeing the blood and guts on tv or seeing me crying.
Friday.
“Now that the hustle of summer is over…”
Hustle of summer? Seriously? Hustle? What ever happened to the lazy days of summer? This radio commercial is obviously taking some serious liberties.
At school one of the two little black boys (I hesitate to call him “African–American” because I have absolutely no idea from where his ancestors hail) approaches me and with his deep voice, “Hey Mac’s Mom! My mom asked me to ask you if you are having Mac’s Halloween party again this year.” I cup his soft cheeks in my hands and tell him I am not sure yet. He is an adorable and hilariously funny little boy. “Tell your mom we want to have you over to play after school soon,” I tell him.
“Well see I go to this Daddy Daycare like thing after school so I don’t know if I can just come over.”
“No sweety, we won’t just take you. I’ll arrange it with your mom first.”
“Oh, ok.”
He is so cute.
At soccer this morning Sailor wants to know if his little galpal Christina is in class. He doesn’t see her and he whispers to me.
I work with the head coach to arrange Sailor’s fall schedule with a combo of Tuesdays and Fridays. “I really am your most high-maintenance mom, aren’t I?” The coach laughs. We have gotten to be nice friends over the past year and I don’t think he minds my antics, much. “Last week one of the other moms said you must spend all your time talking to moms,” I say, “And I said, no just me!”
“Just you,” he says at the same time and we laugh.
We are both asked by another mom to make change for $5. I pull out $3 from my wallet and Coach pulls out a $5 and $3. We laugh that together we could give her change and go buy more coffee. “What a statement this makes on my priorities,” I say, indicating the venti decaf latte, the cold vanilla milk and the warm vanilla milk I am holding.
I later spill the warm vanilla milk all over the soccer gym floor while trying to balance it on top of my latte with my chin.
Between soccer and gymnastics Sailor outgrows his favorite gym shoes: a trendy pair of blue leather shoes with a yellow flame shooting on each side. We call them his fire shoes and their $40 purchase in the spring resulted in Sailor learning to tie his shoes at 4 ½. (“I’ll buy them for you but you have to learn how to tie them.” And so he did. After 2 short lessons.)
Sailor and I spend the afternoon outside. He wearing shorts and I wearing my little denim skirt, sandals… Summer has made a reappearance and we are squeezing the very last drops out of it before we have to say good bye for another year.
Saturday is absolutely gorgeous and we spend the afternoon outside at the playground the zoo the park. It is a really nice day. We share popcorn. I work on maintaining my tan as I have a 40th birthday party to attend tonight and a wedding next weekend. When we get home it is 3:30pm and the boys head straight into their pajamas and hit the couch and pop in a DVD. I clean out the sink and start mopping the kitchen floor. “Mommy do you have anything I can eat on a stick?” I think he means a lollipop but I offer a vegetarian corn dog, which he accepts. Twice. I field his request for corn and hop into the shower. I have left myself plenty of time to get ready for my friend’s party. I start a pot of brown rice for dinner. Set broccoli in a pan of water and soy sauce. It simmers while I dry my hair. I slice tofu. The stove is on low while I am getting ready in the bathroom, the boys still ensconced in their DVD. They come to the table on time and I am ready to leave on time. Amazingly.
I am biting my cheeks to keep from laughing at him as he stomps into the dining room. A very tiny man in oversized boxer briefs. “I don’t want to! Whenever you put me in there I will get ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut. So I want to do what I want to do. Not what I am doing. I want to do is go to sleep with you. I have other plans to do! Not same plans as you-ooo-hooo.”
Except I am not sleeping. I am trying to work and trying really, really hard not to start screaming myself.
So the boxer briefs. Sailor shows up at dinner tonight clad only in a pair of little underpants. Mid-meal he notices that his undies have made a mark around his belly. Everything else he owns has been upgraded from size 4 to size 5. But he is still wearing the little size 4 unnies, as he used to call them. He is 5 and he needs new unnies. Momentary thought process: Do I buy him all new underwear or do I buy Mac the next size up, which is 8 and give Sailor all the hand-me-down size 6 unders? Poor Sailor. An underpants shopping spree for him has quickly turned into an underpants shopping trip for Mac. Second Child Syndrome strikes again.
Mac has a friend over after school today. I think it might be fun for the boy’s little sister to play with Sailor. The mom and the nanny agree with me but the look of horror on the boy’s face at my suggestion is priceless! The little sister is eager to come over though and so we trek back home and I bring out snacks and Sailor wakes up and Mac shows off and is snotty and I have to keep a running dialog with a foreign nanny who is actually quite nice and when it is over Mac is hot and sweaty and smelly and I send him to a shower, which he thankfully can take on his own now.
For dinner he wants me to make “something you have never made before.” A great idea, except it is 5:15 when he suggests this and so we end up with last night’s spaghetti and the end of the frozen meatless meatballs. Maybe tomorrow I can “just look in my cookbook and come up with something new” as Mac says.
After school Wednesday I learn by calling one of the Room Parents that the field trip next week will have to be reached by bus as it is nowhere near our school. So now not only do I have to fake Mac an illness next Thursday morning but I have to somehow figure out how to recant my offer to chaperone this trip. My instinct is to go straight to the teacher with a note stating that I withdraw my permission for Mac to attend the upcoming field trip. But I am not keen on airing my personal issues with Mrs. W just yet. I may just tell her I can’t chaperone after all and apologize for the inconvenience and then just call Mac in sick next week. No further explanation needed. And yet the whole thing already has me feeling unsettled. How can they send home a permission slip without stating the exact location of the field trip?? Don’t blind side the parents!
My boys, in a snit of obstinance, decided not to heed my request for goodnight kisses tonight. How many times can a girl have her heart broken in a week?
Thursday.
Sailor and I spend part of the morning with our eye doctor, a man whose daughters I babysat every Saturday night through high school. His manner today is decidedly cheery and he is great with Sailor. After completing many tasks and being praised for doing so well, Sailor is declared mildly nearsighted, a half diopter. -.50. As compared to Mac’s -1.25, which allowed him to spend the summer completely glasses free. And my near -9, which renders me nearly blind. This comes as little surprise and I know that by 1st grade Sailor will also be wearing glasses to school.
While waiting outside school to pick up Mac my sister calls to tell me Dad is sick again and may be heading back to the ER. Tonight is open house at Mac’s school and she is going to fill in as sitter for my boys. All my regular day-to-day problems fall to the side as I contemplate the possibility of my dad re-entering the hospital. And yet, I go along as if nothing is wrong, willing – if you will – my father to be well.
Sailor is grumpy after his nap and does not want to go to French class. Mac is game until he sees the substitute teacher. What’s with these two today? I do some calm and patient and gentle bribing: If you want to go play at your friend Michael’s after school on Monday, you will have to go to French today, otherwise we will have to do a make-up class on Monday instead. It works and I spend the remainder of the 1 ½-hour class talking with a beautiful Black French mom, who happens to be a neighbor of Barack Obama, about why it is imperative that we get Mr. Obama into the White House. When we get home my dad is eating dinner and all seems well. I change clothes and take a phone call with my college best friend and make it to school just as the principal is about to speak.
