1st Grade

Yesterday we got the “list” in the mail. The “list” that told us who CT has for his 1st grade teacher and who will be in his class.

There is a lot of excitement in the house about school starting. All day school, bus rides, desks, lockers, recess, hot lunch, the list of thrillers goes on and on. He can’t wait. And when people ask me if I am ready for him to take his big step I look at them straight in the eyes and say with all certainty that everyone in the family is ready to forge ahead into the school year.

I don’t feel sad or that I am loosing him or that my baby is leaving the nest or that I am loosing part of me which I can’t get back…my first born baby.

Along with the “list” came forms to fill out, information for the parents and a special letter written to CT from his teacher.

This morning over breakfast I asked CT if he wanted me to read the letter to him. “Yes, yes, yes!” came falling out of his mouth. As I read the letter out loud, about how excited his teacher was to have him in class and about who his teacher is and what she likes to do with her free time and who her children are and what summer adventures she and her family have had and how much fun and all the exciting things they will learn this year, I started to tear up and then I couldn’t hold it back and started to cry.

Even though I may be ready to let go, it is still amazing to me that my baby boy is embarking on such an amazing adventure and I won’t be there all day to hold his hand or wipe his nose or to teach him…he will have to do it on his own, with his friends and with his new teacher.

Words

The T-shirt in the link below started a brief email exchange with my friend Jen regarding our own parents and some of the things they did that caused us to stop and think when we were kids.

If I was misbehaving my dad would threaten to sell me to the traveling band of gypsies (since they were always in town). He would also never forget to include the fact that he could get a higher price for me because of my blue eyes.

Jen’s parents gave her a T-shirt that read “Rent for Cheap”. She had no doubt that they would rent her right out.

What words did your parents utter that you will never forget?

shopping spree

After the day I have had…I feel the need to buy this in a 3-pack.

Dream sequence

Have you ever had a dream that sticks with you even after you have woken up?

On Thursday morning my alarm went off and when I woke up I thought I was still living it. It felt so real and so vivid that it took me a couple minutes to realize it wasn’t reality and then it clung to me for the rest of the day.

In my dream…
My mother and I were standing in a doctor’s office examining room. The doctor and an assistant where standing on one side of the examining table and my mother and I (dressed in an examining gown) where on the other side.

The next thing I am doing is calling my friends and telling them I’m going to die.

That is when the alarm went off.

It’s good to know I might have options

Last night we had a couple over for dinner. As we were hanging out in the kitchen, drinking wine and getting dinner ready we started talking about one of their friends.

I had seen this friend of theirs several times before but didn’t know her name so I described her as the “really attractive blond with short hair” and then I went on to say that if I was a lesbian she would be right up my ally.

Their quick response to my comment was, “YOU would totally get picked-up by lesbians. You know…if you were club’n it.”

My little Molten Lava Cake

I thought it might be tough to get her back on the bus to camp this morning since the first thing out of her mouth yesterday when I picked her up from all day camp was, “I’m not going there again, thank you very much.”

It didn’t seem to matter that she made new friends, created a fort that her group hung out in all day, went swimming, sang songs, did crafts and even got to take the bus for the first time in her life. When looking down the dark isle of that bus, she did an about face and ran straight back into the car. When I went after her, her terror filled eyes where stairing back at me like a wild animal about to be attacked, like I was throwing her to the dogs to be left for dead.

Tears and hysterical screaming ensued as I tried to pull her little body from the car, the counselors even tried to talk her off the ledge. But no…she wanted to stay with mommy. She was scared. She did not want anything to do with the bus, her friends, canoeing, songs or anything else they could throw at her.

And it is at these precise moments, where as a mother, I am at a loss. I know I want her to go but should she stay? And then the questions start bouncing around in my head…Is she just not emotionally ready for camp? Do I make her go? Do I let her stay? Did something happen she didn’t tell me about? Am I pushing her too fast to grow up? Is she just being stubborn?

And today, after we watched the bus pull away, we drove down to the next bus stop. We took a little more time. We talked more about the bus and the day and how she was going to get on the bus and who she was going to sit with. Then we walked up the big scary bus stairs together and found her friend, who was just as scared as she was, saving her a seat.

2 ½ months of suck

The following was written on June 1st but not published.

Our TiVo died.

This is truly a conundrum. My first thought is no TV for the summer. My second thought is, where can I buy the drugs to keep me sane for that hour that my children where slack jawed and sucked into the tube for 1 hour? My third thought is, maybe I’m giving too much credence to the television and not enough confidence in my children.
………………….

2 ½ months later….I still miss TiVo.

No TiVo has increased the kids TV viewing slightly. Now they get to watch TV in the morning when we are assured there are kid’s shows and then they get to watch a movie at night if things get too out of hand or my drug supply hasn’t made it in yet.

I have also lost several good hours of my life by watching meaningless shows and commercials that I don’t care about. And after seeing a few ads for the new Thursday night fall line-up we sucked it up and ordered ourselves a new TiVo.

THANK GOD! Thank you Adam. I can’t wait for this season of Grey’s Anatomy and I won’t EVER miss it due to a scheduling conflict.

I LOVE YOU TiVo and I know your going to love your new home.

Couldn’t you have picked a different one?

Magazines. I love magazines. They are one of those things that I think are a luxury, a treat, a non essential.

I purchase them very rarely and when I do I am usually going on a trip or feeling the need to indulge myself.

Today, while at the grocery store with KP tucked into one of those little car carts that the grocery stores now have (if you have never seen one, they are small plastic cars that sit in front of a smaller than regular sized grocery cart and put your child at the perfect height for all the marketers to grab their attention with sugar cereals and also allow your child to reach everything and anything they want while you are a whole cart behind them and can’t stop the onslaught of pasta whipping off the shelves) we picked up all that we needed for tonight’s dinner and headed to the check out lane without incident.

Once it was our turn to check out, the cashier turned the cart around to get all of our goods and put KP staring straight back out into the store. Once he was placed in the ready position, he at once spotted the bags of cookies, the candy and the gum and as he was trying to get out at the wonderful new tasty treats just set before him, he reaches out and grabs hold of the closest things to help him escape…the newest edition of Midwest Living.

Then a loud ripping noise was heard by all 8 lanes of shoppers. Then, as if in slow motion, I pick up the magazine that I would never buy, bypassing O, People, Real Simple, Time, Bon Appetit, and hand it to the cashier and say, “I guess I will buy this now too.”

She just looked at me with a sad little smile on her face and shook her head yes.

33 ¾ inches

KP bonked his head the other day as he was walking down the stairs. As he was crying I walked over, sat on the stairs, kissed his boo-boo and gave him a big hug. While I hugged him I noticed the wall, the portion of the wall that is between the hand rail and the floor. And it was disgusting!

I couldn’t believe I had never noticed it before. It has taken me a good week to get back to that same spot to wipe it down.

And in the process of cleaning it, this is what I found:
• Several young artist pencil renderings
• One long snotty dried booger
• Peanut butter and jelly smudges
• Some sort of other tanish something or other that came right off but I have no idea what the hell it is
• Several dusty hand prints of different sizes
• 14 unidentifiable black dots of varying smallness that won’t come off
• two shoe tread scuff mark (yes on the wall!)
• a circular indentation from the baby gate (that is my doing)
• and a sort of thin dark greasy film that covered almost the whole 33 and ¾ inches

I can only imagine what else I could find around the house if I was three feet tall.

KP’s first ever Kid Quote of the Day

And folks, these are some serious words to live by.

“No eat poopoo…yucky!”