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.