After the State of the School address I snag a mom whom I like a great deal but whose son caused my son quite a bit of trouble last year. We eat from the massive buffet in the gym and then head up to our respective sons’ classrooms.
Most of the parents had their time in the classroom while I was eating, so I share Mac’s teacher with only three other parents. It’s nice. Except one of the parents, an obnoxious, loud mom has taken the smallness of our group to mean that this is her time with Mrs. W and sees fit to comment on her every comment or ask a question following each. I wait until everyone has left to share my thoughts about Mac riding a school bus to go on a field trip (I won’t let him). She understands. What a difference from last year! "Can I try to talk you out of it?" sh easks. "Yes, you an try," I acquiesce.
In Mac’s desk he has left a “Surprise” for me: A note with a math quiz that he has written. I happily fill in the answers. I am pleased with this open house.
I don’t get home until nearly 9pm, the time of the season premier of the final season of ER. I let the kids stay up and watch with me. A huge mistake as tonight’s episode is remarkably gory and a major cast member dies. I am in tears, sobbing on the couch. Sailor alternates between asking me not to cry and bringing me tissues and reassuring himself that this is not real, “Right, Mommy? He is just pretending.”
He is visibly upset after the show. “We should not have watched that stupid movie!” Not sure which upset him more: seeing the blood and guts on tv or seeing me crying.
Friday.
“Now that the hustle of summer is over…”
Hustle of summer? Seriously? Hustle? What ever happened to the lazy days of summer? This radio commercial is obviously taking some serious liberties.
At school one of the two little black boys (I hesitate to call him “African–American” because I have absolutely no idea from where his ancestors hail) approaches me and with his deep voice, “Hey Mac’s Mom! My mom asked me to ask you if you are having Mac’s Halloween party again this year.” I cup his soft cheeks in my hands and tell him I am not sure yet. He is an adorable and hilariously funny little boy. “Tell your mom we want to have you over to play after school soon,” I tell him.
“Well see I go to this Daddy Daycare like thing after school so I don’t know if I can just come over.”
“No sweety, we won’t just take you. I’ll arrange it with your mom first.”
“Oh, ok.”
He is so cute.
At soccer this morning Sailor wants to know if his little galpal Christina is in class. He doesn’t see her and he whispers to me.
I work with the head coach to arrange Sailor’s fall schedule with a combo of Tuesdays and Fridays. “I really am your most high-maintenance mom, aren’t I?” The coach laughs. We have gotten to be nice friends over the past year and I don’t think he minds my antics, much. “Last week one of the other moms said you must spend all your time talking to moms,” I say, “And I said, no just me!”
“Just you,” he says at the same time and we laugh.
We are both asked by another mom to make change for $5. I pull out $3 from my wallet and Coach pulls out a $5 and $3. We laugh that together we could give her change and go buy more coffee. “What a statement this makes on my priorities,” I say, indicating the venti decaf latte, the cold vanilla milk and the warm vanilla milk I am holding.
I later spill the warm vanilla milk all over the soccer gym floor while trying to balance it on top of my latte with my chin.
Between soccer and gymnastics Sailor outgrows his favorite gym shoes: a trendy pair of blue leather shoes with a yellow flame shooting on each side. We call them his fire shoes and their $40 purchase in the spring resulted in Sailor learning to tie his shoes at 4 ½. (“I’ll buy them for you but you have to learn how to tie them.” And so he did. After 2 short lessons.)
Sailor and I spend the afternoon outside. He wearing shorts and I wearing my little denim skirt, sandals… Summer has made a reappearance and we are squeezing the very last drops out of it before we have to say good bye for another year.
Saturday is absolutely gorgeous and we spend the afternoon outside at the playground the zoo the park. It is a really nice day. We share popcorn. I work on maintaining my tan as I have a 40th birthday party to attend tonight and a wedding next weekend. When we get home it is 3:30pm and the boys head straight into their pajamas and hit the couch and pop in a DVD. I clean out the sink and start mopping the kitchen floor. “Mommy do you have anything I can eat on a stick?” I think he means a lollipop but I offer a vegetarian corn dog, which he accepts. Twice. I field his request for corn and hop into the shower. I have left myself plenty of time to get ready for my friend’s party. I start a pot of brown rice for dinner. Set broccoli in a pan of water and soy sauce. It simmers while I dry my hair. I slice tofu. The stove is on low while I am getting ready in the bathroom, the boys still ensconced in their DVD. They come to the table on time and I am ready to leave on time. Amazingly.
Week 3 – Happy 5th Birthday, Sailor!
The rain has ceased. Finally. While we did not flood here, I was stuck on the expressway on Saturday and was forced to – literally -- turn my car around on the northbound lanes and head back south and exit off the on ramp. Needless to say I never made it to my destination on Saturday. But I did work almost all weekend. Except for the quick trip to Pottery Barn Kids to meet the StarWars characters.
Saturday morning I tell the boys to put on their fave StarWars costumes. They choose, instead of their store bought costumes, to make their own. Mac wears a pair of brown cords and a dark grey waffle weave shirt, black gloves and his requisite rain boots (it hasn’t stopped raining since Friday morning). He is Anakin Skywalker. Sailor puts on a tiny double breasted suit. He is Luke. They just look like kids in weird clothes. I don’t tell them where we are going. We stand in line for about 30 minutes only to have both children become either star struck or terrified, I am not sure which. Mac lets me take one photo of him with Luke, Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi. I have mine taken with Darth Vader. And then we leave. At which point Sailor bursts into tears. “That was not fun! It was not what I expected!” So much for great surprises.
Monday morning I am tired from being away from the boys so much of the weekend. And from staying up readying the house so that I can decorate tonight for Sailor’s birthday tomorrow. And from IMing with the best friend of a guy I like. So when the alarm rings and Mac says, “I was up sneezing all night and my stomach hurts and I don’t think I can go to school today,” I shut off the alarm and tell him to go back to sleep. When we finally get up at 20 after 8:00 I call him in sick. I know he is not sick. But my plan is to take Sailor up to the ‘burbs for his birthday photo today and I can’t take the risk that Mac will have the school call me to come get him again like last Monday.
Sailor is a gorgeous child. People have commented on him. But when he takes photos he does not let himself go and so he does not photograph all that well. So I have some trouble choosing which photos to order.
We spend the day shopping and getting ready for tomorrow and relishing Sailor’s last day of 4-ness (a term we coined two years ago when he had his last day of 2-ness!). I am not sure I am ready to have my younger child be 5 years old. I still think of Mac as 5 and in kindergarten. But it’s going to be Sailor now. I don’t think he is big enuf to be 5. He still has tantrums. Still naps. Still wants “uppy.” Still rides in the stroller. Yet he can tie his shoes. Shower. Swim. Write.
No, I am not ready for my baby boy to be 5. It seems so many, many years ago that he was born. And yet I can’t believe 5 whole years have just about passed. I remember so much about the day he was born. Mac was so little. Just 2. But seemed so big. And now I don’t even know how we got to where we are right now. And in some ways it frightens me. I am so glad Sailor is not in kindergarten now. My beautiful boy. Mac had a major change in personality when he was 5. Sailor asked me what he would be like when he is 5, how he would be different. He also showed me how big he thinks he will be when he wakes up and is 5. “What if I don’t sleep at all during the sleeping time?” he wants to know, in anticipation of the decorations I will put up while he sleeps.
