Both boys are looking rather sloppy these days as they do not want their hair cut for reasons I have not fully come to understand.
Sailor comes out after his little preschool class. He has a present. “It’s Ox Day!”
“Ox Day?”
“Happy Chinese New Year!” calls his friend, Clayton.
“Ah, it’s the year of the Ox, isn’t it?”
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Mac is carrying around a book about Tchaikovsky. “What’s the name of this book?” I ask him, sure that he has not correctly read the composer’s name. “Chachavowsky,” he replies.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
We are all sick. Sailor and I are, at least, Mac has a stuffy nose and claims he is sick but also that he wants to stay home and take care of us. "I’ll bring you food, I’ll bring you drinks. I’ll even clean up a little," he tells me. I let him stay home more because I want everyone to feel well for my birthday weekend than because I believe he is truly in the full grips of this beastly cold. He leaves the bedroom with us, where I can no longer rest because the headboard is shaking every time Sailor moves and because my head hurts terribly when I am lying down. Mac and his book retreat to the sofa and he does not do anything to “take care of” us.
Sailor, on the other hand, tells me that he wishes he weren’t sick so he could go out and get me flowers! Sweet thing. I tell him he can draw me a picture of flowers. He is on the living room floor creating with some sort of sticker/marker combo.
Sailor draws me a tall color-appropriate flower with a small me and a small Sailor next to it. The stickers are an arch of hearts. I tape it up near my computer. “Whenever you want to you can get another scotch of tape and take it down and put it up in your room,” he tells me.
Hayden makes breakfast. Cereal with a literal splash of milk. And nukes lots of yummy hash browns. And leaves everything out in the kitchen. He is a darling.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Barack Obama
“On this day, we have chosen hope over fear. “
-Barack Obama
January 23, 2009
I watched the inauguration for the first time in my life, accompanied by Sailor, age 5. I cried with hope and with relief that we finally have a real person running our country. A person who really “gets it,” a person not even a decade older than I. What he said above, this strikes the core of my soul, as I have felt nothing but fear since the birth of my first child 7 ½ years ago … since the World Trade Center exploded and collapsed in front of our eyes. Since I first heard about North Korea’s desperate hatred for America and the range of its missiles. Since a lawyer spelled out the details of standard custody and visitation arrangements. I have felt nothing but fear. Barack Obama’s pledge to help our country out of every last one of its messes makes me feel hope. Real hope. For the first time in many years. No. for the first time ever. Because before all “that” happened I had no reason not to assume all was well and my future was secure. I had no need for hope.
Mac’s wiggly top tooth twists around during our television viewing of the Inaugural Ball. For days I have been asking him, “Give me your tooth.” This time I reach in and pluck it like a rose from his mouth. For the 2nd time in 7 years he is left with just one tooth up top. But while he looked weird, funny, like Oliver Dragon from Kukla Fran and Ollie then, he looks like an adorable, freckled, bespectackled, floppy-haired 2nd grader this time. It’s cuteness at its peak.
In bed that night he snuggles up close and tight. “I’ll see if you are the tooth fairy or not, Mom.” Sailor squeezes in on me from the other side. When they are asleep I do my work. In the morning Mac feels beneath his pillow and retrieves the tiny blue felt pouch I have made for him. (“What if the tooth fairy takes the pouch?!” he asked last night.) I have to unfasten the gold safety pin. Mac correctly identifies two ½ dollars.
Obama is working hard and we are back to life as usual, but with a sense of purpose. Or rather, with a sense that we need to seek a purpose.
Mac does not have school today. Last night I explained to my boys that they will not complain about their activities today. Sailor goes willingly to gymnastics, Mac right behind him. He also doesn’t blink about having to go down to his preschool class. I spirit Mac across the street for lunch while Sailor is in class. He never knows we have left the building. It is our little secret.
Neither of my boys understands why I walk to the east to go to Judo class. We walk for nearly a block. “Why are we going this way?” “Where are we going?” “I don’t recognize this way.” “I never walked over here before.” “How do we get to Judo from here?” Oh thee of little faith in their mama.
Tonight I am looking at Mac’s new smile. So much of his face, his unique look, has been about his smile. His overbite and the two little teeth popping out over his lower lip, separated by the gap that all baby teeth have. And yet I see his new smile and accept it so easily. A gap-toothed smile. He closes is teeth together now to show it. It is so different. So cute. It is a new look and just as lovable as before.
Sailor is in a very complimenting mood tonight and lately, for that matter. “I like your voice, Mommy.” He tells me, “You smell good. You are warm and soft. I like your face and even when you are a little bit old I like your body because you look young.”
“You look 32,” Mac chimes in. Sailor has been clingy of late, but then so have I. There is something wonderfully loving between us. Mac is jealous. He is away all day and when he comes back … he is just not small and soft and sweet-smelling any more. And Sailor still is.
Mac is wearing a green fuzzy pajama top and brown corduroy pants. I ask him about it. He tells me that a StarWars character dresses in these colors. When he says this I wonder when children go from thinking they can change their clothes to become a character they admire to feeling deep emotional pain from the knowledge that no matter what they wear or how they style their hair they are who they are and will never be their idol. I wonder when reality becomes reality for children.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
I find a slip of paper with a note from my sister. She had asked Mac: Do eyebrows serve a purpose or are they left over from our evolution from apes? To which Mac replied: [They are left over from] Our revolutionary apes.
-Barack Obama
January 23, 2009
I watched the inauguration for the first time in my life, accompanied by Sailor, age 5. I cried with hope and with relief that we finally have a real person running our country. A person who really “gets it,” a person not even a decade older than I. What he said above, this strikes the core of my soul, as I have felt nothing but fear since the birth of my first child 7 ½ years ago … since the World Trade Center exploded and collapsed in front of our eyes. Since I first heard about North Korea’s desperate hatred for America and the range of its missiles. Since a lawyer spelled out the details of standard custody and visitation arrangements. I have felt nothing but fear. Barack Obama’s pledge to help our country out of every last one of its messes makes me feel hope. Real hope. For the first time in many years. No. for the first time ever. Because before all “that” happened I had no reason not to assume all was well and my future was secure. I had no need for hope.
Mac’s wiggly top tooth twists around during our television viewing of the Inaugural Ball. For days I have been asking him, “Give me your tooth.” This time I reach in and pluck it like a rose from his mouth. For the 2nd time in 7 years he is left with just one tooth up top. But while he looked weird, funny, like Oliver Dragon from Kukla Fran and Ollie then, he looks like an adorable, freckled, bespectackled, floppy-haired 2nd grader this time. It’s cuteness at its peak.
In bed that night he snuggles up close and tight. “I’ll see if you are the tooth fairy or not, Mom.” Sailor squeezes in on me from the other side. When they are asleep I do my work. In the morning Mac feels beneath his pillow and retrieves the tiny blue felt pouch I have made for him. (“What if the tooth fairy takes the pouch?!” he asked last night.) I have to unfasten the gold safety pin. Mac correctly identifies two ½ dollars.
Obama is working hard and we are back to life as usual, but with a sense of purpose. Or rather, with a sense that we need to seek a purpose.
Mac does not have school today. Last night I explained to my boys that they will not complain about their activities today. Sailor goes willingly to gymnastics, Mac right behind him. He also doesn’t blink about having to go down to his preschool class. I spirit Mac across the street for lunch while Sailor is in class. He never knows we have left the building. It is our little secret.
Neither of my boys understands why I walk to the east to go to Judo class. We walk for nearly a block. “Why are we going this way?” “Where are we going?” “I don’t recognize this way.” “I never walked over here before.” “How do we get to Judo from here?” Oh thee of little faith in their mama.
Tonight I am looking at Mac’s new smile. So much of his face, his unique look, has been about his smile. His overbite and the two little teeth popping out over his lower lip, separated by the gap that all baby teeth have. And yet I see his new smile and accept it so easily. A gap-toothed smile. He closes is teeth together now to show it. It is so different. So cute. It is a new look and just as lovable as before.
Sailor is in a very complimenting mood tonight and lately, for that matter. “I like your voice, Mommy.” He tells me, “You smell good. You are warm and soft. I like your face and even when you are a little bit old I like your body because you look young.”
“You look 32,” Mac chimes in. Sailor has been clingy of late, but then so have I. There is something wonderfully loving between us. Mac is jealous. He is away all day and when he comes back … he is just not small and soft and sweet-smelling any more. And Sailor still is.
Mac is wearing a green fuzzy pajama top and brown corduroy pants. I ask him about it. He tells me that a StarWars character dresses in these colors. When he says this I wonder when children go from thinking they can change their clothes to become a character they admire to feeling deep emotional pain from the knowledge that no matter what they wear or how they style their hair they are who they are and will never be their idol. I wonder when reality becomes reality for children.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
I find a slip of paper with a note from my sister. She had asked Mac: Do eyebrows serve a purpose or are they left over from our evolution from apes? To which Mac replied: [They are left over from] Our revolutionary apes.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Early this week I had a dream that after just a week and a half back to school they were letting the kids out for another winter break. We have not been out of the house since Wednesday. There is no school on Monday. It is somewhat unsettling when your dreams come to fruition. Even the good ones.
