Woulda Coulda Shoulda

First: A health update! Thank you so much to everyone who had such kind words and thoughts for my sweet mother-in-law; once again, she fooled us all. She’s out of the ICU and doing much better. This is good news because we love her, but excellent news because I don’t think Otto could’ve taken it if things had gone differently. (Although I didn’t mention this in the last post, while waiting on updates on my mother-in-law, we unfortunately lost two other magnificent folks—their deaths weren’t unexpected, but were still way too soon. “They” say bad things come in threes, and for once I was VERY VERY GLAD that they are dirty stinking liars.)

So. What could POSSIBLY be better than sickness and death? I MEAN REALLY? We started off the year with a real bang in the stressors department, and by any measure of stress and “life challenges” one would probably think this was enough, no? I certainly would’ve checked the “FULL UP ON ANGST, THANKS” box, had I been polled on the matter.

[Sidebar: I WAS NOT POLLED. Still bitter, frankly.]

Well, death and sickness was not to be the entire story for this, my VERY FAVORITE January. Nope! I picked Monkey and Mario up from Hippie School one day and Teresa asked me to call her “when I had a sec” after I got home. (more…)

My current earworm:

Because, yes, today my Monkey is (sing it with me!) 1 2 3 4 5, 6 7 8 9 10 11 12! (Remember when they only ever counted up to 12 on Sesame Street? It was like numbers higher than that just didn’t matter, or even exist.) (more…)

I kept Monkey home from school yesterday because they were having one of their fantastic hippie field trips where they spend the entire day in the woods connecting to nature*.

These field trips are great, but even when Monkey’s doing okay, we have determined that I need to go with him as he pretty much requires one-on-one support for them, because if he decides to melt down in the middle of the wilderness that’s kind of a pickle for the teachers there who are dealing with other kids, too.

And right now, Monkey is maybe coming down with a cold. Maybe! I mean, who knows? How would we know? He looks a little “off,” but he’s also the kid who never knows when he’s sick, he just starts being a jerk and we’re left to puzzle it together. So. I dunno, but the day BEFORE yesterday was kind of a disaster, so I kept him home, and he was MAD. (more…)

One of the things we were asked, upon enrolling Monkey at Hippie School, was if we would be willing to come in do little presentations to the group on our work. I assume this is a standard question, but because Otto and I are super fantastic (and, okay, FINE, because he’s a photographer and I’m a writer and the school starts production of their newspaper first thing), we were slated for the first two guest spots.

Otto went in last week, and when Monkey and Mario tumbled into the house that afternoon, I asked them how they enjoyed his talk. Both boys immediately fell to making chimp noises and pantomiming chimping, so I was able to conclude that they’d paid at least a little attention. When Otto got home, later, I asked him how it went and he said it was fine. “Some of the kids kind of wandered off, but it was okay,” he said.

I was a little nervous, headed in today, but I figured at the very least, the half hour between our arrival and when I was actually slated to talk would be an interesting peek into Monkey’s day. (more…)

So after one glorious week of “SCHOOL IS AWESOME!” and “THIS IS THE GREATEST SCHOOL EVER!” I had finally begun to unclench, a little.

Turns out that the honeymoon ended this week, though. On Monday, Monkey came home a little less excited than the previous week, and suddenly he was listing various transgressions he felt had been committed against him, and noting that “some of these kids really seem to have some problems,” which, you know, Pot, is terribly interesting about Kettle and all, but….

And then yesterday I got a phone call. As soon as I realized it was school, I’m pretty sure every muscle in my body just seized.

“We are only calling because Monkey really wanted to, and I hope that’s okay,” the voice on the other end of the line told me, as I could hear Monkey sputtering with rage in the background. (more…)

Last night as I got ready for bed, Otto took Licorice outside for her last trip of the evening, then headed upstairs to put her in Chickadee’s room. Before coming back down, he must’ve stopped in his office and checked his email.

“We have an email from Teresa*,” he said. [*Teresa is not the Hippie School owner's name, but as I'm starting to think of her as our family's very own personal Mother Teresa, I thought it would make an apt blog name for her.]

“What does it say??” I asked, already fighting against a small, dark voice in the deepest corner of my brain that was only too happy to suggest that yes, on 10:00 p.m. the night before school starts, she’s decided that Monkey will be too much of a handful, and she’s very sorry, but would we mind very much just not showing up?

“Oh, you know,” he said, “mostly that she’s glad that Saturday happened and she’ll see us tomorrow.” He went off to brush his teeth. I went and grabbed my laptop to read it for myself. (more…)