At the mall today, after the photos, it gets cold. I buy the boys pants. And Sailor a pair of socks to put on under his fisherman sandals. He holds the pants up by the legs to keep them from getting dirty on the ground. Silly boy. Silly sleepy boy who loves to be carried and hugged. When he wakes he will be 5! Half a decade! And now SuperMommy must sleep.
Tuesday
Mac wakes Sailor on his birthday… We proceed immediately to the small pile of gifts on the dining room table, which Sailor is quite pleased with. Mostly toys. A DVD. A couple of shirts. And then I direct him to search the living room (the “Liver-room” as he calls it. “What is it posue-ta-be?” he asks when I ask him how he says "living room") all the while I am continuously reminding Mac that this is Sailor’s birthday.
It’s a nice day with great weather. We pick up his favorite friend on our way home and drive to the indoor inflatable place only to find not only no place to park but a “Closed” sign on the door. It is 9:30 a.m., nothing is open except Old Navy and the art store and I have two highly disappointed 5-year-olds in the backseat of my car. We have been planning this morning’s events for no fewer than 4 months. I am heartsick for the boys and wishing that I had followed my gut instinct to call ahead (I did check the website!). I drive to the Nature Museum after a quick call that tells me they are already open. We don’t have much time so we play quickly in the water area and the tree house slide area and then pet a box turtle named Harrison and look at tarantulas and walking stick insects and Sailor’s friend gives Sailor a “what the hell?” look when Sailor answers correctly my questions about camouflage. We pick up the boy’s mother and head to the Rainforest Café. When Mac was 4 we went there for dinner and he was terrified. Sailor, too young to remember, saw the big red eyed tree frog (which he identified by name) back in May and asked to go for lunch. Today is the day. It takes us forever to walk to our table as we are all in awe of the sites inside this restaurant. We are seated next to two elephants that trumpet and snort and wink and flail their trunks at us throughout the meal. It is not a relaxed meal as I attempt to engage in meaningful conversation with the boy’s mom and not ignore Sailor, the birthday boy. We have to get back for the boy to be on time for preschool but I really have to stop to pee. No sooner are we a block away from the restaurant and my friend is saying, “I don’t see you car! Did they tow it?” sending me into an unpleasant déjà vu from last summer that Sailor announces, “I hafgo potty.” I toss the keys at my friend and continue down the block to an unexpectedly fancy restaurant whose hostesses both inside and out direct us right to the bathroom without waiting for us to finish asking for it. The bathroom has deep old fashioned sinks and powdered borax soap. Our friends are waiting a block away in our car, already late for junior kindergarten. And Sailor’s poopies are stuck. My phone rings. My father on the other end can’t hear what I am saying. He hangs up and calls me back. I am in a bathroom in a fancy restaurant telling my dad yes, buy me milk at the grocery store.
Sailor falls asleep on the way to the toy store and I let him doze while I phone chat with my college best friend. Inside the store we choose 5 toys to narrow down to one good choice. Sailor wants to buy something for Mac, too. Perhaps this is a ploy to get another toy for himself. But how can you deny such generosity, and on his own birthday no less?!
Sailor takes no more than 2 bites of the birthday dinner he has so carefully planned and shopped for: Macker cheese, broccoli, corn, watermelon and rootbeer. Instead of eating he jumps back and forth between the sofa and the big chair while rest of us eat. All I can say about his racetrack cake, ala Speed Racer, is this: Scooter, $35; decorations, $25; birthday dinner, $80. Getting two little plastic cars on top of your birthday cake and mommy letting you play with them in you piece of cake, priceless! “Did you taste your cake?” we ask him. “Yes, from my fingers.” He is covered in cake and delights us all by licking the cake off the cars as if they were ribs or chicken.
I let the boys stay up way too late because is it, after all, Sailor’s only 5th birthday and so we will be tired in the morning and I will remind the boys that they chose to stay up and play and they will understand.
And we are going along and going along and on Wednesday it all comes tumbling down. Permission slips for the first 2nd grade field trip are in folders this afternoon. My new school ally, the only mom I talk to regularly this year so far, says flat out, “My daughter’s not going.” It’s a walking field trip so I don’t have to worry about the bus issue. Yet. And it’s neighborhood and not on a day Sailor has a class. So I can chaperone. I fill out the form. I write in the volunteer spot that I would like to be considered as a chaperone. I do not mention that if I am not chosen to accompany Mac’s class that Mac will not be going. I will save this big X on my reputation for a later date. No point causing myself trouble before I have to, which is what I did last year. No, no point. I will wait until it comes up. Meanwhile I am still going to stay silent. But I feel the stress in my chest and wonder why I can’t just be like the other moms. And why, when I try to be, I am given a hard time about it anyway. No point trying to do what others expect of me. Might as well just do what I feel is right. Whatever that is. Even if it feels weird overall.
By week’s end it feels as if we have been back to school for months. I knew this would happen and I am pretty bummed about it. We are in a routine that is backbreaking and yet we follow along without question. Mac has his first spelling test back with a perfect score, including extra credit words. This week’s words are somewhat more difficult but still reasonable although he is expected to spell beautiful and consulting as his bonus words. It is no easy task to teach this boy to spell. But on his sentence sheet he writes “My mom is beautiful.” What a good boy I have.
Early in the week a set of 2nd graders was moved into Mac’s class to make room in their original classroom for the overflow of 1st graders, thereby creating a 1st/2nd split class. I am very glad that Mac is not part of the split class and I am happy with the children who have joined his class. Top of the list is Isabella, whose mom is the only mom I have spent any truly significant time with this year. Her little brother is rapidly becoming one of Sailor’s playmates, as we moms linger after the bell rings almost every morning now. Isabella is a tiny girl with dark hair and porcelain skin. And the attitude and self-possession of a girl 10 years older, in a good way. Mac asked me last weekend if I could guess who his new girlfriend is. I guessed Isabella right away and was pleased when he said I was correct. Mac has not had a girlfriend since he broke up with his fiancée, Anika, a couple of years ago. I am glad he has picked such a really nice girl. Between her mother’s overprotectiveness and mine we are in good shape!
Thursday morning I dress up for no reason. I have a long black tank dress that has lingered in my closet for at least 10 years. I pair it with a black high heeled sandals and some nice jewelry and voila! Hot mom. I have to go into the school office for a quick moment. I stop at the security table to sign in. The security guard asks me if I am going to a fancy luncheon. No, I tell him, I just felt like dressing up. He comments something along the lines of, “Well I appreciate it. Thank you.” I wonder which part of the dress he likes the most. I guess after all these years the dress, which clings to every part mercilessly, is still wearable, at least on a “skinny” day. I am flattered by the guard’s attentions. But by day’s end my feet are killing me. Who am I kidding. By the time I walk home from dropping off Mac my feet are killing me!