It has been so cold these past two days that I simply did not see the value of dragging Mac to school only to have to return for him, painfully, at the end of the day. So we stayed home. Where it is so warm I am sweating.
Yesterday we tried a day of home schooling. Both boys did countless workbook pages, Mac studied his spelling words, completed a word search of the same, engaged in imaginative play using playfoam with Sailor… Sailor practiced his teeny tiny violin. Mac read a Magic Treehouse book in its entirety in 90 minutes Wednesday night and both boys listened while I read them a book from the school library, also in its entirety. It was a successful day for them. And for me. I put all the summer photos in albums, updated our website, sent a slew of emails, and pasted Sailor’s birthday photos into an album.
This morning I am up a few minutes late and making breakfast when my mother calls to tell me it’s 10 below zero outside. We have another day of home schooling. This one includes more violin, more workbook, a states game that bores us all, planting of seeds, and story reading. I consult a friend, a real home schooler, and she praises my efforts. It’s not all about the kitchen table, she assures me.
Monday, January 19, 2009
“Mac, did you put your snowpants on?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I didn’t, too.”
“I didn’t ‘either’.”
“I said I dindn’t”
Late in the day Mac falls off a dining room chair for no apparent reason; meanwhile Sailor is at the bottom of the stairwell shouting thru the mail slot. I don’t know who is out there, if anyone. It is unlikely that there are any people walking the streets in this cold weather. We are waiting for friends to arrive. Sailor is in dire need of a nap that I was hoping sleep would overtake him while I was reading one of the latest Ramona books. I think the big bowl of popcorn was a distraction, however. That and his inability to locate Jango Fett.
Meanwhile, I receive an email survey that asks me to describe my life is a series of single words. A difficult task for a writer, but an interesting challenge.
My boys await the arrival of the tiny girl twins with fun, old fashioned names. They went to school today. At dinner time Sailor’s tiny 3 ½-year-old friend will come for pizza with his mom. I am ready for her arrival, as it will be accompanied by wine.
After my boys sulked gravely after asking to watch a movie at 9:00 on Tuesday night, their television privileges were revoked until February. Which has made these past two days not only extremely productive for us all, but also very long. At 5 minutes after noon, Mac inquired: Is it still morning? Finally it is no longer morning. Afternoon goes faster than afternoon, tho the boys ask regularly if school is over yet. It’s a long day. But the house is picked up and the floors are vacuumed and the bathroom is wiped down as is the kitchen. The garbage is out, Mac’s clothes are put away, my bed is made.
The phone rings. Mac heads for it. But then just stands there watching it ring. “Answer it. Or give it to me!” He hands me the phone and shrugs. “It’s some medical thing.” The twins’ mom is a doctor.
Mac hovers near. He smells sweaty. I am about to send him in for a quick shower before the girls’ arrival, but then I remember he has already showered today. It is hard having a smelly 7-year-old. It’s going to be a long road through adolescence.
The twins arrive. They are tiny, like 7-year-olds are meant to be. Not like my smelly 7-year-old who is coming closer and closer to reaching my full height and will surely overtake me in a matter of a few short years.
They tell me all about the way their mom woke them early and then forgot to make them a lunch and then threw together some snacks and then one twin had to go with her friend (also our friend) who has CF to get her enzymes and so she only had 5 minutes to eat… all in response to my inquiry as to whether or not they were hungry for a snack. I prepare apples, oranges, carrots, organic bunny crackers, and 100% juice boxes.
In the dining room I set to a project of cutting out puzzle pieces printed on cardstock. From the playroom I hear a conversation that leads around to my children’s father.
He doesn’t live here, Mac tells his friends.
Why not? They want to know.
“Because he’s gay!” Sailor is overtired and overwired.
“What’s gay?” one of the girls ask. I wait to hear what my boys answer will be this time.
“It means you’re not part of the family anymore,” Sailor says.
Mac adds, “It means you’re not supposed to marry a girl. He was born with it. He grew up with it.” As an afterthought Mac adds, “He’s also Jewish.”
“When Mac was little,” Sailor tells the girls, “and he comed home every day, he used to yell at him.”
“He was a harassing dad,” Mac explains.
A moment or two later one of the girls asks Mac what he is eating.
“Carrots.”
“Do you like carrots?”
“Yeah,” Mac answers.
“Cool.”
When the girls get bored they find me in the dining room and learn all about scholarships. And our ancestors, the dead ones, Mac says. All the while Mac is bored and looking at the floor closely. “When are these floor boards going to fit together?!” he asks in an exasperated, attention-getting voice.
“You have a Barbie in there,” one girl tells me.
“A Barbie?”She points to my collectors item Sandy from Grease Barbie, still in its original packaging.
“You got her in Greece?”
“No, it’s a movie.”
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Sailor comes in with a Chinese hat on his head. Attached to the hat is a long braid. “Mommy, is this real hair?”
“No.”
“Goose hair?”
“No.”
“Sheep hair?”
“No, synthetic hair.”
“See Mac,” he calls to his brother as he exits the room, “It’s not real hair.”
It has been so cold these past two days that I simply did not see the value of dragging Mac to school only to have to return for him, painfully, at the end of the day. So we stayed home. Where it is so warm I am sweating.
Yesterday we tried a day of home schooling. Both boys did countless workbook pages, Mac studied his spelling words, completed a word search of the same, engaged in imaginative play using playfoam with Sailor… Sailor practiced his teeny tiny violin. Mac read a Magic Treehouse book in its entirety in 90 minutes Wednesday night and both boys listened while I read them a book from the school library, also in its entirety. It was a successful day for them. And for me. I put all the summer photos in albums, updated our website, sent a slew of emails, and pasted Sailor’s birthday photos into an album.
This morning I am up a few minutes late and making breakfast when my mother calls to tell me it’s 10 below zero outside. We have another day of home schooling. This one includes more violin, more workbook, a states game that bores us all, planting of seeds, and story reading. I consult a friend, a real home schooler, and she praises my efforts. It’s not all about the kitchen table, she assures me.
Monday, January 19, 2009
“Mac, did you put your snowpants on?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I didn’t, too.”
“I didn’t ‘either’.”
“I said I dindn’t”
Late in the day Mac falls off a dining room chair for no apparent reason; meanwhile Sailor is at the bottom of the stairwell shouting thru the mail slot. I don’t know who is out there, if anyone. It is unlikely that there are any people walking the streets in this cold weather. We are waiting for friends to arrive. Sailor is in dire need of a nap that I was hoping sleep would overtake him while I was reading one of the latest Ramona books. I think the big bowl of popcorn was a distraction, however. That and his inability to locate Jango Fett.
Meanwhile, I receive an email survey that asks me to describe my life is a series of single words. A difficult task for a writer, but an interesting challenge.
My boys await the arrival of the tiny girl twins with fun, old fashioned names. They went to school today. At dinner time Sailor’s tiny 3 ½-year-old friend will come for pizza with his mom. I am ready for her arrival, as it will be accompanied by wine.
After my boys sulked gravely after asking to watch a movie at 9:00 on Tuesday night, their television privileges were revoked until February. Which has made these past two days not only extremely productive for us all, but also very long. At 5 minutes after noon, Mac inquired: Is it still morning? Finally it is no longer morning. Afternoon goes faster than afternoon, tho the boys ask regularly if school is over yet. It’s a long day. But the house is picked up and the floors are vacuumed and the bathroom is wiped down as is the kitchen. The garbage is out, Mac’s clothes are put away, my bed is made.
The phone rings. Mac heads for it. But then just stands there watching it ring. “Answer it. Or give it to me!” He hands me the phone and shrugs. “It’s some medical thing.” The twins’ mom is a doctor.
Mac hovers near. He smells sweaty. I am about to send him in for a quick shower before the girls’ arrival, but then I remember he has already showered today. It is hard having a smelly 7-year-old. It’s going to be a long road through adolescence.
The twins arrive. They are tiny, like 7-year-olds are meant to be. Not like my smelly 7-year-old who is coming closer and closer to reaching my full height and will surely overtake me in a matter of a few short years.
They tell me all about the way their mom woke them early and then forgot to make them a lunch and then threw together some snacks and then one twin had to go with her friend (also our friend) who has CF to get her enzymes and so she only had 5 minutes to eat… all in response to my inquiry as to whether or not they were hungry for a snack. I prepare apples, oranges, carrots, organic bunny crackers, and 100% juice boxes.
In the dining room I set to a project of cutting out puzzle pieces printed on cardstock. From the playroom I hear a conversation that leads around to my children’s father.
He doesn’t live here, Mac tells his friends.
Why not? They want to know.
“Because he’s gay!” Sailor is overtired and overwired.
“What’s gay?” one of the girls ask. I wait to hear what my boys answer will be this time.
“It means you’re not part of the family anymore,” Sailor says.
