Second Day of School

After getting my kids off to the second day of school I feel qualified to judge the start of the academic year. The first day was smooth, fueled in part by the anticipation (largely unspoken) they were feeling about seeing their friends after a long summer. We had also been very careful about getting prep done the night before, which calmed the morning down a bit. Back packs were at the ready and school supplies labelled. After a summer of going to bed and getting up at obscene hours everyone made the effort to get to sleep at a decent time. Lunches were packed with hand picked goodies, new clothes were on freshly showered bodies...life was good.

Sasquatch, an incoming High School sophomore (the first year of HS here), was the most nervous of the three, but happy that the first day was only an orientation day for the newbies, and a short one to boot. I was happy (understatement alert) that he was keeping it together, because the dividing lines for the schools here meant that one of his very best friends was going to the other High School, and the drama levels over this have been acute this summer. My buddy Laurie, mother of one of his other best friends, the Red Headed Step Child, offered to drive them so they could arrive together and we could ensure they'd be on time. The two of them even stood still and grimaced against my porch railing so she could take pictures of The First Day of High School. Two tall long haired boys, one skinny (one not), one red headed (one not), dressed in cargo pants (or shorts) and dark t-shirts, climbed into the car (on time) and off they went.

Gumby and Surfer Dude got ready early and even had time for a round of Animal Planet before we had to leave. No drama whatsoever. I took them to school and went in with them to find their classrooms. Surfer Dude is in a one section class and has been since First Grade, so he's been with the same group of kids for four years. I always pity their teacher, whoever they may be. Twenty to one is not good odds. Gumby got a brand new to the school teacher this year and a MAN, no less. He doesn't look a day over fifteen, but he sure knew how to work this crowd. When I picked them up he raved about how much he liked his new teacher and that he couldn't wait for school today to see what he had in store for them. Wow. Fresh out of college and full of enthusiasm, you've gotta love it. Give him a year. Less if he helps in Surfer Dude's class.

The two younger ones came home and hung out. Sasquatch went to a friend's house and hung out. We had a calm dinner and a peaceful night, with only one piece of (fun) homework to be done. Nobody got sent home on Top Chef. Everyone went to sleep at reasonable times again. As I walked through my still house before bed, I sent a silent prayer of thanks to the patron saint of melodramatic children for the quiet of the day. I should have known better.

It started early with Sasquatch having to be physically parted from his bed by yours truly, Amazon Mom (superhero motto: Boys of sloth, Muscles of steel). Then when he came downstairs he couldn't find his glasses case. These are new glasses ( and expensive as hell, BTW) and he doesn't want to wear them any longer than he absolutely has to, so he needs the case to take them off and put them on per whim. On reflection, he reckoned he had left the case at his friend's house the day before. And, with Sasquatchian logic, he refused to take the glasses to school since a) he wasn't going to be wearing them for the entire day and b) they would break in his pocket without the case. (Ya think??) We were still hashing this out when I tried to give him his lunch account check to take with him and give to the lunch ladies. He was positive he knew what I was going to say, so every three words he interrupted me to say " I know, mom" in the most pathetically resigned voice he could muster. He didn't, in fact, know what I was going to say, so every time he interrupted me I, out of pure spite, started all over again at the beginning. Some time was chewed up here, trust me. Chewed up and spit out.

When we left the house (I was driving this time), Gumby was getting in the shower and Surfer Dude was making his lunch. A glitch or two under our belts, but still running smoothly. We pull up to get TRHSC and he doesn't come out. We go in to see what's keeping him, and find him running around looking for the paper which proves he's had his tetanus shot, a requirement for incoming sophomores. I would think a distemper shot would be more appropriate for the little darlings, but nobody asked me. Laurie, in pajamas and getting her other kids fed, was trying to help him narrow down where it could be. To every one of her suggestions he said "It's not there, mom" in the most pathetically resigned voice he could muster. Finally he reckoned he could have left it in her van and took her keys to go look. No dice. With us about to leave without him he took one last look around his room and found it...on the windowsill, where, he suddenly remembered, he had put it so he would remember where it was. As we pulled out of the driveway I told them, in the most pathetically resigned voice I could muster that I reckoned there was a reason the two of them were friends. They beamed proudly at their own ineptitude and off we went toward unsuspecting high school teachers.