Later when Sailor falls asleep in the car on the way to finding a parking space to pick up Mac I am in deep trouble. There is no possibility that I can carry him the 3 blocks from the space I finally find. I wake him and he cries. Poor thing. But I simply cannot carry him and walk in these shoes. Which yes, I am still wearing! Who am I kidding? I simply cannot walk in these shoes!
Thursday after French class Mac and Sailor’s teacher, Elisabeth, tells me that Alec is distracting Mac in class. I am not surprised tho usually the troublemaker is Mac, and Sailor is the well-behaved child. Elisabeth thinks Mac may be bored because he is “very advanced” she tells me. I love this bit of info. Mac has been taking French on and off for nearly 5 years. I have undoubtedly spent thousands of dollars on these classes. He is now getting three days a week 45 minutes each at school. I should expect him to be advanced by now, if not at least somewhat conversational. Hurray for Mac!
Sailor finds an acquaintance named Christina in soccer this morning. He knows her from art class and I went to college with her mom (tho we were not friends then). He tells me after class that “Christina is fun to play with.” I am so pleased that Sailor is making some new friends. With no school group to help this along it does my heart good to see that he is indeed making friends in the other settings I am exposing him to.
At Whole Foods Sailor finds a cake that looks like it has a spider web on it. "Look, a Spider Man cake, Mommy!" So yes, I order him one. We have never ordered a birthday cake before. And as this is the go-all-out-for-Sailor’s-birthday year, how can I say no? It is a sweet indulgence. $20. Saves me having to bake, frost and decorate cupcakes! So I don't mind. I am tired. We spent the afternoon setting up for Sailor's party at the art studio so we don’t have to rush over the weekend.
Friday after school we have a playdate with Mac’s 1st grade nemesis. He says they are getting along this year and they want to play. While we wait outside school for the boy’s mom to finish a chat with a teacher, Mrs. S, the demon 1st grade teacher from last year, marches right up to Mac and his friend. “Hello 2nd graders,” she chimes. I want to puke. “What did we learn about how to treat trees? Is this a young tree or an old tree?” she asks, grasping the trunk of the young tree the boys have been clamoring around and attempts to shake it. “What did we learn last year? How do we treat the tree? We don’t climb on it.” She shakes and shakes the tree. Not that it moves an inch. It is strong and well rooted. I am unclear as to her motive. She does not address me. I keep my eyes turned toward the boys and then turn them away and stare into the crowd. Mrs. S. persists. Does she want me to acknowledge her? I will not. Tho I want to. I want to tell her that I will discipline my own children thank you very much. I ignore her and she eventually, after a painfully long display, turns and walks away. I hate her very presence and wish I had the nerve to tell her to stay away from my child.
The boys – my two, and this boy and his little brother – are rowdy and noisy and aggressive and … this mom and I are none too pleased. Mac wets his pants and I refuse to let him change. But give in to a dry pair of the other boy’s underwear, which I have to ask the boy 4 times for. I don’t want him to be wet all over the house. But I also want him to take more responsibility and pee when he needs to! I mean, who doesn’t have to pee when they get home from school? Every one of his friends has immediately asked for the bathroom upon arrival after school at our house. Perhaps I need to enforce the pee-first-thing-after-school rule to get him into the habit as when we were growing up. So I let him change his unders but not his pants, which were also wet. I drape them over the stroller to dry and let him suffer the humiliation of running around in his shirt and no pants. And suffer he does. It pains me a great deal to watch his tantrum, which I assure him is far more embarrassing than his lack of pants.
We opt for a sleepover in the living room for Friday night movie night. Pizza. The Bee Movie. Sleeping bags. It’s fun and the kids think it is a great idea. By 6:30 I want to go to sleep. Wish tomorrow were a rain day. Could use a day on the couch with endless DVDs, but not when it is suddenly unseasonably warm out agian!! I miss the beach!
Mid-movie Sailor decides to show off his newest skill. With a great deal of gusto and talent Sailor demonstrates his ability to “arm fart.” Yep, I am so proud of my little boy. He can tie his shoes, swim and arm fart.
“You have to cuff your arm like this,” he instructs me, cupping his hand under his armpit. He is cracking me up!
Sailor loses his enthusiasm when it is time to go to sleep but falls asleep with his hand under my shirt as he is wont to do.
And another long and tedious school week is over.
Saturday morning I tell the boys to put on their fave StarWars costumes. They choose, instead of their store bought costumes, to make their own. Mac wears a pair of brown cords and a dark grey waffle weave shirt, black gloves and his requisite rain boots (it hasn’t stopped raining since Friday morning). He is Anakin Skywalker. Sailor puts on a tiny double breasted suit. He is Luke. They just look like kids in weird clothes. I don’t tell them where we are going. We stand in line for about 30 minutes only to have both children become either star struck or terrified, I am not sure which. Mac lets me take one photo of him with Luke, Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi. I have mine taken with Darth Vader. And then we leave. At which point Sailor bursts into tears. “That was not fun! It was not what I expected!” So much for great surprises.
Monday morning I am tired from being away from the boys so much of the weekend. And from staying up readying the house so that I can decorate tonight for Sailor’s birthday tomorrow. And from IMing with the best friend of a guy I like. So when the alarm rings and Mac says, “I was up sneezing all night and my stomach hurts and I don’t think I can go to school today,” I shut off the alarm and tell him to go back to sleep. When we finally get up at 20 after 8:00 I call him in sick. I know he is not sick. But my plan is to take Sailor up to the ‘burbs for his birthday photo today and I can’t take the risk that Mac will have the school call me to come get him again like last Monday.
Sailor is a gorgeous child. People have commented on him. But when he takes photos he does not let himself go and so he does not photograph all that well. So I have some trouble choosing which photos to order.
We spend the day shopping and getting ready for tomorrow and relishing Sailor’s last day of 4-ness (a term we coined two years ago when he had his last day of 2-ness!). I am not sure I am ready to have my younger child be 5 years old. I still think of Mac as 5 and in kindergarten. But it’s going to be Sailor now. I don’t think he is big enuf to be 5. He still has tantrums. Still naps. Still wants “uppy.” Still rides in the stroller. Yet he can tie his shoes. Shower. Swim. Write.
No, I am not ready for my baby boy to be 5. It seems so many, many years ago that he was born. And yet I can’t believe 5 whole years have just about passed. I remember so much about the day he was born. Mac was so little. Just 2. But seemed so big. And now I don’t even know how we got to where we are right now. And in some ways it frightens me. I am so glad Sailor is not in kindergarten now. My beautiful boy. Mac had a major change in personality when he was 5. Sailor asked me what he would be like when he is 5, how he would be different. He also showed me how big he thinks he will be when he wakes up and is 5. “What if I don’t sleep at all during the sleeping time?” he wants to know, in anticipation of the decorations I will put up while he sleeps.
At the mall today, after the photos, it gets cold. I buy the boys pants. And Sailor a pair of socks to put on under his fisherman sandals. He holds the pants up by the legs to keep them from getting dirty on the ground. Silly boy. Silly sleepy boy who loves to be carried and hugged. When he wakes he will be 5! Half a decade! And now SuperMommy must sleep.