Mac adds, “It means you’re not supposed to marry a girl. He was born with it. He grew up with it.” As an afterthought Mac adds, “He’s also Jewish.”
“When Mac was little,” Sailor tells the girls, “and he comed home every day, he used to yell at him.”
“He was a harassing dad,” Mac explains.
A moment or two later one of the girls asks Mac what he is eating.
“Carrots.”
“Do you like carrots?”
“Yeah,” Mac answers.
“Cool.”
When the girls get bored they find me in the dining room and learn all about scholarships. And our ancestors, the dead ones, Mac says. All the while Mac is bored and looking at the floor closely. “When are these floor boards going to fit together?!” he asks in an exasperated, attention-getting voice.
“You have a Barbie in there,” one girl tells me.
“A Barbie?”She points to my collectors item Sandy from Grease Barbie, still in its original packaging.
“You got her in Greece?”
“No, it’s a movie.”
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Sailor comes in with a Chinese hat on his head. Attached to the hat is a long braid. “Mommy, is this real hair?”
“No.”
“Goose hair?”
“No.”
“Sheep hair?”
“No, synthetic hair.”
“See Mac,” he calls to his brother as he exits the room, “It’s not real hair.”
Monday, January 5, 2009
Mac did not want to go to school this morning. “I’m not going!” he cried from under his pillow. Both boys wanted me to return to bed and snuggle. I felt so bad making Mac get up and go! Sailor, on the other hand, figured out that his new class at the park district is actually preschool and he told us this and he actually seemed very proud to be going to school! Will wonders never cease? I guess taking a year off school was a good plan for him! He was exhausted tho -- gymnastics, preschool and Judo all today!
I was the only mom who stayed at the park district while the children were in class. 2½ hours of reading time. Enjoyable but physically uncomfortable. I was about halfway thru the duration of the class and beginning to think perhaps I was overreacting and being way too overprotective. It’s a public building, true, but, “We’ve never had a problem,” the director assured me. I am actually considering running home to do some housework when a homeless man wanders in and goes straight to the men’s room in the basement, which is right next to the room Sailor is in. He is down there so long I begin to imagine he must have slipped by me while I was deeply engrossed in this strange novel I am reading, called Saul and Patsy that rings a little too true to my own thought processes. But indeed he finally emerges, having apparently washed up and redressed. And I am reconvicted that I belong right where I sit!
After class Sailor says he had a bad day! All 2 hours of it. Becuz of lunch, which he didn't want to eat all of. I think he had a great time, actually.
January 7, 2009
So I am having a really, really crummy day today. I pick up Mac and we trudge thru snow many long blocks to get to his piano lesson and Sailor's new viloin lesson. We walk into the Old Town school and guess what unfriendly face is there?! A mom I had to kick out of playgroup when Hayden was about 19,months old, and who practically ruined my birthday that year (that day!) by calling me names?! UGH!!! Her little girl is pretty and there is a little brother, about 3. There were so many people there that it was easy to be too distracted to see her. But I try to go in the office and there she is then I am going to go into the bathroom and I could hear them in there! I am sure she will never say a word to me but if she does I will pretend I don't remember her: "So many people came thru our playgroup and I just don't have a great memory from those early mommy days!" Or better yet, a totally dumb, "Your daughter is really pretty. What's her name?" might just suffice!
In the evening I am recapping my day to a friend over IM:
had to shovel snow before school, so was wiped out before we even got moving... had to put air in the tires of Sailor's stroller so had to push that thru the snow (not fun)... Alderman's office would not help me with the parking ticket that they gave me misinformation to contest with back in August, so have to probably take Sailor out of the class I was dropping him off at when I got the ticket, so that I can afford to pay the ticket... came home to an irritating email from Mac and Sailor's father, which really pushed me over... pushed Sailor in the stroler thru the snow to get Mac from school and get to piano (Mac) and violin (Sailor)... long walk but ok... got to music lessons to find 17,000 people in waiting area, no where to sit, take off or hang wet snow gear (and yes, my kids were fully bundled including boots and snow pants)... shall I go on? Are you mortified yet? then I see this woman who I had a HUGE fight with about 6 years ago when I had to kick her and her daughter out of Mac's playgroup and she called me all sorts of terrible names and it was my birthday! She is there in the lobby with her kids... and of course I look like crap from being out in the snow all day... and she is really not someone I want to see AT ALL ...
and then, the coup de grace... Sailor's new violin teacher (he just started the lessons today) totally chewed me out for not having a small enought violin... she went on and on and on...
and she was so LOUD I wanted to tell her we were not deaf! and then she told me I had to stay in the classroom and she suggetsed I might want to take notes and I told her I had left my bag downstairs cuz I hadn't planned on sitting in on the lesson... so I texted my sister and she actually said to me, "SuperMommy, if you are not going to pay attention, you might as well go back downstairs." I told her I was totally paying attention. So the witch had the nerve to ask me to show her what she had just shown Sailor. Which I did! Ha!
Then she told me that if we don't have the right violin in 2 weeks we should not come back...
and that if we indeed were not planning to come back I should let her know asap becuz she doesn't want to waste her time, as she has other students waiting for lessons...
Thursday, January 8, 2009
So far this year sucks.
I made a late-in-the-day decision to pull my boys out of French class. It was a heart wrenching decision but at 7:23 pm we are fed, Mac’s homework is done, his backpack is packed up for tomorrow (I think), they are bathed, they had playtime aplenty and we are ready to have stories. I wish we could drop out of all our activities. I would love to drop the piano/violin fiasco on Wednesdays. And I could do without Judo at the moment too.
Meanwhile as the boys are in the bath I change into pajamas. “I can see your boobies,” Mac says. “They’re pretty,” Sailor says. Nice.
Story time.
I was the only mom who stayed at the park district while the children were in class. 2½ hours of reading time. Enjoyable but physically uncomfortable. I was about halfway thru the duration of the class and beginning to think perhaps I was overreacting and being way too overprotective. It’s a public building, true, but, “We’ve never had a problem,” the director assured me. I am actually considering running home to do some housework when a homeless man wanders in and goes straight to the men’s room in the basement, which is right next to the room Sailor is in. He is down there so long I begin to imagine he must have slipped by me while I was deeply engrossed in this strange novel I am reading, called Saul and Patsy that rings a little too true to my own thought processes. But indeed he finally emerges, having apparently washed up and redressed. And I am reconvicted that I belong right where I sit!
After class Sailor says he had a bad day! All 2 hours of it. Becuz of lunch, which he didn't want to eat all of. I think he had a great time, actually.
January 7, 2009
So I am having a really, really crummy day today. I pick up Mac and we trudge thru snow many long blocks to get to his piano lesson and Sailor's new viloin lesson. We walk into the Old Town school and guess what unfriendly face is there?! A mom I had to kick out of playgroup when Hayden was about 19,months old, and who practically ruined my birthday that year (that day!) by calling me names?! UGH!!! Her little girl is pretty and there is a little brother, about 3. There were so many people there that it was easy to be too distracted to see her. But I try to go in the office and there she is then I am going to go into the bathroom and I could hear them in there! I am sure she will never say a word to me but if she does I will pretend I don't remember her: "So many people came thru our playgroup and I just don't have a great memory from those early mommy days!" Or better yet, a totally dumb, "Your daughter is really pretty. What's her name?" might just suffice!
In the evening I am recapping my day to a friend over IM:
had to shovel snow before school, so was wiped out before we even got moving... had to put air in the tires of Sailor's stroller so had to push that thru the snow (not fun)... Alderman's office would not help me with the parking ticket that they gave me misinformation to contest with back in August, so have to probably take Sailor out of the class I was dropping him off at when I got the ticket, so that I can afford to pay the ticket... came home to an irritating email from Mac and Sailor's father, which really pushed me over... pushed Sailor in the stroler thru the snow to get Mac from school and get to piano (Mac) and violin (Sailor)... long walk but ok... got to music lessons to find 17,000 people in waiting area, no where to sit, take off or hang wet snow gear (and yes, my kids were fully bundled including boots and snow pants)... shall I go on? Are you mortified yet? then I see this woman who I had a HUGE fight with about 6 years ago when I had to kick her and her daughter out of Mac's playgroup and she called me all sorts of terrible names and it was my birthday! She is there in the lobby with her kids... and of course I look like crap from being out in the snow all day... and she is really not someone I want to see AT ALL ...
and then, the coup de grace... Sailor's new violin teacher (he just started the lessons today) totally chewed me out for not having a small enought violin... she went on and on and on...
and she was so LOUD I wanted to tell her we were not deaf! and then she told me I had to stay in the classroom and she suggetsed I might want to take notes and I told her I had left my bag downstairs cuz I hadn't planned on sitting in on the lesson... so I texted my sister and she actually said to me, "SuperMommy, if you are not going to pay attention, you might as well go back downstairs." I told her I was totally paying attention. So the witch had the nerve to ask me to show her what she had just shown Sailor. Which I did! Ha!
Then she told me that if we don't have the right violin in 2 weeks we should not come back...
and that if we indeed were not planning to come back I should let her know asap becuz she doesn't want to waste her time, as she has other students waiting for lessons...
