Monday, April 6, 2009

We are either 4 days onto spring break or it is the first day of spring break, depending on whether one considers Friday and the weekend or not. If one considers only the weather then we are somewhere at the beginning of our late winter break. Last night we experienced a slushy snow storm that gave way to bone chilling cold and wind this morning. Welcome to spring break in Chicago! We should be so used to it by now.

Had I begun writing earlier today I would have reported this break as already a dismal disappointment . However, after the afternoon that we ended up with I think I have settled on the true meaning of it all, which is of course, spending time together.

I have a schedule written out, including playdates, lunches, museums, dinners, lessons… day by day to ensure a meaningful, memorable spring break. Friday went well… A trip to the burbs, a day spent with our best friends, which included a veritable feeding frenzy of macker cheese lunch, pop corn snack, pizza dinner and the obligatory stomach ache (mine) after which Mac and Sailor returned home and declared themselves hungry. "That was a short visit," Mac said, after 7 hours of play time. A good visit. And Saturday went well, too… work in the morning followed by take-out lunch ordered by my dad (on the way out to get this, Sailor came down the stairs, “My vest does not fit over my sweater, so I got my ear muffs instead!”), scootering to spend a couple of hours at the nature museum with my sister followed by a nice sushi dinner, scootering home and watching a DVD at home before bedtime (the boys on the tv and I on my laptop so we can all be on the couch together).

It was all going so well. Until I stayed up too late on Saturday and then could not sleep. Sunday morning we frenzied around getting dressed and making lunches. We were out the door a few minutes after 9:00 and headed for the aquarium. We drove in the rain and arrived to find every single parking meter covered with a bag marked “Police! Tow Zone.” The adjacent lot not only demands $16 but wants it in cash only. I have several pounds of quarters in my bag, but I doubt I have $16 in actual cash. “What's cash?” Mac asks. With the mayor’s new raising of the cost neighborhood parking meters, I am loathe to give up my precious quarters for any reason. We drive off. Sailor falls asleep, disappointed as we all are. The parking lot of the IHOP several neighborhoods north of our own is packed as is the IHOP itself. A parking spot a block away has a meter demanding $2 for 2 hours. It is Sunday. But suddenly with our beloved mayor’s new plan, Sunday is no longer a sacred parking meter day.

We arrive home less than an hour after our early morning departure. “I hope you enjoyed the Sunday morning drive!” I say sarcastically to the boys as I wake Sailor to go into the house. The dishwasher inside is just finishing up the cycle we started before we left.

The rain has stopped but it is windy and cold. We stay in the house for a few hours then venture out again later with my sister in tow. We hit the aisles of Target with gusto. Fill our carts with sale items, indulge in Starbucks, ignore cries for Legos, play with obnoxious Elmo toys, pick out dinner foods, hide Easter bunny’s stash from the boys. Lose my bracelette with my boys’ names on it...

My boys have three new DVDs to watch thanks to Target’s big sale and my bad mood and need to indulge them a little. They watch while I cook pasta and my sister mixes drinks. “What are you drinking?” one of my boys asks. “Grown up fruit juice,” she tells them. They go to bed late, having watched Madagascar II in its entirety. This should not happen, I say aloud to my sister. I have to get them to bed on time all the time. It’s best for them, no matter what I am doing at the moment (in tonight’s case ridding my sister’s scalp of gray hairs while she reads the instructions on the hair clippers I picked up earlier – haircut in a box, we called it.) She is going to follow the directions and cut Sailor’s hair. Until we realize that the longest blade size is only ½ and inch. We box up the clippers and I put the boys to bed and hop into a hot bath. It’s snowing like crazy outside and freezing inside.

Monday morning we have no plans so I stay in bed, luxuriating until a little after 8:00. My boys have remembered my requests of the night before: please no running or screaming, do not wake me to ask if you can watch tv, if you are hungry eat bananas, yogurt or cereal, not cookies. I do not want a repeat of Sunday morning! I do not want to wake up in a bad mood again.

My dad calls to see if we are still on for the tentative lunch we have planned for today. At 11:30 we head to the neighborhood pancake house, the one that boasts sky high neighborhood prices. Mac orders silver dollar pancakes and sausage patties. He is served 6 of the former, 2 of the latter. I order French toast, no powder sugar, and hash browns, no onions. Sailor requests French toast and pancakes and bacon. I order him bacon and a plate. He can share. When our food comes, Sailor takes two pieces of my French toast, two of Mac’s pancakes and one of his sausages. I dole out my hash browns from the smallest plate this place has ever served them on. I am left with very little to eat. For all of this my father pays more than $37. Next time we will drive up to the IHOP, I tell him.

The phone rings just after we return home. Our friends with whom we have late afternoon plans are canceling. Sailor sets up his massage parlor on the living room sofa and invites me to a free massage. Mac sets up his telescope and pretends to film. He interviews Sailor, “Why are you so famous?” “Because I am very cute!” is Sailor’s answer.

Mac has requested a long overdue haircut. We’ve had the appointment for a few weeks. Over the weekend my mother has offered Mac a bribe to keep his hair long. But they cannot agree on terms when Mac starts describing some big, expensive StarWars thing he wants. We are off to the haircut at 2pm. Our European hottie gets going on Mac’s hair, but not before asking one last time if Mac is really ready. So much thick, red hair falls to the floor I could make a wig for another boy! When Mac is fully shorn, he looks cute, neat, young, and oddly a bit chubby!