Tuesday
Mac wakes Sailor on his birthday… We proceed immediately to the small pile of gifts on the dining room table, which Sailor is quite pleased with. Mostly toys. A DVD. A couple of shirts. And then I direct him to search the living room (the “Liver-room” as he calls it. “What is it posue-ta-be?” he asks when I ask him how he says "living room") all the while I am continuously reminding Mac that this is Sailor’s birthday.
It’s a nice day with great weather. We pick up his favorite friend on our way home and drive to the indoor inflatable place only to find not only no place to park but a “Closed” sign on the door. It is 9:30 a.m., nothing is open except Old Navy and the art store and I have two highly disappointed 5-year-olds in the backseat of my car. We have been planning this morning’s events for no fewer than 4 months. I am heartsick for the boys and wishing that I had followed my gut instinct to call ahead (I did check the website!). I drive to the Nature Museum after a quick call that tells me they are already open. We don’t have much time so we play quickly in the water area and the tree house slide area and then pet a box turtle named Harrison and look at tarantulas and walking stick insects and Sailor’s friend gives Sailor a “what the hell?” look when Sailor answers correctly my questions about camouflage. We pick up the boy’s mother and head to the Rainforest Café. When Mac was 4 we went there for dinner and he was terrified. Sailor, too young to remember, saw the big red eyed tree frog (which he identified by name) back in May and asked to go for lunch. Today is the day. It takes us forever to walk to our table as we are all in awe of the sites inside this restaurant. We are seated next to two elephants that trumpet and snort and wink and flail their trunks at us throughout the meal. It is not a relaxed meal as I attempt to engage in meaningful conversation with the boy’s mom and not ignore Sailor, the birthday boy. We have to get back for the boy to be on time for preschool but I really have to stop to pee. No sooner are we a block away from the restaurant and my friend is saying, “I don’t see you car! Did they tow it?” sending me into an unpleasant déjà vu from last summer that Sailor announces, “I hafgo potty.” I toss the keys at my friend and continue down the block to an unexpectedly fancy restaurant whose hostesses both inside and out direct us right to the bathroom without waiting for us to finish asking for it. The bathroom has deep old fashioned sinks and powdered borax soap. Our friends are waiting a block away in our car, already late for junior kindergarten. And Sailor’s poopies are stuck. My phone rings. My father on the other end can’t hear what I am saying. He hangs up and calls me back. I am in a bathroom in a fancy restaurant telling my dad yes, buy me milk at the grocery store.
Sailor falls asleep on the way to the toy store and I let him doze while I phone chat with my college best friend. Inside the store we choose 5 toys to narrow down to one good choice. Sailor wants to buy something for Mac, too. Perhaps this is a ploy to get another toy for himself. But how can you deny such generosity, and on his own birthday no less?!
Sailor takes no more than 2 bites of the birthday dinner he has so carefully planned and shopped for: Macker cheese, broccoli, corn, watermelon and rootbeer. Instead of eating he jumps back and forth between the sofa and the big chair while rest of us eat. All I can say about his racetrack cake, ala Speed Racer, is this: Scooter, $35; decorations, $25; birthday dinner, $80. Getting two little plastic cars on top of your birthday cake and mommy letting you play with them in you piece of cake, priceless! “Did you taste your cake?” we ask him. “Yes, from my fingers.” He is covered in cake and delights us all by licking the cake off the cars as if they were ribs or chicken.
I let the boys stay up way too late because is it, after all, Sailor’s only 5th birthday and so we will be tired in the morning and I will remind the boys that they chose to stay up and play and they will understand.
And we are going along and going along and on Wednesday it all comes tumbling down. Permission slips for the first 2nd grade field trip are in folders this afternoon. My new school ally, the only mom I talk to regularly this year so far, says flat out, “My daughter’s not going.” It’s a walking field trip so I don’t have to worry about the bus issue. Yet. And it’s neighborhood and not on a day Sailor has a class. So I can chaperone. I fill out the form. I write in the volunteer spot that I would like to be considered as a chaperone. I do not mention that if I am not chosen to accompany Mac’s class that Mac will not be going. I will save this big X on my reputation for a later date. No point causing myself trouble before I have to, which is what I did last year. No, no point. I will wait until it comes up. Meanwhile I am still going to stay silent. But I feel the stress in my chest and wonder why I can’t just be like the other moms. And why, when I try to be, I am given a hard time about it anyway. No point trying to do what others expect of me. Might as well just do what I feel is right. Whatever that is. Even if it feels weird overall.
By week’s end it feels as if we have been back to school for months. I knew this would happen and I am pretty bummed about it. We are in a routine that is backbreaking and yet we follow along without question. Mac has his first spelling test back with a perfect score, including extra credit words. This week’s words are somewhat more difficult but still reasonable although he is expected to spell beautiful and consulting as his bonus words. It is no easy task to teach this boy to spell. But on his sentence sheet he writes “My mom is beautiful.” What a good boy I have.
Early in the week a set of 2nd graders was moved into Mac’s class to make room in their original classroom for the overflow of 1st graders, thereby creating a 1st/2nd split class. I am very glad that Mac is not part of the split class and I am happy with the children who have joined his class. Top of the list is Isabella, whose mom is the only mom I have spent any truly significant time with this year. Her little brother is rapidly becoming one of Sailor’s playmates, as we moms linger after the bell rings almost every morning now. Isabella is a tiny girl with dark hair and porcelain skin. And the attitude and self-possession of a girl 10 years older, in a good way. Mac asked me last weekend if I could guess who his new girlfriend is. I guessed Isabella right away and was pleased when he said I was correct. Mac has not had a girlfriend since he broke up with his fiancée, Anika, a couple of years ago. I am glad he has picked such a really nice girl. Between her mother’s overprotectiveness and mine we are in good shape!
Thursday morning I dress up for no reason. I have a long black tank dress that has lingered in my closet for at least 10 years. I pair it with a black high heeled sandals and some nice jewelry and voila! Hot mom. I have to go into the school office for a quick moment. I stop at the security table to sign in. The security guard asks me if I am going to a fancy luncheon. No, I tell him, I just felt like dressing up. He comments something along the lines of, “Well I appreciate it. Thank you.” I wonder which part of the dress he likes the most. I guess after all these years the dress, which clings to every part mercilessly, is still wearable, at least on a “skinny” day. I am flattered by the guard’s attentions. But by day’s end my feet are killing me. Who am I kidding. By the time I walk home from dropping off Mac my feet are killing me!
Later when Sailor falls asleep in the car on the way to finding a parking space to pick up Mac I am in deep trouble. There is no possibility that I can carry him the 3 blocks from the space I finally find. I wake him and he cries. Poor thing. But I simply cannot carry him and walk in these shoes. Which yes, I am still wearing! Who am I kidding? I simply cannot walk in these shoes!
Thursday after French class Mac and Sailor’s teacher, Elisabeth, tells me that Alec is distracting Mac in class. I am not surprised tho usually the troublemaker is Mac, and Sailor is the well-behaved child. Elisabeth thinks Mac may be bored because he is “very advanced” she tells me. I love this bit of info. Mac has been taking French on and off for nearly 5 years. I have undoubtedly spent thousands of dollars on these classes. He is now getting three days a week 45 minutes each at school. I should expect him to be advanced by now, if not at least somewhat conversational. Hurray for Mac!