Thursday, January 8, 2009
So far this year sucks.
I made a late-in-the-day decision to pull my boys out of French class. It was a heart wrenching decision but at 7:23 pm we are fed, Mac’s homework is done, his backpack is packed up for tomorrow (I think), they are bathed, they had playtime aplenty and we are ready to have stories. I wish we could drop out of all our activities. I would love to drop the piano/violin fiasco on Wednesdays. And I could do without Judo at the moment too.
Meanwhile as the boys are in the bath I change into pajamas. “I can see your boobies,” Mac says. “They’re pretty,” Sailor says. Nice.
Story time.
How We Spent Our Winter Break
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Well, back to school tomorrow. I can't tell you how bummed I am. And how tired it makes me feel just thinking about it all. In addition to all we had going on previously, tomorrow Sailor starts a new class on Monday and Friday afternoons after gymnastics. It’s a preschool class at the park district. But because it is in the same room where he used to take a Mom & Tots class that we called Circle Time, he thinks he is going to Circle Time for Big Kids! He will also be starting violin lessons while Mac is in piano lessons. There goes his Wednesday afternoon nap! I’ll have to be more vigilant about bed time!
So with 14 days of holiday behind us, I struggle to figure out where the time went. It seems all we did over break was go to the hospital and the art studio and celebrate stuff (which is, I suppse, what this break was meant for). I guess that is all we did…
We started our break immediately after school on Friday afternoon with a party at the Judo dojo. At the end of which Mac cut his eyebrow open on a camera lens requiring a trip to the ER and 3 stitches.
Saturday we lay around not doing much while Mac’s eye started to heal. In the afternoon we took a “quick trip” to the suburban outdoor mall so I could exchange a pair of winter boots and return another. Our quick trip involved Mac suddenly claiming to be starving and the need for a bit of dinner. We had a nice time and nearly $30 at Corner Bakery and spent some time in the book store to arrive home at 9pm. There was nothing quick about this trip.
The weather and a total lack of plans kept us in on Sunday and Monday. While I don’t normally stay in specifically because of extreme cold, I saw no reason to create plans just to go freeze our patooties off! We had a marathon of DVDs while I read a fascinating book on the 1958 Our Lady of the Angels School fire. On Monday night I realized we would have to venture out on Tuesday no matter what because we had just about nothing left to eat here. Really. Nothing. As evidenced by the use of the last morsels of three differnt types of cheese melted on totillas with beans, and a bowl of cereal served for dinner. I am actually feeling very poor tonight, with no food to serve.
Tuesday morning we are committed to the art studio. Afterwards we get groceries and probably run some last-minute Christmas errands but I can no longer recall.
Wednesday is Christmas Eve and my sister and I have spent a great deal of time attempting to recreate our family tradition of Christmas Eve Dinner at My Pi … our favorite pizza restaurant, which closed unexpectedly in early summer. My parents are not cooperating with our plans, claiming too much to do to get ready for Christmas. Meanwhile Mac has to get his stitches out but is terrified and so spends the day sleeping in my bed. By the time I drag him out and make him get dressed the day is nearly over and we have done nothing. Sailor is also afraid and opts to stay with my parents. I take Mac to Starbucks on the way to the ER, where we wait long enough to draw all over the paper on the table in the exam room and ransack the drawers in the room for “art” supplies to make a little tongue depressor puppet in a band-aid bikini and gauze pad skirt. Mac’s stitches come out and we have a very elegant family dinner at Four Farthings. Which costs roughly 4x more than our usual dinner at My Pi. Lucky for my parents my sister and I have offered to foot this bill – the fist in a string of expensive dinners we enjoy over break.
At home my parents have some weird freak out about turning off the Christmas lights so that we can light the Hanukkah candles. I gently try to remind all assembled that for nearly 45 years we have had a mixed-religion family that almost yearly requires some crossover of holidays. My dad throws a mild snit, which I catch on video, along with his beautiful lighting of the candles. We lay out cookies for Santa and Mac writes a note asking for things Santa has not planned to deliver.
We retreat upstairs and my sister watches my boys briefly while I stuff stockings downstairs.
Christmas morning … Santa has left two small toys upstairs for Mac and Sailor. Mac brings me a small pack of Pokemon cards, proving once and for all the existence of Santa, because no way would Mommy ever buy Pokes! Mac also has a bell that Santa brought, per his request in the note last night. Sailor shows me very exciting Playmobiles guys. We open gifts from friends and distant family while we wait to go downstairs. We read a new book, Walter the Farting Dog. My dad calls at 8:30 and we are downstairs in moments.
We starts with stockings and my dad retreats to the bathroom. You couldn’t have done that before we started?, I think. But I don’t say. Everyone gets nice things. Mac gets an Indiana Jones Lego thing called the Jungle Cutter from Santa and Sailor gets Playmobiles. My dad goes to the bathroom a few more times and I assume he is having tummy trouble. I ask my mom… her eyes tear up and she won’t tell us what is wrong. I don’t remember anything else about opening gifts at my parents’ house on Christmas morning.
Back upstairs by 9:30 I start putting together breakfast. My sister and I scour the Internet for reasons why my dad is suddenly unable to pee.
I send my sister to the shower and make breakfast for my boys. Call the doctor, who tells me to take my dad to the ER. Iron my trousers. “Why don’t you just wear jeans?” my sister asks. Two reasons: my jeans are not clean and it’s Christmas and I don’t wear jeans in Christmas. I pack food for the kids, dry shoes, and new toys and books.
I make phone calls from the ER vestibule to cancel the Christmas party at my parents’ house. My children impress me with 4 ½ hours of nonstop good behavior while we wait in the ER for my father to get some relief and some answers.
We leave when we know there is nothing more to be done for the day and my boys want to open the rest of their gifts. At home my sister unloads as much food as she can find from my mom’s fridge and brings it all up for a feast. The table is still set for 4, as only my boys ate breakfast this morning. It is a Christmas I do not want to remember but it is a Christmas I will never forget. Mac says it is the worst Christmas ever. I deny this, stating that the worst Christmas would be the one we did not get to spend together, and indeed this one was spent lovingly together.
Friday morning we haul over to the art studio for Camp. Calls to Dad reveal no new news but that he will spend the day having tests.
Saturday we spend the morning gathering our wits and the afternoon picking up lunch and visiting my parents in the hospital. My dad will come home tomorrow, hopefully. His bladder clear, his tests negative, and his diverticulitis under control with antibiotics. There is nothing wrong except that he has outlived his prognosis for an 8-year survival post-radiation for prostate cancer back in 1995 and is now suffering from some special unexpected side effects of the treatment. Hurray! We drive home in the dark, tho it is barely past 4:30. A quick stop at home reveals that the sudden drop in temperature, which has allowed us to leave the house without coats and has melted almost all the dirty snow around the city and suburbs, has not caused the basement to flood. Neither has the rain. So we hop back into the car and spend the evening with our Indian friends, eating pizza and drinking wine and relaxing in general. It’s been a challenging week.
Sunday my dad is discharged and while he waits to come home with my mom I dash around the house making everything clean and shiny for his arrival, which will coincide with the arrival of 6 of my cousins and my ex-husband. My parents’ Hanukkah dinner has been rerouted to my house. I enlist everyone via email to bring something. I order pizzas and demand the online price, not the over-the-phone jacked-up price. I tell everyone also via email that they will have to leave by 8pm so as to not over exhaust my father and so as to allow my kids to get to bed reasonably on time.
Monday is another Camp day, and the boys and I have kindly offered to fill in for my mom. After Camp we run to Target and return more than $60 worth of Christmas gifts. We return with Kung Fu Panda on DVD. At Trader Joe’s I carry Sailor, sleeping, thru the store as Mac assists me with the shopping. He picks out my dad’s red roses for my mom’s birthday tomorrow.
Tuesday is my mom’s birthday so we fill in for her at Camp again and run back to Target for eggs and Q-tips. Back at home I set about baking a cake for Mom, cleaning up the kitchen afterwards, running a bath for my boys, cleaning them up and dressing them for dinner. By the time my sister brings my mom back from her birthday lunch I am ready to take her for a manicure and coffee and my boys look very spiffy. Mom and I relax at the manicurists with our lattes and all the other women prepping for the next holiday. When we get back everyone is starving. I quick-change into an outfit I would never have thought to put together before. And we are off to a wonderful Italian dinner at Via Carducci. After our waiter sings “Happy Birthday Dear Customer” to my mom, we head home for cake and gifts.