When I got home Gumby hadn't gotten in the shower because SD wouldn't go and sit in the bathroom with him, and due to the "ghost" in our bathroom he won't go in alone. Drama ensued, but it was short lived and everything went smoothly from there on. Until...

As we were leaving to get them to school, my phone rang. It was Laurie, on her way to her first day on a new job. And she said...

"Please tell me you have my keys. Please tell me he laid them down in your car."

He didn't. I reckon they're in his pocket.

Easter Revisited

I have one kid hiding on the bottom shelf of his wardrobe and one kid sitting in the huge Rubbermaid container we have in the laundry room that we keep dry dog food in. The hanging up laundry is, he hopes, shielding him from casual vision. The third kid is up in his room, blithely oblivious to anything and anyone except the video game of the day. My husband is passed out cold on our bed from a sudden onset migraine and the dogs are out in the yard eating all the candy filled eggs that the kids missed. Oh yeah, one more thing. Did I mention that our company is still here and that things have deteriorated to the point where they’re barely speaking to each other? Aren’t holidays FUN?

It all started so nicely, too. When I finished my post yesterday the house was presentable, the food was done and the kids were excited about the day. My trouble started when Gumby and Surfer Dude got into a huge argument in the front yard and the Film Geek blew a gasket. He was shouting and grabbing kids by the scruff of the neck until I was pretty sure all of our neighbors were calling Child Protective Services simultaneously. The man never has realized that his voice carries like a bull walrus on a desolate iceberg. He hadn’t started out short tempered, but had become that way in the minutes preceding this episode, when he and Sasquatch got into it because everyone else in the house was helping to get ready and our charming eldest refused because “it isn’t on my chore list, and by the way, will you drive me to a sleepover tonight?” Ain’t fifteen grand?

So between the impending migraine and the urge to maim his firstborn, he just plain lost it. He made the younger two stand in the corner in the entry hall, at which point Sasquatch looked downstairs and had the idiocy to laugh. Cut to three kids standing in the corner in the entry hall and me, with steam starting to spew out my ears. I went into the hall and in my sweetest most loving voice said “Honey, can I see you in the kitchen NOW????????” The kids were just leaving their corners when our friends got here, but I was still madder than H-E double hockey sticks.

So we did the Easter egg hunt for the younger kids. The older boys volunteered to hide the eggs and we took them up on it, which proves that the Film Geek and I may have been smart once, but it wore off. We found eggs in the most god awful places you can imagine. Think floating in the gunky green water in the outdoor fire bowl. We ate our dinner, which was wonderful. We had dessert, which was a lemon cake that was to die for. The day was picking up. See what happens when you let your guard down?

Now, the piece of information you don’t have here is that our friends are in the process of trying to buy a house and that things are at the really nerve wracking stage. They had a meeting last night with the prospective sellers to pitch themselves as buyers, since there are a lot of people interested in this house. It has been pretty stressful and the two of them are at the point where not a lot of civil words are being said. At one point after my own beloved and I had snapped and clawed at each other, I said how nice it was to be so comfortable with another couple, because usually you make nice in front of other people and we obviously are well past that point. I think that’s a good thing, but can’t positively swear to it.

