Week 8

I realize I should not be measuring our school years in weeks. It’s like a countdown to summer – well it actually is a countdown to summer – but it’s 40 out of 52 weeks! That is too much to count down. It is more than ¾ of the entire year. I have to stop. I have to get over this whole school thing. Even Mac is happy to go to school. Likes school even. And I don’t mind him going. I just wish I had more time to spend with him, to figure him out, to be happy with him, to find the baby in him that he once was and whom I had exclusively.

I am loving my days with Sailor. Most of the time, anyway. He is funny and happy and helpful. Most of the time, anyway. He is still prone to little tantrums and in fact had several today during which he stormed off to his room for things that didn’t seem all that worthy of such drama – a popped balloon, Mac wanting to do a puzzle on his own…. He is still a moody child, but for the most part I am really having a great time with him.

It is Monday night. A busy day, as usual, with no time to slow down for anything from drop-off to pick-up.

Sailor amazes me by agreeing without fuss to walk to pick up Mac after school. It’s raining and his stroller was not covered before the shower began. So he dons green froggy rain boots and matching rain coat, which we realize is too small. I put on boots and grab Mac’s firefighter red raincoat and matching “barilla” (as Sailor calls it). Sailor holds his pirate barilla overhead and I hold Mac’s above my own head. And it is not the first time that it strikes me: I am walking down the street using my little boy’s umbrella and I don’t care. I actually prefer this smaller, lightweight version to the adult model, which always seems a bit clumsy and awkward. Perhaps too large for my small frame. The thought crosses my mind that I should buy myself a little girls’ umbrella, maybe a lady bug one or a flowery thing. Hello Kitty, maybe. But, I realize, it would be impossible to get away with using this. Using my little boys’ umbrellas is ok, because I have little boys. Using a little girl umbrella would point big fingers nasty to my growing insanity as a mother.

At school we fight to find Mac. It is never easy to find or be found through the ever present sea of multicolored umbrellas. Dipping low and holding umbrellas high we try to sneak in close. When Mac emerges with his usual smile and comes forward for his usual hug he turns down his rain coat. “I’m fine now,” and so he is, as he has on gloves, a hood and his puffy vest. “I found this in the bottom of my locker,” he tells me. I wonder how long it has been there. It’s not as if his locker is some sort of abyss.

“How many days til Mac’s Halloween party?” Sailor asks me this afternoon. Good, an opportunity to do a lesson on the days of the week and math. See, this home school thing is working just fine. I put up one finger for each day remaining before Friday. He does the math and then figures out the subtraction for how many days left after we take away each day. When he gets to the last day, he says, “And then the party day!” Later at night he shows Mac what he knows: he holds up his pinky finger and tells his brother, “This day is your party!” No context, just this information. I hug him and tell him how nice it was to be with him today.

Last night we were talking about an illness called cystic fibrosis, which a few good friends have. Sailor says it this way, “Six four five Brosis,” sending me to the computer to email said friends and pass along what is sure to be a good laugh. “What is it really?” he always wants to know when he catches us snickering at something he says. I am always loathe to correct him.

They are asleep now. I should be too. But what I really want to do is spirit them off in the night. To somewhere new. Mac wants a bigger house, “like all my friends.” I am uncertain which friends he is talking about but the majority of the friends who come to mind live in house not much bigger and sometimes even smaller than our house. It makes me wonder why he thinks a bigger house would be better. It makes me sad that he feels this way at 7, and at the public school no less. I thought we would avoid this until he was older, or forever because I wasn’t even able to get him into the fancy private school down the street where the children live in houses whose elaborate kitchens are bigger than our whole place. I thought I would avoid the unpleasantness of this shortcoming simply because he is a boy and I didn’t think he would ever notice enough to care. I can’t fix everything he wants me to fix. Not on my own anyway. I can’t get him a bigger house. I can’t get him a baby sister. I can’t get him a new dad. I can try but I can’t make promises and I can’t give him his heart’s desire on a platter. Even tho I would if I could and I know he deserves it. But I do so much for him already. I guess “so much” is just not enuf. Love is not enuf. It never is….