Wednesday is New Year’s Eve and I sleep in a little. Sailor wants to stay home for the day but we have been planning this day all year. My mom drives us to Navy Pier just after noon and after watching a great juggler performance, we spend the afternoon at the Chicago Children’s Museum. We even make a skyscraper, which we put on video, which can be viewed on the Internet. Dinner is our annual eat-whatever-you-want dinner. Sailor is mostly interested in French fries, so despite our venue – Bubba Gump Shrimp -- he chooses the kids’ meal of a small hamburger and fries, an orange slice and blue jello. I order him a root beer to wash it down. Mac and I share a big display of 4 kinds of shrimp and fries. We eat everything and return to the museum for another hour of playtime. Where I get very tired. I think it must have been the tropical drink I treated myself to. We leave the museum and spend a fortune on ice cream at Ben&Jerry’s. MMMM!!!!! The fireworks are about to start. Except we are not dressed well for the extreme cold, having opted instead for our more fashionable outdoor wear. We watch most of the fireworks from outside then finish up through a window. We are freezing when my mom picks us up. Sailor is asleep when we get home. Mac is asleep before I can get my pajamas on. I am asleep by 10:30. My parents call just after midnight. I have missed another holiday.
Thursday morning we attend the pajama brunch at Café BabaReeba, our favorite tapas restaurant. We have gone three years in a row now. When breakfast is over we walk home and get ready for our annual (10th? 11th?) New Year’s Day Hangover/Leftovers (as in, bring whichever you have) Party. 24 people fill my home and polish off the bottles of cheap Riesling I have stashed in my fridge. They bring cheese and crackers and children to play with and good cheer. It’s a holiday celebration at last. By the time our guests – mine, my sister’s, my boys’, and my parents’ – leave, I have nothing left to clean up but vacuuming.
Friday morning we are awakened by the garbage men. And I have not yet brought out the cans. Reprising my Thursday morning exit in pajamas, I run out and the garbage guys help me with the cans and I dash back in for cookies to give them. We pack up for the day, I give my dad a shot, drag my boys to the bank and make it to the burbs by 11a.m. where we have lunch and spend a few hours in a ball pit with some of our best friends. We are home by dinner, tho both boys are asleep when we arrive. We eat dinner while watching movies and then go to bed.
On Saturday we decide to run downtown to the Lego store to exchange some more of our Christmas gifts. We stop at the bank first. And good thing, as I learn on boarding the bus that the price has gone up to $2.25. We are home by 12:30 and in the car 20 minutes later to make a 1pm date with Mac and Sailor’s friends Isabella & Ryan. The kids spend most of the afternoon bickering, crying and calling for help. By the time they are really into togetherness, it is time to go. Mac has a meltdown at Target because he is thirsty and I ask him to wait a few minutes. Both boys get to sit in a ten-minute time out to think about how not to behave in public when we get home. We eat, they build Legos, I work, we are in bed before 8 but the book I am reading them, Matilda, has longish chapters and it is 9 before they close their eyes.
And now here we are. I have helped Mac screw parts to make a robot. They have helped me put away laundry. Mac wants to go on a play date this afternoon but Sailor doesn’t want to let him and I am torn over fairness issues. We play Mancala… and so the day goes!
Well, back to school tomorrow. I can't tell you how bummed I am. And how tired it makes me feel just thinking about it all. In addition to all we had going on previously, tomorrow Sailor starts a new class on Monday and Friday afternoons after gymnastics. It’s a preschool class at the park district. But because it is in the same room where he used to take a Mom & Tots class that we called Circle Time, he thinks he is going to Circle Time for Big Kids! He will also be starting violin lessons while Mac is in piano lessons. There goes his Wednesday afternoon nap! I’ll have to be more vigilant about bed time!
So with 14 days of holiday behind us, I struggle to figure out where the time went. It seems all we did over break was go to the hospital and the art studio and celebrate stuff (which is, I suppse, what this break was meant for). I guess that is all we did…
We started our break immediately after school on Friday afternoon with a party at the Judo dojo. At the end of which Mac cut his eyebrow open on a camera lens requiring a trip to the ER and 3 stitches.
Saturday we lay around not doing much while Mac’s eye started to heal. In the afternoon we took a “quick trip” to the suburban outdoor mall so I could exchange a pair of winter boots and return another. Our quick trip involved Mac suddenly claiming to be starving and the need for a bit of dinner. We had a nice time and nearly $30 at Corner Bakery and spent some time in the book store to arrive home at 9pm. There was nothing quick about this trip.
The weather and a total lack of plans kept us in on Sunday and Monday. While I don’t normally stay in specifically because of extreme cold, I saw no reason to create plans just to go freeze our patooties off! We had a marathon of DVDs while I read a fascinating book on the 1958 Our Lady of the Angels School fire. On Monday night I realized we would have to venture out on Tuesday no matter what because we had just about nothing left to eat here. Really. Nothing. As evidenced by the use of the last morsels of three differnt types of cheese melted on totillas with beans, and a bowl of cereal served for dinner. I am actually feeling very poor tonight, with no food to serve.
Tuesday morning we are committed to the art studio. Afterwards we get groceries and probably run some last-minute Christmas errands but I can no longer recall.
Wednesday is Christmas Eve and my sister and I have spent a great deal of time attempting to recreate our family tradition of Christmas Eve Dinner at My Pi … our favorite pizza restaurant, which closed unexpectedly in early summer. My parents are not cooperating with our plans, claiming too much to do to get ready for Christmas. Meanwhile Mac has to get his stitches out but is terrified and so spends the day sleeping in my bed. By the time I drag him out and make him get dressed the day is nearly over and we have done nothing. Sailor is also afraid and opts to stay with my parents. I take Mac to Starbucks on the way to the ER, where we wait long enough to draw all over the paper on the table in the exam room and ransack the drawers in the room for “art” supplies to make a little tongue depressor puppet in a band-aid bikini and gauze pad skirt. Mac’s stitches come out and we have a very elegant family dinner at Four Farthings. Which costs roughly 4x more than our usual dinner at My Pi. Lucky for my parents my sister and I have offered to foot this bill – the fist in a string of expensive dinners we enjoy over break.
At home my parents have some weird freak out about turning off the Christmas lights so that we can light the Hanukkah candles. I gently try to remind all assembled that for nearly 45 years we have had a mixed-religion family that almost yearly requires some crossover of holidays. My dad throws a mild snit, which I catch on video, along with his beautiful lighting of the candles. We lay out cookies for Santa and Mac writes a note asking for things Santa has not planned to deliver.
We retreat upstairs and my sister watches my boys briefly while I stuff stockings downstairs.
Christmas morning … Santa has left two small toys upstairs for Mac and Sailor. Mac brings me a small pack of Pokemon cards, proving once and for all the existence of Santa, because no way would Mommy ever buy Pokes! Mac also has a bell that Santa brought, per his request in the note last night. Sailor shows me very exciting Playmobiles guys. We open gifts from friends and distant family while we wait to go downstairs. We read a new book, Walter the Farting Dog. My dad calls at 8:30 and we are downstairs in moments.
We starts with stockings and my dad retreats to the bathroom. You couldn’t have done that before we started?, I think. But I don’t say. Everyone gets nice things. Mac gets an Indiana Jones Lego thing called the Jungle Cutter from Santa and Sailor gets Playmobiles. My dad goes to the bathroom a few more times and I assume he is having tummy trouble. I ask my mom… her eyes tear up and she won’t tell us what is wrong. I don’t remember anything else about opening gifts at my parents’ house on Christmas morning.
Back upstairs by 9:30 I start putting together breakfast. My sister and I scour the Internet for reasons why my dad is suddenly unable to pee.
I send my sister to the shower and make breakfast for my boys. Call the doctor, who tells me to take my dad to the ER. Iron my trousers. “Why don’t you just wear jeans?” my sister asks. Two reasons: my jeans are not clean and it’s Christmas and I don’t wear jeans in Christmas. I pack food for the kids, dry shoes, and new toys and books.
I make phone calls from the ER vestibule to cancel the Christmas party at my parents’ house. My children impress me with 4 ½ hours of nonstop good behavior while we wait in the ER for my father to get some relief and some answers.
We leave when we know there is nothing more to be done for the day and my boys want to open the rest of their gifts. At home my sister unloads as much food as she can find from my mom’s fridge and brings it all up for a feast. The table is still set for 4, as only my boys ate breakfast this morning. It is a Christmas I do not want to remember but it is a Christmas I will never forget. Mac says it is the worst Christmas ever. I deny this, stating that the worst Christmas would be the one we did not get to spend together, and indeed this one was spent lovingly together.
Friday morning we haul over to the art studio for Camp. Calls to Dad reveal no new news but that he will spend the day having tests.
Saturday we spend the morning gathering our wits and the afternoon picking up lunch and visiting my parents in the hospital. My dad will come home tomorrow, hopefully. His bladder clear, his tests negative, and his diverticulitis under control with antibiotics. There is nothing wrong except that he has outlived his prognosis for an 8-year survival post-radiation for prostate cancer back in 1995 and is now suffering from some special unexpected side effects of the treatment. Hurray! We drive home in the dark, tho it is barely past 4:30. A quick stop at home reveals that the sudden drop in temperature, which has allowed us to leave the house without coats and has melted almost all the dirty snow around the city and suburbs, has not caused the basement to flood. Neither has the rain. So we hop back into the car and spend the evening with our Indian friends, eating pizza and drinking wine and relaxing in general. It’s been a challenging week.