Sailor finds an acquaintance named Christina in soccer this morning. He knows her from art class and I went to college with her mom (tho we were not friends then). He tells me after class that “Christina is fun to play with.” I am so pleased that Sailor is making some new friends. With no school group to help this along it does my heart good to see that he is indeed making friends in the other settings I am exposing him to.
At Whole Foods Sailor finds a cake that looks like it has a spider web on it. "Look, a Spider Man cake, Mommy!" So yes, I order him one. We have never ordered a birthday cake before. And as this is the go-all-out-for-Sailor’s-birthday year, how can I say no? It is a sweet indulgence. $20. Saves me having to bake, frost and decorate cupcakes! So I don't mind. I am tired. We spent the afternoon setting up for Sailor's party at the art studio so we don’t have to rush over the weekend.
Friday after school we have a playdate with Mac’s 1st grade nemesis. He says they are getting along this year and they want to play. While we wait outside school for the boy’s mom to finish a chat with a teacher, Mrs. S, the demon 1st grade teacher from last year, marches right up to Mac and his friend. “Hello 2nd graders,” she chimes. I want to puke. “What did we learn about how to treat trees? Is this a young tree or an old tree?” she asks, grasping the trunk of the young tree the boys have been clamoring around and attempts to shake it. “What did we learn last year? How do we treat the tree? We don’t climb on it.” She shakes and shakes the tree. Not that it moves an inch. It is strong and well rooted. I am unclear as to her motive. She does not address me. I keep my eyes turned toward the boys and then turn them away and stare into the crowd. Mrs. S. persists. Does she want me to acknowledge her? I will not. Tho I want to. I want to tell her that I will discipline my own children thank you very much. I ignore her and she eventually, after a painfully long display, turns and walks away. I hate her very presence and wish I had the nerve to tell her to stay away from my child.
The boys – my two, and this boy and his little brother – are rowdy and noisy and aggressive and … this mom and I are none too pleased. Mac wets his pants and I refuse to let him change. But give in to a dry pair of the other boy’s underwear, which I have to ask the boy 4 times for. I don’t want him to be wet all over the house. But I also want him to take more responsibility and pee when he needs to! I mean, who doesn’t have to pee when they get home from school? Every one of his friends has immediately asked for the bathroom upon arrival after school at our house. Perhaps I need to enforce the pee-first-thing-after-school rule to get him into the habit as when we were growing up. So I let him change his unders but not his pants, which were also wet. I drape them over the stroller to dry and let him suffer the humiliation of running around in his shirt and no pants. And suffer he does. It pains me a great deal to watch his tantrum, which I assure him is far more embarrassing than his lack of pants.
We opt for a sleepover in the living room for Friday night movie night. Pizza. The Bee Movie. Sleeping bags. It’s fun and the kids think it is a great idea. By 6:30 I want to go to sleep. Wish tomorrow were a rain day. Could use a day on the couch with endless DVDs, but not when it is suddenly unseasonably warm out agian!! I miss the beach!
Mid-movie Sailor decides to show off his newest skill. With a great deal of gusto and talent Sailor demonstrates his ability to “arm fart.” Yep, I am so proud of my little boy. He can tie his shoes, swim and arm fart.
“You have to cuff your arm like this,” he instructs me, cupping his hand under his armpit. He is cracking me up!
Sailor loses his enthusiasm when it is time to go to sleep but falls asleep with his hand under my shirt as he is wont to do.
And another long and tedious school week is over.
Week 2 – Off to a Good… Sick Day?
We are off to a good start this morning. We are on time. We are not dawdling too badly. But Mac is having listening problems and I am beginning to remember the personality he had last year while he was in 1st grade. He has already reverted back to the same obnoxious boy I did not particularly know what to do with last year. And he is not doing what he is asked to do. And we all seem different already, on just the 1st day of the 2nd week of school.
Our walk to school is fine. It is nice out, a cool autumn morning. Moments before the bell rings Mac begins to complain of a stomach ache. He wants me to pick him up. I do. He is 4’1” tall to my 5’. We must make an interesting sight. I make sure he knows my cell phone number in case he needs me to come get him.
Sailor and I are in the slow check-out line at the dollar store when the school calls. I promise to be there in 20 minutes and exactly 20 minutes later I am standing in the office filling out Mac’s early dismissal form.
There is no parking when we get home. It’s a street cleaning day. It starts to rain. The temperature drops. It feels like time to winterize our lives. We are still tan. I pull out my furry Crocs. And my flannel pj pants. We were at the beach one week ago today. And so I must laugh at myself: all summer I have been declaring my perfect idea, that school should end on the last day of June and start up again on October 1st, because it is always so hot in September.
Driving home from our futile shoe shopping expedition this afternoon (the only way to get Mac a decent pair of gym shoes is to go to one of the boutiques and drop $75, which I am not about to do) the temperature is reported at 58 degrees F. So much for the warm September it could easily (and nicely) have been.
Tuesday
My new approach on homework is working well for Mac. Instead of fighting, I set him a timer for the 30 minutes the school handbook says it should take a 2nd grader to do homework. If he gets done before the 30 minutes are up, he gets to read! He has done his homework efficiently in 15 minutes both yesterday and today. I am brilliant! Well, get back to me in a day or a week, see how it is going.
Sailor and I wait in the playground for Mac after school today. I push my little boy, who is not so little anymore. I push him on a swing. My hands on his little butt with each push. He is little. Not like the 6th graders – someone else’s babies – playing hockey on the playground in gym class. Someday he will be that big. I am so lucky to be here, pushing my little boy on a swing, in the sunshine of a late-summer afternoon. On his back there are two belts. Baby belts that he has outgrown but that I have yet to remove from his drawer. At home he asked me to strap them on his back like an X. He even laid them on the floor to show me how an X should look. Tucked into the straps is his long, plastic sword. He has some great imagination, this soon-to-be-5-year-old baby of mine.
Mac has become fidgety, antsy and totally obnoxious. We have a talk before bed and he says there are no boys at his table at school. I can’t imagine this is really the problem. Sailor has a tantrum in his room this evening over being sent there for misbehaviour. I realize he does look almost 5. All tall and lanky. And much too old to be still having tantrums!
Wednesday
I figure something out as I dry my hair this morning. My problem with Mac being in school is that it limits my time with him (which we already know) and therefore eliminates my opportunities to get this parenting thing right.
I wake up in a puddle. Or rather my backside is wet. I am fearful of rolling over, so I don’t. Sailor wakes me again at 6:30 a.m. to have me escort him to the bathroom. I am still wet. I have to pee so I know the wetness has not come from me. As I sit up in bed Mac wakes and says, “I peed in the bed.”
“No,” I say, and not so kindly, “You peed all over me. Strip the bed.”
And so our Wednesday morning begins. When I pick out Sailor’s clothes he wants to know why we are getting dressed in the night.
I am grumpy and yes, somewhat angry this morning.
At school we wend our way thru the crowd of children, parents, siblings, strollers. There just is not enuf room to get from one side of the entrance door to the other where Mac is meant to stand with his class. Why it matters where he stands before he enters the building is beyond me. And even as I watch him enter he does so alone, as if someone has told him to wait his turn and then ascend the front steps.