Okay, now I’m going to fast forward this, so hang on. First, DeeDee the bipolar dog gets out of the house and we all tear after her screaming and yelling. The Film Geek gets to her first and drags her back home. Then John and I go outside with all three of their kids and my younger two to play baseball. He didn’t want to, but Laurie had to type up the document they were taking to the house meeting and print it, since their printer is on the fritz. Their kids are roughly the ages of ours, by the way. The game is going fine until their eldest, who is also fifteen, gets into it with Gumby and Gumby storms off. We call this fifteen year old the red headed step child since he’s here so much he seems like part of the family. Well, Surfer Dude, who never sticks up for his brother, is enraged, and attacks the red headed step child. John and I break it up. He attacks again. Did I mention that the red headed step child is six feet four? It gets ugly. I restrain Surfer Dude. The red headed step child trips him. Surfer Dude spits at him. John, whose bellow matches the Film Geeks, is shouting. I’m waving my arms and wringing my hands simultaneously. The only thing we’re missing at this point is a trailer and a bubbling pot of meth.

My two kids run in the house and hide because they’re so angry. The Film Geek has disappeared, and come to find he’s just gone upstairs, company or not, to go to sleep. Laurie is on the computer saying bad words of her own. It seems that every time she types the word “will”, the computer changes it to “poop”. Now, this was a very amusing incident in our recent past, where Sasquatch thought it would be funny to change the settings on Gumby’s files. It stopped being so funny when Gumby had a paper due and the word “poop” was liberally scattered through it. You can spell check all day long, but it doesn’t help, since the computer recognizes “poop” as a word. Sasquatch had to write an apology letter to Gumby’s teacher when a couple of “poops” got missed. The teacher was no help, since she was laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes. So I run screaming upstairs and demand that he fix it yet again. As I pass our bedroom door, I see the Film Geek sleeping like a *%&! baby.

He comes down and fixes it, laughing all the time. The paper gets printed and our friends leave, arguing all the way out to the car. I’m saying silent prayers that there are no “poops” in their letter to prove what a lovely family they are. Surfer Dude climbs out of the dog food and Gumby reappears. The Film Geek snores. The dogs have jelly beans stuck in their fur.

Honey, if you’re reading this today while I’m at work, this is what happened that you slept through. And when you woke up and ran through the house in a hurry to leave to go let your students into the studio…did you notice I looked a little peaked? WELL? Did it never occur to you to ask WHY?

I’m done. I don’t even have the energy to try to make this funny. I have to go and make sure that Child Protective Services hasn’t shown up to interview the neighbors.

Easter Plans

We’re having Easter potluck with our friends John and Laurie and their family. This has been a tradition for the last several years, and we all look forward to it. They’re an enormous part of the extended family we’ve acquired here in the Midwest. Our families are sort of entwined on many different levels, and anytime we get together it is the ultimate in low stress entertaining. There is often another family involved as well, but they always have other plans on Easter, so they just have to miss out on the fun. So there!

Like I said, it’s pretty low stress. I don’t feel like the house needs to be fabulous, or my kids well behaved or anything else unrealistic. I will take the thirty seven loads of clean laundry off the computer room couch and put it somewhere out of sight, but even then I don’t think I’ll actually fold it. No, it’s awfully low key. The only stress comes from the fact that John, much as we all love him, is a professional chef, and a really good one at that. Do you know how intimidating it is to cook for a professional chef?? Never mind that the man happily and uncritically eats anything you put in front of him. Add the fact that Surfer Dude, at the ripe old age of nine, is an aspiring gourmet and a devotee of cooking magazines, and I can have a problem.

Here’s our part of the menu – baked ham, a mashed potato casserole with cheddar, cream cheese and sour cream, jalapeño and pineapple cole slaw, marinated bean salad with fresh mint and devilled eggs with wasabi. This menu evolved in an odd way. The baked ham was a no brainer, although I absolutely loathe ham. My entire family is addicted to cheesy or garlic mashed potatoes, so they’re a given. We all love spicy foods, so when the Film Geek saw a recipe in the paper this morning for the wasabi eggs, we got straight to work. My kids will eat anything with pineapple or jalapeño in it and they all adore cole slaw and bean salad, so there you go. (Our half of the) Dinner is served.

Well, the rest of the family is running around picking stuff up, and my sweet husband has been in the kitchen for hours, so I’d better go. By my count I’ve been interrupted sixty four times since I’ve sat down to write this, so I admit defeat.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Susan! May your Easter Basket always be full!