Sunday my dad is discharged and while he waits to come home with my mom I dash around the house making everything clean and shiny for his arrival, which will coincide with the arrival of 6 of my cousins and my ex-husband. My parents’ Hanukkah dinner has been rerouted to my house. I enlist everyone via email to bring something. I order pizzas and demand the online price, not the over-the-phone jacked-up price. I tell everyone also via email that they will have to leave by 8pm so as to not over exhaust my father and so as to allow my kids to get to bed reasonably on time.
Monday is another Camp day, and the boys and I have kindly offered to fill in for my mom. After Camp we run to Target and return more than $60 worth of Christmas gifts. We return with Kung Fu Panda on DVD. At Trader Joe’s I carry Sailor, sleeping, thru the store as Mac assists me with the shopping. He picks out my dad’s red roses for my mom’s birthday tomorrow.
Tuesday is my mom’s birthday so we fill in for her at Camp again and run back to Target for eggs and Q-tips. Back at home I set about baking a cake for Mom, cleaning up the kitchen afterwards, running a bath for my boys, cleaning them up and dressing them for dinner. By the time my sister brings my mom back from her birthday lunch I am ready to take her for a manicure and coffee and my boys look very spiffy. Mom and I relax at the manicurists with our lattes and all the other women prepping for the next holiday. When we get back everyone is starving. I quick-change into an outfit I would never have thought to put together before. And we are off to a wonderful Italian dinner at Via Carducci. After our waiter sings “Happy Birthday Dear Customer” to my mom, we head home for cake and gifts.
Wednesday is New Year’s Eve and I sleep in a little. Sailor wants to stay home for the day but we have been planning this day all year. My mom drives us to Navy Pier just after noon and after watching a great juggler performance, we spend the afternoon at the Chicago Children’s Museum. We even make a skyscraper, which we put on video, which can be viewed on the Internet. Dinner is our annual eat-whatever-you-want dinner. Sailor is mostly interested in French fries, so despite our venue – Bubba Gump Shrimp -- he chooses the kids’ meal of a small hamburger and fries, an orange slice and blue jello. I order him a root beer to wash it down. Mac and I share a big display of 4 kinds of shrimp and fries. We eat everything and return to the museum for another hour of playtime. Where I get very tired. I think it must have been the tropical drink I treated myself to. We leave the museum and spend a fortune on ice cream at Ben&Jerry’s. MMMM!!!!! The fireworks are about to start. Except we are not dressed well for the extreme cold, having opted instead for our more fashionable outdoor wear. We watch most of the fireworks from outside then finish up through a window. We are freezing when my mom picks us up. Sailor is asleep when we get home. Mac is asleep before I can get my pajamas on. I am asleep by 10:30. My parents call just after midnight. I have missed another holiday.
Thursday morning we attend the pajama brunch at Café BabaReeba, our favorite tapas restaurant. We have gone three years in a row now. When breakfast is over we walk home and get ready for our annual (10th? 11th?) New Year’s Day Hangover/Leftovers (as in, bring whichever you have) Party. 24 people fill my home and polish off the bottles of cheap Riesling I have stashed in my fridge. They bring cheese and crackers and children to play with and good cheer. It’s a holiday celebration at last. By the time our guests – mine, my sister’s, my boys’, and my parents’ – leave, I have nothing left to clean up but vacuuming.
Friday morning we are awakened by the garbage men. And I have not yet brought out the cans. Reprising my Thursday morning exit in pajamas, I run out and the garbage guys help me with the cans and I dash back in for cookies to give them. We pack up for the day, I give my dad a shot, drag my boys to the bank and make it to the burbs by 11a.m. where we have lunch and spend a few hours in a ball pit with some of our best friends. We are home by dinner, tho both boys are asleep when we arrive. We eat dinner while watching movies and then go to bed.
On Saturday we decide to run downtown to the Lego store to exchange some more of our Christmas gifts. We stop at the bank first. And good thing, as I learn on boarding the bus that the price has gone up to $2.25. We are home by 12:30 and in the car 20 minutes later to make a 1pm date with Mac and Sailor’s friends Isabella & Ryan. The kids spend most of the afternoon bickering, crying and calling for help. By the time they are really into togetherness, it is time to go. Mac has a meltdown at Target because he is thirsty and I ask him to wait a few minutes. Both boys get to sit in a ten-minute time out to think about how not to behave in public when we get home. We eat, they build Legos, I work, we are in bed before 8 but the book I am reading them, Matilda, has longish chapters and it is 9 before they close their eyes.
And now here we are. I have helped Mac screw parts to make a robot. They have helped me put away laundry. Mac wants to go on a play date this afternoon but Sailor doesn’t want to let him and I am torn over fairness issues. We play Mancala… and so the day goes!
December 14, 2008
We are reading Pippi Longstocking tonight and reference is made to cannibals.
"Do either of you know what cannibals are?" I asked.
"I do!" Sailor says. "They are balls that come out of a cannon."
"Do either of you know what cannibals are?" I asked.
"I do!" Sailor says. "They are balls that come out of a cannon."
Monday, December 01, 2008
Our 5-day Thanksgiving break was set to end today. Except Mac was having so much trouble breathing last night I decided to call him in sick this morning. By late in the day I realize I made the right decision. His sniffles are almost completely gone. But what a day. On the 1st of December we wake to our 1st snow! Mac and Sailor are so excited! They want to go out to play. While I run around the house cleaning up and doing chores Sailor gets into his outdoor clothes. “I’m getting very hot!” he complains as I clean up his room. “No one told you to put on your coat!”
“I want to go outside, too!” Mac wails. “you can’s just leave a little kid home all alone!”
“I sure can if I am right outside the front window and you can hear me shoveling.”
“You don’t understand the life of a little child!” he cries.
“Oh, Mac, I do. But if you are home sick, sick means lying on the sofa, not playing in the snow! You have to get well and go back to school.”
Poor thing. “I will have my phone on me if you need me.”
“You will?”
“Yes, sweety, I will.”
Sailo enjoys the snow while I test out my $40 super mittens from Eherwon. They are no warmer than any other pair I have grabbed from TJMaxx for $19.99. Darn!
Sailor has gymnastics and my dad comes up to stay with Mac. “You look like you want to make your famous tuna salad,” I tell my dad, indicating the ingredients and equipment on my counter to make said tuna salad. “I look like I want to make tuna salad?” my dad asks. Sailor and I will enjoy this lunch. I never tell him it’s tuna salad. I call it GrandDad’s dip. Mac eats the leftover pizza from last night.
We read a few stories and it is time for Judo. By this time both boys are thrilled to walk in the snow. At Judo Sensei informs us that the Judo tournament on Friday has been changed to Thursday. The day my boys have French class after school. And it’s parents’ week at French and my parents are set to come. And Mac is set to start in his new 8-10-year-old class. But Sensei really wants my boys to be there. He says he will try to work it out. I say I will do the same. It is now 11:20 at night and I am no closer to working out anything because my helpers are probably as overwhelmed with holiday obligations as I am and so I am not getting much assistance.
I help my boys clean up their playroom, get out their clothes, set out breakfast dishes, pack up extra shoes to leave at the art studio, read a chapter of Pippi Longstocking and snuggle my boys as they pass out quickly on either side of me.
Next up, making next year’s calendar for my family’s holiday gift. It takes a while. Next I download photos for our holiday photo. Indeed the 2 calendars and 150 cards, even with shipping, cost less than the stamps I ordered last night to mail my holiday cards.
Meanwhile I look at an email and find that while I had believed I was to do a reading program in Mac's class every Tuesday in fact I am only on the schedule for 2 or 3 days in the next 3 months. I email back and forth with the mom in charge and we both look for an old email to clear up my misunderstanding. But in truth I don’t care much. I already have way too many things on my calendar, so much that it’s getting hard to read. So a few days less is probably a good thing. Nonetheless, I am surprised. Relieved a bit too.
“I want to go outside, too!” Mac wails. “you can’s just leave a little kid home all alone!”
“I sure can if I am right outside the front window and you can hear me shoveling.”
“You don’t understand the life of a little child!” he cries.
“Oh, Mac, I do. But if you are home sick, sick means lying on the sofa, not playing in the snow! You have to get well and go back to school.”
Poor thing. “I will have my phone on me if you need me.”
“You will?”
“Yes, sweety, I will.”
Sailo enjoys the snow while I test out my $40 super mittens from Eherwon. They are no warmer than any other pair I have grabbed from TJMaxx for $19.99. Darn!
Sailor has gymnastics and my dad comes up to stay with Mac. “You look like you want to make your famous tuna salad,” I tell my dad, indicating the ingredients and equipment on my counter to make said tuna salad. “I look like I want to make tuna salad?” my dad asks. Sailor and I will enjoy this lunch. I never tell him it’s tuna salad. I call it GrandDad’s dip. Mac eats the leftover pizza from last night.
