August 31, 2007 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony

The children are BOTH having friends over after school today, and this is VERY! EXCITING! and despite my grumpiness in the wee hours I’ll confess that waking up Monkey and having him spring upright and declare “Today’s the day!” and then going into Chickadee’s room and watching her yawn, stretch, and then pop up and exclaim “Today’s the day!” as well (she hadn’t heard her brother) was pretty funny.

As for me, I am pleased that my babies have friends. Moreover, Monkey was kind enough to become infatuated with a boy whose mom I really like, so he may have done me a big favor, there. I knew I liked her when Monkey went over to their house and when I came to pick up she asked me if I wanted to hang out for a bit; and when I said sure, asked me if I wanted a glass of wine. (I declined, for various reasons, but I like her style.) (more…)

August 30, 2007 | Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

The piles on my desk threaten to topple over, I’m behind on several things, there’s laundry to be done, I apparently volunteered to provide a “treat” (”Oh, you can just bake something, Mama”) for Chickadee’s class tomorrow, I still cannot find my sewing kit, and I’m too sleepy to make the coffee properly.

Of course, none of this matters. Not since the mail came yesterday. Not since I was touched by His noodly appendage.

August 29, 2007 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony, It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

I used to think of myself as clumsy and disorganized, but I have since decided that I simply lack an enzyme or something required for proper remembering. I think it’s genetic. And I’m pretty sure I’ve passed this along to my children. Poor things.

Some of their antics I just can’t understand, no matter how hard they try to convince me that they “just forgot” to put this or that away. I mean, Chickadee’s Tae Kwon Do bag holds all of her sparring gear as well as her uniforms and perhaps a small farm animal or two (based on both the smell and the size of it); my point is, it is a VERY LARGE BAG, and yet, she can “forget” to put it away even if it’s in the middle of a room, blocking pretty much everything.

Come to think of it, that may be blindness rather than forgetting; but that’s genetic, too. (more…)

August 28, 2007 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony, Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

Oh. Um, hi. How are you? I’m, uh, perfectly fine and ready to point to the nearest shiny object to distract you from yesterday’s post. Yes. (Not that I didn’t appreciate both the space to get that out and the really kind emails I received, but now I’d like to go back to to sublimating my “issues”—please use heavy air quotes when reading that—and doing really meaningful things like pondering whether I really need avocados when they cost $1.50 each.)

During a conversation with a friend yesterday I mentioned falling asleep at the kitchen table one night and she interrupted me to ask if PERHAPS I was a bit exhausted? (She didn’t even call me a dumbass, which I thought was sweet.) And yes, I think some of my recent difficulty can be attributed to the fact that school starts promptly at the buttcrack of dawn. I am not unwell! I am just SLEEPY!

And oh, look, I just saw something shiny over there, and it is my daughter’s brain. (more…)

August 27, 2007 | It's not a regret, it's an "experience", The Year of Living Changerously

Despite a small segment of my readers’ seeming beliefs to the contrary, I don’t actually write about EVERYTHING. I write about LOTS of things, and I write about some stuff that I’m sure some people wish I wouldn’t, but this is but a small, self-selected slice of my life, and there are a million and one reasons to be selective about what I put out here.

Figuring prominently in that laundry list of constraints are my readers who are known to me, such as my family and friends, and my desire not to vex them any more than is strictly necessary. Also on that list is the fact that my ex is reading here regularly despite assertions that he most certainly is not. And then of course we have the workings of my brain (such as it is) that insist that sharing things that make me look stupid are fine, whereas sharing things that make me look vulnerable are not. Stupid is funny. Weak is just pitiful. (more…)

August 25, 2007 | It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

We have a new family tradition of pancakes on Saturday mornings. The kids like this because they love pancakes, and I like this because Otto is in charge of making them, which generally means he not only makes the pancakes, but empties the dishwasher and does all the dishes, as well.

(After four and a half years of being a single mom, that right there is as close to a wet dream as I’ll ever get.)

So this morning started out typically enough: Monkey arose before everyone else, came down to our room and hopped into bed for a quick snuggle. I hugged and kissed him and suggested he go watch cartoons. Off he went. Otto and I fell back asleep. Then Chickadee got up and came and hopped into bed for her snuggle, and asked when we’d be getting up. I said “soon.” She went off to watch cartoons. Otto and I fell back asleep. Chickadee came back and asked if we were getting up now. We said “soon.” She left. We fell back asleep. Chickadee came back and said “I AM REALLY HUNGRY WHEN ARE YOU GETTING UUUUUUUUP?” and we got up. (more…)

August 24, 2007 | It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

I am beginning to think that I am just not very lucky when it comes to finances.

Oh, I don’t mean that it requires luck to manage your money. I’m all about personal responsibility when it comes to one’s finances and such. I’m fastidious about such things, to the point where I should probably be medicated or at least someone should assist me in yanking this enormous stick out of my butt. But in terms of general money karma, if you will, I think there is a measure of luck involved.

I have a friend who faces an unexpected home repair WITHOUT FAIL any time she comes into a bit of extra money. That’s bad karma. And me, well, I’m fine as long as I don’t have to deal with any actual banks. (more…)

August 23, 2007 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Even if the principal is just humoring me in getting the children lined up for gifted testing, the school is doing a bang-up job of making us feel special about it. Letters came home yesterday indicating that my signature was needed to proceed with the testing. That was fine. There was then a very impressive chart of what the requirements are for children to qualify for the program (99th percentile on several indices, 96th percentile on a couple of others), and a fill-in line to indicate the source of the referral.

Remember how the principal told me that the kids had already been referred by their teachers? Both sheets said they’d been referred by “parent.” That would be me, I guess, the pushy yankee bitch who thinks her children are SO SMART.

It was the next part that really tickled me, though. (more…)

August 22, 2007 | Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

This week the kids’ school is hosting a series of curriculum nights, and although some parents I’ve met have skipped it because it’s probably about the same every year, I went because we’re new to the school and also I don’t want to be marked as an uninterested parent. (There’s plenty of time for that later on in the year when they need volunteers and I’m “busy,” after all.)

My impression of this school—the school that I pestered every member of the administration whose phone number and email I could get my hands on to get the kids into—is that they are the epitome of the old expression about making lemonade out of lemons. This SHOULD be a lousy school, for a variety of reasons I’ll talk about in a bit. On paper, some would argue that it IS a lousy school, although I (obviously) disagree. One thing I can say for certain is that this school (really, this district) is making me realize how spoiled we were back up north. (more…)

August 21, 2007 | What do I do all day?, It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

Oh, my. My my my. Thank you to everyone who rushed to stroke my hair and tell me I’m a GOOD AND KIND AND VERY USEFUL ENGINE. You are sweet and silly because of course I wasn’t saying that I suck in every possible way, I was just venting on having done something I regretted, and then life goes on.

Of course, those of you who took this opportunity to lecture me on what I should say or do remind me that yes, one DOES need to be careful about what they blog, because there is always someone out there who 1) assumes they know you inside and out from just a peek into your life and 2) therefore feels entitled to tell you how to behave. Yes, I am duly chastened. Thanks for that. Now, given that we’re so close and all, maybe you could get your ass over here and do the dishes? I mean, since we’re on such intimate terms. Thanks.

As for us, amazingly the earth continued to spin and our routines marched onward. (more…)