Sailor and I fill the front tire of the stroller with air at a nearby bike shop.
“Mom, does dinosaurs have ears?” he asks. A good question.
We head to his enrichment program, which I have neglected to tell him he has to go to today. The tantrum that ensues lasts 30 minutes.
I hoist him out of the stroller and into my lap. I explain that he is too old to behave in this manner (but not that he is too old to still be riding around in a stroller). I remind him that this is the class he attends on Wednesdays. I try everything. When the other kids arrive he is lying in my lap as if to nurse. Sometime I wish he still could. Eventually I drag him/carry him into class. He is inconsolable. Grasping for my legs. Clinging to me. Crying hysterically. This is the boy who will be 5 in six days. Perhaps he is not yet kindergarten material after all. Maybe the CPS system is right about their cutoff date. “I have to go potty.”
We walk to the bathroom.
We discuss how unkind he finds it that I did not tell him ahead of time that this was our plan for this morning.
I sit beside him in class for a few minutes.
When I retreat to the waiting area I feel like the worst mom. Not sure why. I did not yell. I did not spank. I did not back down in my resolve that he would take this class.
But being a parent, and a single parent at that, is so hard.
Midway thru class I peek in the room. Sailor greets me with a huge grin.
After class he is happy to see me. “What’s in my lunch box, Mommy? I am starving!”
He falls asleep in the stroller just before noon and sleeps for more than 2 hours.
His claims not to feel well dissipate when Mac emerges from school and wants to play on the playground.
Mac has had another nice day at school. He thoroughly enjoys his 2nd piano lesson. He has energy to play outside before dinner – who can blame him? It’s warm out. The sun is on our backs. He scooters back and forth in front of the house while Sailor cries, “No one will play catch with me!”
“Who did you ask?” I ask him. Mac declines his offer so I hop down from the porch and play a 4-year-old’s weird game of catch that is somewhat like soccer, 4 square, and volleyball all together. “Fetch!” he yells to me when he tosses me the ball, and then peals with laughter when I toss it back. It’s nice out. Nice to get some exercise with my kids. I like this. It feels different from a summer evening, tho. Homework looms!
Dinner with my parents goes well. Mac brings out the electric piano and gives us his first piano recital, having already memorized what he learned today. My dad wants me to videotape it. Even if I were to run upstairs and grab my recorder it would be too late. And there is no film left. Has been no film since the end of 1st grade.
My day felt somewhat profound as I was living it. But now, at 10:55pm, clean sheets on the bed, children asleep, laundry everywhere, lunches to make, clothes to set out, sleep to be had by me, my day seems like just another day in the complicated, crazy, but happy life of me.
Thursday. September 11, 2008.
Yeah. I know. Not a date I like to remember much less ever have to put down on paper. Not here. Not in my check book. Not on Mac’s homework.
Our morning starts out as any other. Just as the real 9/11 started out for so many. And this is not lost on me as I go about our normal routine, just as so many mothers did 7 years ago. A day that dawned so beautiful and turned so ugly in just the blink of an eye. As I was doing 7 years ago, I listen to the Eric & Kathy show on the radio. I cry thru spreading almond butter on pretzel bread, because as the radio prepares us for a brief moment of silence I am transported back to the pain of 7 years ago. This will never go away. I am compelled midway thru breakfast preparation to stop and email the host, Eric.
Eric,
I am listening to your show -- in tears -- as I get my boys ready for school. I was listening to your show 7 years ago ... changing my new baby's diaper, getting him dressed for the day... when the story you were unfolding changed my life -- my parenting style -- forever.
I am touched and impressed beyond words that you and Kathy and our crew continue to dedicate your show to remembering 9/11, even 7 years later.
Those of us whose lives were irrevocably changed by the events of that morning will never forget -- it gets easier to have a "normal" day, but only because we will ourselves to do so by allowing the bulk of the pain to stay in the background today. To not let it bubble up to the surface.
Thank you, Eric, Kathy, Melissa, Mark... for letting us remember with you.
Love, SuperMommy
Mac and Sailor's mom
They talk about how this year people seem to not want to remember. They are solemn. They are appropriate. They do this every year and every year I am moved.
What I realize is that I will never forget. That is a given. But what I don’t want to do anymore do anymore is feel the fear.
Our day is normal.
Except that the kids and I are dressed in red, white and blue, down to Sailor’s striped socks (“They are just like my shirt!”) and shirt (and shorts!) and Mac’s red shirt with the peace symbol on the front. My shirt is blue and has “American” printed across the front and a definition on the back. I wear my red jean jacket.
At home Sailor and I bake our yearly batch of cookies for the local fire station. I ask him to separate out the blue and red M&Ms from the rest of the bag. Ironically, after Sailor accidentally lets one blue M&M roll to the floor we have 11 left. We top each of the first batch of cookies with an M&M. “They are all red or blue, Mommy. Just like my shirt. Cuz it’s America Day, right?”
Right.
Sailor plays in the playground with his new friend Ryan and has ironically decided to wear some costume parts that look so similar to the religious headwear of the Islamic people.
After school and on the way to French class we drop in to the fire station and leave our plate of cookies with a simple card attached. There is no one around. We leave our treat on the desk beside a box of donuts bearing a thank you note.
We are not the only ones.
The day ends as all days end and we are no worse for the wear. It’s just another day. Except it is not. It is a day every American who lived thru it will always remember. It is a day that, 7 years ago, I would never have believed we would still be alive to see.
And for this day I am grateful.
Our walk to school is fine. It is nice out, a cool autumn morning. Moments before the bell rings Mac begins to complain of a stomach ache. He wants me to pick him up. I do. He is 4’1” tall to my 5’. We must make an interesting sight. I make sure he knows my cell phone number in case he needs me to come get him.
Sailor and I are in the slow check-out line at the dollar store when the school calls. I promise to be there in 20 minutes and exactly 20 minutes later I am standing in the office filling out Mac’s early dismissal form.
There is no parking when we get home. It’s a street cleaning day. It starts to rain. The temperature drops. It feels like time to winterize our lives. We are still tan. I pull out my furry Crocs. And my flannel pj pants. We were at the beach one week ago today. And so I must laugh at myself: all summer I have been declaring my perfect idea, that school should end on the last day of June and start up again on October 1st, because it is always so hot in September.
Driving home from our futile shoe shopping expedition this afternoon (the only way to get Mac a decent pair of gym shoes is to go to one of the boutiques and drop $75, which I am not about to do) the temperature is reported at 58 degrees F. So much for the warm September it could easily (and nicely) have been.
Tuesday
My new approach on homework is working well for Mac. Instead of fighting, I set him a timer for the 30 minutes the school handbook says it should take a 2nd grader to do homework. If he gets done before the 30 minutes are up, he gets to read! He has done his homework efficiently in 15 minutes both yesterday and today. I am brilliant! Well, get back to me in a day or a week, see how it is going.