We read a few stories and it is time for Judo. By this time both boys are thrilled to walk in the snow. At Judo Sensei informs us that the Judo tournament on Friday has been changed to Thursday. The day my boys have French class after school. And it’s parents’ week at French and my parents are set to come. And Mac is set to start in his new 8-10-year-old class. But Sensei really wants my boys to be there. He says he will try to work it out. I say I will do the same. It is now 11:20 at night and I am no closer to working out anything because my helpers are probably as overwhelmed with holiday obligations as I am and so I am not getting much assistance.
I help my boys clean up their playroom, get out their clothes, set out breakfast dishes, pack up extra shoes to leave at the art studio, read a chapter of Pippi Longstocking and snuggle my boys as they pass out quickly on either side of me.
Next up, making next year’s calendar for my family’s holiday gift. It takes a while. Next I download photos for our holiday photo. Indeed the 2 calendars and 150 cards, even with shipping, cost less than the stamps I ordered last night to mail my holiday cards.
Meanwhile I look at an email and find that while I had believed I was to do a reading program in Mac's class every Tuesday in fact I am only on the schedule for 2 or 3 days in the next 3 months. I email back and forth with the mom in charge and we both look for an old email to clear up my misunderstanding. But in truth I don’t care much. I already have way too many things on my calendar, so much that it’s getting hard to read. So a few days less is probably a good thing. Nonetheless, I am surprised. Relieved a bit too.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
It's almost 10:30, we're all still in our pj's and I just made a huge batch of crepes, which we are eating on the living room floor.
It’s not officially winter yet, but the weather outside is most certainly frightful. I don’t desire the opportunity to venture out for any reason, yet we have a full agenda for today, if we ever get started! The cold weather is sapping all my energy. I am already feeling short of breath and tremulous. And fat! I just want to pull up a good book, a direct line to my kitchen, and an endless supply of DVDs and camp out on the couch til, say, late March, early April!
Monday, November 24, 2008
I tell my boys they need good feet and strong walking legs this morning. We drive Mac to school in the sick car and then drop off the noisy, sick car. We walk a block to the dentist’s office where I am told my earache is due to stressed mouth muscles. My dentists then proceeds to massage my stressed mouth musles. This is the weirdest dentist appointment I have ever had. But when he is done, my ear no longer hurts. Too weird. Sailor wants to sit in the dentists chair becuz of a problem that comes up as we are walking into the office. Something about his teeth getting out of line when he bites into food and how he has to get them all back where they belong. He gets his pearlies looked at and is disappointed not to be given a goody bag of toothbrushes and dental floss. We make an appointment for Friday the 5th to have his teeth cleaned – and procure said goody bag. We walk home. Slowly. To the sounds of Sailor’s incessant whining about how the new winter boots I bought him last night are too heavy, too itchy and not good for walking. We stop at Starbucks. No, not to reward his whiny behaviour but to give me a break and him a rest. We sit at a table and I play hangman with him on a napkin. Except he is not clear on the concept of how the game works. The final “word” is something like ERDOLPA. Or some other random combo of letters that he chooses at will during the game. He runs home, energized on vanilla milk. Following his gymnastics class, we lunch with my dad. On the walk I ask him if he knows what a grandma and grandpa are. “They are old and they are the same as a Nana and GrandDad and that’s all they are.” We eat a hearty lunch of breakfast foods. When Sasilor orders a bear-shaped pancake I tease him that it might have fur. “It’s not meat, it’s a pancake!” Then he proceeds to eat the strawberry and whipped cream face off with much delight. When the waitress asks us if we want to wrap our food to go, Sailor replies, “As a fact of the matter, yes.”
After lunch the garage calls. I need a new muffler. And it will cost $225. I suppose it could be worse.
Without the car we have to walk to Judo after school. Mac spends most of the walk explaining that he has to do all the pages of math homework that he missed. “Because you forgot to call someone and ask for the homework.” What the heck is this kid talking about?? When? When did I forget to call? When you were absent? “No, when I was too busy in class doing my D.O.L. and didn’t get all the homework written down.” And I am supposed to know that he has homework that is not written in his agenda?!?!? What am I now, a mind reader? I’ll tell you what I am. An incensed mommy. How the h*** am I supposed to know when he doesn’t write down the homework completely!? There was no note from the teacher asking for the missing homework. What the bleep?! I am trying to be patient as I explain to my darling boy that this situation is in no way any fault of mine. He is seriously trying my patience. I suggest that if he knows he didn’t write down all of his homework then he should ask to call a friend. Or at the very least as me to.
We make it to Judo just on time. Mac is being weird about his box of vanilla milk and ends up dropping it in the trash. I am livid. I tell him to fetch it out but it was more than half full and sank to the bottom. I tell him he owes me a buck and won’t get anymore vanilla milk boxes.
By the time the time the boys are in their “gi” and on the mat I am so agitated. I am supposed to be enjoying this, people!
They do well at Judo and eat all their dinner. It is better.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Mac is in need of an outlet to plug in the vacuum cleaner. “Mom, I am going to have to unscrew your computer.”
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Thanksgiving Day. We have a 5-day break from school and I intend to leave the alarm clock unplugged for the duration. But a construction crew – yes, I said a construction crew – has other ideas for the morning. 7:30 a.m. we, and my parents below us, are awake to the sounds of pounding in a rhythm akin to knocking. My father wakes wondering what we are doing up here. Mac looks out the window. “There’s an orange cone near the stroller.” We are all up. We sit on the sofa together somewhat dazed. “You can go back to sleep, Mommy,” one of my boys offers. “No. I’m up.” Sailor asks if it is Thanksgiving Day. “Happy Thanksgiving!” Mac says. “I have an Indian movie,” Sailor says, retrieving The Prince of Egypt from the TV shelf. “I don’t think that’s a Thanksgiving movie,” I tell him. “We can watch ANTZ! But it needs to be washed off,” Mac says heading to the bathroom. Before I know what we are doing there is an argument going on around me over which movie to watch at 7:45 in the morning. I don’t recall having granted anyone permission to watch anything. It is just after 8:00 when I send both boys to their rooms and close the TV cabinet.
At 8:15 Sailor comes out on his own. “I have spots on my arm.” Indeed he does. He is in fact covered in spots from his neck to his feet, front and back. I call the pediatrician and have a nice chat with her. She sounds like she has make-up on. I like talking to women pediatricians so much more than their male counterparts. They are so much more amenable to talking to the mom and figuring out what is wrong.
Over breakfast I watch Sailor’s face break out. Literally watch it break out.
It takes some time before we are mobilized to get to the store for the allegry medicine the doc suggested. Before we leave I tell off the workmen. “Do you not realize today is a holiday? And I did not want to be up at 7:30 on a day off! You are supposed to be at home helping your wives cook turkey! You should have covered this stroller with plastic.” Ah, finally a word they understand. “Mumble mumble mumble plastic.” “I’m covering it myself but you should have done it already.” When we come out later there is a tarp over the stroller. Before we leave we also have to reorganize all the kids’ books. I don’t know why, really. We just do.
Whole Foods is open and busy. Mac is pushing the cart. Sailor is throwing a fit becuz Mac won’t let him hold the side of the cart. “You’re making me run into things!” I quietly whisper to my boys how I will spank them right in the middle of the store if they don’t stop. Sailor goes on and on even after I suggest they take turns pushing, which Mac is fine with.
Everyone needs a snack. We choose croissants and leave the store without the allergy medicine becuz it is $8. At CVS Benadryl is $7. And Mac suddenly has to pee right now. We return to Whole Foods, everyone pees, we get the allergy stuff that is homeopathic and tastes good and has to be administered every 2 hours til the symptoms go away. We get more croissants. We go home. It is too warm out for our winter coats. I am grumpy and tired and feel fluish. I am not in a good mood for a holiday. We eat lunch. The boys paint and I read them a story. They want to dress up for thanksgiving dinner. No, not my version of dress up, which includes nice clothes. They want to be a Indian chief and a Pilgrim. Mac puts on his bathrobe. This is one of those times when I need another parent to either back me up when I say no or help the kids come up with costumes. “I can be an army man if I change my pants and my socks,” Sailor suggests. “It’s not Halloween, boys.” “Or I can wear black pants and a blue shirt and be Darth Vader.” I am so ready to lose it. I send my boys down to get silver to polish from Nana. “We have bad news and good news,” they tell me. “The bad news is that GrandDad already polished the silver. The good news is I told Aunt you won’t let me be an Indian chief and she said she will make me a headdress.” I call downstairs and my father answers. “Please let my sister know that when one of my children says ‘Mommy says no,’ it does not mean Aunt should say yes. This is a total undermining of my parenting.” My father is calm. My sister would have hung up on me or huffed something about me being a bitch or just given me the cold shoulder for at least the first hour of dinner. I hang up and explain to my boys that there is no other adult who they can go to for another answer if I say no and that no amount of begging will make me say yes. They sit down on Mac’s bedroom floor and make Indian gear. I am fine with this, but they will wear their new sweaters, dammit. It’s 3pm. Is it too early to have a glass of wine? Happy Thanksgiving!