Sailor gets his bangs trimmed and the European hottie agrees with me that he prefers the boys’ hair short and neat and that he would love to cut Sailor’s hair but has another customer waiting. We will come back soon, I promise.

It is sunny and a little tiny bit warmer when we head back outside. I want to take the boys somewhere but no one wants to go anywhere. The library sounds like a great idea to me, but "it’s too dirty and the books rip and we can’t keep them," Mac laments. “No bookstore!” Sailor cries, “I want to go home and wash my hands.” The lolipos I reluctantly let them have at the hair salon have somehow migrated to their hands and faces. How, I have no idea, considering these are 5- and 7-year-old boys, not babies!

I am feeling dejected when we arrive home. There is nothing to do, nowhere to go. And it is too cold out to just be out. Within a short time, Mac is hard at work at the kitchen table. He is creating a book from a kit I was given some 7 or 8 years ago. Or he was given. I don’t recall. Sailor glues little eyes to fuzz balls and tops them with hats from a kit we have stashed in a cabinet. Then he moves on to paint, then play-do, a foam fire truck kit, and several other things, all of which are soon strewn about the kitchen. I sit at the table with them and write a letter, make a few birthday cards, and tape 4 years worth of the boys’ Valentines into a scrapbook. I am tired of seeing the Valentine boxes cluttering atop the fridge. It is 6:00 before I sweep up the debris left on the floor and wash marker of the table. Mac is in his room still writing his book and Sailor has figured out how to get from my room to Mac’s thru my closet. I don’t get angry that he is doing this. I take the role of good mom and just let it be. I look around my kitchen and see how heavy it is with kid stuff. Every wall, the fridge, the doors and door frames even. Everything is covered with something by the boys or for the boys. It is cheerful and happy.

I pour a glass of wine and serve the boys tofu, broccoli, strawberries, carrots and oranges. They clean their plates.

Sailor is crazy with exhaustion and is asleep by 8:30 after crying to make me stay with him in bed. By 8:45 I have popcorn and a DVD.

We have 6 more days of Spring Break. Whatever we end up doing or not doing no longer matters. What matters is this time with my boys. Together. Even if it means doing as Sailor thinks we should do, “Spring Break means doing whatever we want!”

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

“Is Mac asleep or-- ?” I ask Sailor while he is pretending to be Bob the Hair Guy and brushing my hair.“He’s reading,” Sailor says, “he is a bookworm. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“It’s a good thing to be a bookworm, Mommy and Mac are bookworms.”
“Well I am a playworm!”


Thursday, April 10, 2009

With absolutely no intention of embarrassing Mac, I have to tell this little anecdote. Today at soccer, in the bathroom, he asked if he could change his underwear when we get home. I told him he could, of course, and also that he was going to take a shower before Passover dinner when we get home. He then says, “I got some poop in my underwear.” Concerned that we might have to head straight home and wishing I still carried extra clothes as I did when they were babies, I asked, “Actual poop or poop skids from before?”
“Poop skins from before,” comes the little voice from inside the toilet stall.
I almost die laughing, at which point Sailor asks me if I am laughing at him as he stands mugging for the bathroom mirror.

Friday, April 10, 2009
At breakfast the boys are playing a game of truth or dare that just involves posing questions to one another that neither knows the answer to, such as, “Did our 2nd president wear underwear in the shower?” or “What year was our first president born?” (to which Mac answers “1925,” after which we have a discussion about dates and estimations). Sailor’s next question requires a repeat to hear if he really said what I think he did. In fact he has asked his brother, “Did he live thru the Silver War?”

At 9:30 we leave for a day of fun! It’s our last official day of spring break and the last day of time to do as we please. I take my kids to this Free Play thing at Chitown Futball and it is far south and in a bad 'hood and the place smells like wet shoes and is cold with no place to sit. They play for 45 minutes and are ready to leave
We head to the aquarium again, after our botched attempt on Sunday. Park at a broken meter and saved a couple of bucks -- $16 actually! The lines for the parking lots were preposterous! But the a is PAquariumCKED!! It’s AWFUL!! The line to get in for non-members is probably 3 hours long, I kid you not. We last about an hour and leave. Walking over to the Field Museum is cold but pleasant. We bypass the main line, which is out the front door, but even the Members line is too ling. Walking back to the car is like being in some horrid winter storm... SOOO windy! Sailor declares a stomach ache, a headache and a fast-beating heart. He falls asleep as I take the long way home. I carry him in, huffing and taking one stair at a time. He rolls over on the couch and sleeps a few minutes while Mac settles in with a library book and I pour the day’s mail all over the living room floor. It’s just after 1:30pm. The children think it’s near bedtime. Sailor wakes, lies in my lap, retreats to his room for his pajamas and returns inquiring as to whether or not he and his brother may watch one of the DVDs we borrowed from the library yesterday. By 2:30 they are engrossed in the DVD and I have read a magazine, eaten 4 donut holes, made tea, wiped off the stove, set an egg to boil, and wondered at the way this spring break has turned out.