Sailor and I wait in the playground for Mac after school today. I push my little boy, who is not so little anymore. I push him on a swing. My hands on his little butt with each push. He is little. Not like the 6th graders – someone else’s babies – playing hockey on the playground in gym class. Someday he will be that big. I am so lucky to be here, pushing my little boy on a swing, in the sunshine of a late-summer afternoon. On his back there are two belts. Baby belts that he has outgrown but that I have yet to remove from his drawer. At home he asked me to strap them on his back like an X. He even laid them on the floor to show me how an X should look. Tucked into the straps is his long, plastic sword. He has some great imagination, this soon-to-be-5-year-old baby of mine.
Mac has become fidgety, antsy and totally obnoxious. We have a talk before bed and he says there are no boys at his table at school. I can’t imagine this is really the problem. Sailor has a tantrum in his room this evening over being sent there for misbehaviour. I realize he does look almost 5. All tall and lanky. And much too old to be still having tantrums!
Wednesday
I figure something out as I dry my hair this morning. My problem with Mac being in school is that it limits my time with him (which we already know) and therefore eliminates my opportunities to get this parenting thing right.
I wake up in a puddle. Or rather my backside is wet. I am fearful of rolling over, so I don’t. Sailor wakes me again at 6:30 a.m. to have me escort him to the bathroom. I am still wet. I have to pee so I know the wetness has not come from me. As I sit up in bed Mac wakes and says, “I peed in the bed.”
“No,” I say, and not so kindly, “You peed all over me. Strip the bed.”
And so our Wednesday morning begins. When I pick out Sailor’s clothes he wants to know why we are getting dressed in the night.
I am grumpy and yes, somewhat angry this morning.
At school we wend our way thru the crowd of children, parents, siblings, strollers. There just is not enuf room to get from one side of the entrance door to the other where Mac is meant to stand with his class. Why it matters where he stands before he enters the building is beyond me. And even as I watch him enter he does so alone, as if someone has told him to wait his turn and then ascend the front steps.
Sailor and I fill the front tire of the stroller with air at a nearby bike shop.
“Mom, does dinosaurs have ears?” he asks. A good question.
We head to his enrichment program, which I have neglected to tell him he has to go to today. The tantrum that ensues lasts 30 minutes.
I hoist him out of the stroller and into my lap. I explain that he is too old to behave in this manner (but not that he is too old to still be riding around in a stroller). I remind him that this is the class he attends on Wednesdays. I try everything. When the other kids arrive he is lying in my lap as if to nurse. Sometime I wish he still could. Eventually I drag him/carry him into class. He is inconsolable. Grasping for my legs. Clinging to me. Crying hysterically. This is the boy who will be 5 in six days. Perhaps he is not yet kindergarten material after all. Maybe the CPS system is right about their cutoff date. “I have to go potty.”
We walk to the bathroom.
We discuss how unkind he finds it that I did not tell him ahead of time that this was our plan for this morning.
I sit beside him in class for a few minutes.
When I retreat to the waiting area I feel like the worst mom. Not sure why. I did not yell. I did not spank. I did not back down in my resolve that he would take this class.
But being a parent, and a single parent at that, is so hard.
Midway thru class I peek in the room. Sailor greets me with a huge grin.
After class he is happy to see me. “What’s in my lunch box, Mommy? I am starving!”
He falls asleep in the stroller just before noon and sleeps for more than 2 hours.
His claims not to feel well dissipate when Mac emerges from school and wants to play on the playground.
Mac has had another nice day at school. He thoroughly enjoys his 2nd piano lesson. He has energy to play outside before dinner – who can blame him? It’s warm out. The sun is on our backs. He scooters back and forth in front of the house while Sailor cries, “No one will play catch with me!”
“Who did you ask?” I ask him. Mac declines his offer so I hop down from the porch and play a 4-year-old’s weird game of catch that is somewhat like soccer, 4 square, and volleyball all together. “Fetch!” he yells to me when he tosses me the ball, and then peals with laughter when I toss it back. It’s nice out. Nice to get some exercise with my kids. I like this. It feels different from a summer evening, tho. Homework looms!
Dinner with my parents goes well. Mac brings out the electric piano and gives us his first piano recital, having already memorized what he learned today. My dad wants me to videotape it. Even if I were to run upstairs and grab my recorder it would be too late. And there is no film left. Has been no film since the end of 1st grade.
My day felt somewhat profound as I was living it. But now, at 10:55pm, clean sheets on the bed, children asleep, laundry everywhere, lunches to make, clothes to set out, sleep to be had by me, my day seems like just another day in the complicated, crazy, but happy life of me.
Thursday. September 11, 2008.
Yeah. I know. Not a date I like to remember much less ever have to put down on paper. Not here. Not in my check book. Not on Mac’s homework.
Our morning starts out as any other. Just as the real 9/11 started out for so many. And this is not lost on me as I go about our normal routine, just as so many mothers did 7 years ago. A day that dawned so beautiful and turned so ugly in just the blink of an eye. As I was doing 7 years ago, I listen to the Eric & Kathy show on the radio. I cry thru spreading almond butter on pretzel bread, because as the radio prepares us for a brief moment of silence I am transported back to the pain of 7 years ago. This will never go away. I am compelled midway thru breakfast preparation to stop and email the host, Eric.
Eric,
I am listening to your show -- in tears -- as I get my boys ready for school. I was listening to your show 7 years ago ... changing my new baby's diaper, getting him dressed for the day... when the story you were unfolding changed my life -- my parenting style -- forever.
I am touched and impressed beyond words that you and Kathy and our crew continue to dedicate your show to remembering 9/11, even 7 years later.
Those of us whose lives were irrevocably changed by the events of that morning will never forget -- it gets easier to have a "normal" day, but only because we will ourselves to do so by allowing the bulk of the pain to stay in the background today. To not let it bubble up to the surface.
Thank you, Eric, Kathy, Melissa, Mark... for letting us remember with you.
Love, SuperMommy
Mac and Sailor's mom
They talk about how this year people seem to not want to remember. They are solemn. They are appropriate. They do this every year and every year I am moved.
What I realize is that I will never forget. That is a given. But what I don’t want to do anymore do anymore is feel the fear.
Our day is normal.
Except that the kids and I are dressed in red, white and blue, down to Sailor’s striped socks (“They are just like my shirt!”) and shirt (and shorts!) and Mac’s red shirt with the peace symbol on the front. My shirt is blue and has “American” printed across the front and a definition on the back. I wear my red jean jacket.
At home Sailor and I bake our yearly batch of cookies for the local fire station. I ask him to separate out the blue and red M&Ms from the rest of the bag. Ironically, after Sailor accidentally lets one blue M&M roll to the floor we have 11 left. We top each of the first batch of cookies with an M&M. “They are all red or blue, Mommy. Just like my shirt. Cuz it’s America Day, right?”
Right.
Sailor plays in the playground with his new friend Ryan and has ironically decided to wear some costume parts that look so similar to the religious headwear of the Islamic people.
After school and on the way to French class we drop in to the fire station and leave our plate of cookies with a simple card attached. There is no one around. We leave our treat on the desk beside a box of donuts bearing a thank you note.
We are not the only ones.
The day ends as all days end and we are no worse for the wear. It’s just another day. Except it is not. It is a day every American who lived thru it will always remember. It is a day that, 7 years ago, I would never have believed we would still be alive to see.
And for this day I am grateful.
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