Friday, November 28, 2008
Today we were set to put up our little Christmas tree. But I am afraid our abyss of a basement has swallowed up the box containing all of our holiday décor. We’ll have to go look tomorrow, as today we worked hard to burn off the turkey-less meal we consumed yesterday by helping my friend Anna move. Hauling boxes, bags, totes and a large CHAIR down one steep set of stairs and up or down inside the new house makes for one sore mama. My boys were amazing tho, carrying boxes and less heavy items, packing the car and the truck and distributing items into the new rooms. Everyone was impressed, including Mama!
Saturday
Sailor is undressing for the shower. Quietly he suggests, “Uh, Mom, I’m almost ready. Perhaps you want to turn the water on now.”
Perhaps I might!
It’s not officially winter yet, but the weather outside is most certainly frightful. I don’t desire the opportunity to venture out for any reason, yet we have a full agenda for today, if we ever get started! The cold weather is sapping all my energy. I am already feeling short of breath and tremulous. And fat! I just want to pull up a good book, a direct line to my kitchen, and an endless supply of DVDs and camp out on the couch til, say, late March, early April!
Monday, November 24, 2008
I tell my boys they need good feet and strong walking legs this morning. We drive Mac to school in the sick car and then drop off the noisy, sick car. We walk a block to the dentist’s office where I am told my earache is due to stressed mouth muscles. My dentists then proceeds to massage my stressed mouth musles. This is the weirdest dentist appointment I have ever had. But when he is done, my ear no longer hurts. Too weird. Sailor wants to sit in the dentists chair becuz of a problem that comes up as we are walking into the office. Something about his teeth getting out of line when he bites into food and how he has to get them all back where they belong. He gets his pearlies looked at and is disappointed not to be given a goody bag of toothbrushes and dental floss. We make an appointment for Friday the 5th to have his teeth cleaned – and procure said goody bag. We walk home. Slowly. To the sounds of Sailor’s incessant whining about how the new winter boots I bought him last night are too heavy, too itchy and not good for walking. We stop at Starbucks. No, not to reward his whiny behaviour but to give me a break and him a rest. We sit at a table and I play hangman with him on a napkin. Except he is not clear on the concept of how the game works. The final “word” is something like ERDOLPA. Or some other random combo of letters that he chooses at will during the game. He runs home, energized on vanilla milk. Following his gymnastics class, we lunch with my dad. On the walk I ask him if he knows what a grandma and grandpa are. “They are old and they are the same as a Nana and GrandDad and that’s all they are.” We eat a hearty lunch of breakfast foods. When Sasilor orders a bear-shaped pancake I tease him that it might have fur. “It’s not meat, it’s a pancake!” Then he proceeds to eat the strawberry and whipped cream face off with much delight. When the waitress asks us if we want to wrap our food to go, Sailor replies, “As a fact of the matter, yes.”
After lunch the garage calls. I need a new muffler. And it will cost $225. I suppose it could be worse.
Without the car we have to walk to Judo after school. Mac spends most of the walk explaining that he has to do all the pages of math homework that he missed. “Because you forgot to call someone and ask for the homework.” What the heck is this kid talking about?? When? When did I forget to call? When you were absent? “No, when I was too busy in class doing my D.O.L. and didn’t get all the homework written down.” And I am supposed to know that he has homework that is not written in his agenda?!?!? What am I now, a mind reader? I’ll tell you what I am. An incensed mommy. How the h*** am I supposed to know when he doesn’t write down the homework completely!? There was no note from the teacher asking for the missing homework. What the bleep?! I am trying to be patient as I explain to my darling boy that this situation is in no way any fault of mine. He is seriously trying my patience. I suggest that if he knows he didn’t write down all of his homework then he should ask to call a friend. Or at the very least as me to.
We make it to Judo just on time. Mac is being weird about his box of vanilla milk and ends up dropping it in the trash. I am livid. I tell him to fetch it out but it was more than half full and sank to the bottom. I tell him he owes me a buck and won’t get anymore vanilla milk boxes.
By the time the time the boys are in their “gi” and on the mat I am so agitated. I am supposed to be enjoying this, people!
They do well at Judo and eat all their dinner. It is better.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Mac is in need of an outlet to plug in the vacuum cleaner. “Mom, I am going to have to unscrew your computer.”
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Thanksgiving Day. We have a 5-day break from school and I intend to leave the alarm clock unplugged for the duration. But a construction crew – yes, I said a construction crew – has other ideas for the morning. 7:30 a.m. we, and my parents below us, are awake to the sounds of pounding in a rhythm akin to knocking. My father wakes wondering what we are doing up here. Mac looks out the window. “There’s an orange cone near the stroller.” We are all up. We sit on the sofa together somewhat dazed. “You can go back to sleep, Mommy,” one of my boys offers. “No. I’m up.” Sailor asks if it is Thanksgiving Day. “Happy Thanksgiving!” Mac says. “I have an Indian movie,” Sailor says, retrieving The Prince of Egypt from the TV shelf. “I don’t think that’s a Thanksgiving movie,” I tell him. “We can watch ANTZ! But it needs to be washed off,” Mac says heading to the bathroom. Before I know what we are doing there is an argument going on around me over which movie to watch at 7:45 in the morning. I don’t recall having granted anyone permission to watch anything. It is just after 8:00 when I send both boys to their rooms and close the TV cabinet.
At 8:15 Sailor comes out on his own. “I have spots on my arm.” Indeed he does. He is in fact covered in spots from his neck to his feet, front and back. I call the pediatrician and have a nice chat with her. She sounds like she has make-up on. I like talking to women pediatricians so much more than their male counterparts. They are so much more amenable to talking to the mom and figuring out what is wrong.
Over breakfast I watch Sailor’s face break out. Literally watch it break out.
It takes some time before we are mobilized to get to the store for the allegry medicine the doc suggested. Before we leave I tell off the workmen. “Do you not realize today is a holiday? And I did not want to be up at 7:30 on a day off! You are supposed to be at home helping your wives cook turkey! You should have covered this stroller with plastic.” Ah, finally a word they understand. “Mumble mumble mumble plastic.” “I’m covering it myself but you should have done it already.” When we come out later there is a tarp over the stroller. Before we leave we also have to reorganize all the kids’ books. I don’t know why, really. We just do.
Whole Foods is open and busy. Mac is pushing the cart. Sailor is throwing a fit becuz Mac won’t let him hold the side of the cart. “You’re making me run into things!” I quietly whisper to my boys how I will spank them right in the middle of the store if they don’t stop. Sailor goes on and on even after I suggest they take turns pushing, which Mac is fine with.
Everyone needs a snack. We choose croissants and leave the store without the allergy medicine becuz it is $8. At CVS Benadryl is $7. And Mac suddenly has to pee right now. We return to Whole Foods, everyone pees, we get the allergy stuff that is homeopathic and tastes good and has to be administered every 2 hours til the symptoms go away. We get more croissants. We go home. It is too warm out for our winter coats. I am grumpy and tired and feel fluish. I am not in a good mood for a holiday. We eat lunch. The boys paint and I read them a story. They want to dress up for thanksgiving dinner. No, not my version of dress up, which includes nice clothes. They want to be a Indian chief and a Pilgrim. Mac puts on his bathrobe. This is one of those times when I need another parent to either back me up when I say no or help the kids come up with costumes. “I can be an army man if I change my pants and my socks,” Sailor suggests. “It’s not Halloween, boys.” “Or I can wear black pants and a blue shirt and be Darth Vader.” I am so ready to lose it. I send my boys down to get silver to polish from Nana. “We have bad news and good news,” they tell me. “The bad news is that GrandDad already polished the silver. The good news is I told Aunt you won’t let me be an Indian chief and she said she will make me a headdress.” I call downstairs and my father answers. “Please let my sister know that when one of my children says ‘Mommy says no,’ it does not mean Aunt should say yes. This is a total undermining of my parenting.” My father is calm. My sister would have hung up on me or huffed something about me being a bitch or just given me the cold shoulder for at least the first hour of dinner. I hang up and explain to my boys that there is no other adult who they can go to for another answer if I say no and that no amount of begging will make me say yes. They sit down on Mac’s bedroom floor and make Indian gear. I am fine with this, but they will wear their new sweaters, dammit. It’s 3pm. Is it too early to have a glass of wine? Happy Thanksgiving!
Friday, November 28, 2008
Today we were set to put up our little Christmas tree. But I am afraid our abyss of a basement has swallowed up the box containing all of our holiday décor. We’ll have to go look tomorrow, as today we worked hard to burn off the turkey-less meal we consumed yesterday by helping my friend Anna move. Hauling boxes, bags, totes and a large CHAIR down one steep set of stairs and up or down inside the new house makes for one sore mama. My boys were amazing tho, carrying boxes and less heavy items, packing the car and the truck and distributing items into the new rooms. Everyone was impressed, including Mama!
Saturday
Sailor is undressing for the shower. Quietly he suggests, “Uh, Mom, I’m almost ready. Perhaps you want to turn the water on now.”
Perhaps I might!
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