It’s amazing how many things you can pack into any given day between dragging your butt out of bed late and then sinking into a catatonic slump shortly after lunch, and then between wiping the drool from your chin later that afternoon and falling into bed shortly after the children. (Related: I seem to be drinking a lot more coffee than usual. Hmm.)
Our pool is officially open for the season, de-murk-ified, and filled with small, unmarked bills. Oh, wait. That’s not quite right; we filled our local pool supply place with small, unmarked bills, and they, in turn, came and filled our pool with FOUR HUNDRED POUNDS of salt (not an exaggeration, actually). They also removed our old chlorinator and instead attached some fancy doohickey that monitors the salt content of the water (possible readings include “pretty salty,” “very salty,” and “hey, did you know there’s salt in here?”) and spins the salt into gold. Or chlorine. Whatever. It’s all very exciting and so, of course, the weather—which has recently been in the 90s every damn day—spontaneously cooled off and it’s now 56 degrees outside, which is positively arctic for Georgia in May.
Which means that no one has been in the pool yet. Terribly disappointing.
On the other hand, one of the things that converting the pool to saline means is that the various creatures that fall in the pool are less likely to die before we discover them. That’s… good? For them? But infinitely more disgusting for me. (“Snaaaaaaaaaaakes! Snakes in the pooooooool!”)
School ends this week. Can you believe it? I sort of can’t. Although, much in the same way that the end of pregnancy brings those “I can’t sleep and cannot be pregnant for one more second!” feelings on—conveniently overlooking the fact that once the baby arrives, you actually have to take care of a tiny screaming human and you still don’t get to sleep—I have found the last week or two of packing lunches is evoking strong feelings of hatred. And I ponder the end of school and I think “YES! No more packing lunches!!” as if that’s a huge moral victory, and conveniently overlook the fact that while I’m not packing lunches, I’ll instead be dealing with two children who are bored/hungry/touching each other. Yeah.
This year my kids’ schools managed to schedule the “moving on” ceremonies at overlapping times, too. Right now my plan is to leave Monkey’s early and get to Chickadee’s late, which has the added bonus of making both kids unhappy because it’s not faaaaaaaaaair and clearly I love their sibling better.
It’s like my very own episode of the Brady Bunch! (Remember that one where Cindy could only invite one parent to her school play? This is just like that, except not at all.) Otto is conveniently teaching that day so we can’t even divide and conquer.
The good news, of course, is that next year I’ll have both kids at the same school, again. This is a luxury we haven’t had for years, and won’t have again for a few years after this, too. I took this opportunity to reenlist as an officer with the PTA after a year-long hiatus from Being An Involved Parent. Thank goodness I’ll have the whole summer to chant, “I want to be part of the solution” to myself before diving back into school politics.
For Chickadee’s birthday we offered her the opportunity to fancy up her room a little bit—she could either pick out some type of lounge chair for herself, or if she’d rather have Otto’s old futon, we would buy her a new cover for it and some throw pillows. She wisely opted for the futon (it’s a whole couch, man), and we told her that as soon as Otto bought himself a chair, we’d move the futon from his office into her room and she could pick a cover.
They came home from their weekend with their dad, last night, and I called Chickie to come look at futon covers online with me, and half an hour in she was doing an admirable impression of Goldilocks: that one was too dark and that one didn’t have enough pink and that one was just wrong. I lobbied quite enthusiastically for one beautiful Asian-inspired fabric—it had all the colors of the rainbow, plus she is very into Manga and all things Japanese right now—but she insisted it was all wrong. When I pointed out that I was confused by her distaste for it given how much she tends to like anything Asian-themed, she said in a VERY PAINED voice, “I like stuff that’s ASIAN. That fabric is ORIENTAL.”
Yep. That’s my honors student!
At last she settled on an eyeball-searing tie-dye pattern and coordinating rainbow peace sign pillows (groovy!), and then grumbled something about how we were never going to move the futon, anyway. At which point I sent her up to see that the futon was already in her room, because Otto finally bought himself a replacement chair.
That totally meant she had to find something else to complain about.
Monkey couldn’t sleep last night, because they went to see Soul Surfer and now he was—wait for it—afraid of sharks. We reminded him that regardless of the statistics about how many surfers get attacked by sharks (hint: not most of them), we felt 100% confident reassuring him that there are no sharks in his room. This was only mildly soothing, because he might DREAM about being in the ocean where there ARE sharks.
My suggestion that he dream a shark cage for himself was met with an eyeroll. Yeah, I’m the one who was being ridiculous. Obviously.
The company that last year insisted we had a rat infestation when really we just had kittens has taken to calling and mailing us about how it’s time to give them some more money for another year of their helpful services! I have largely been ignoring them, but Otto finally took a call from their chirpy sales person and asked why we should pay them again given that they apparently can’t tell the difference between a rat infestation and a pair of feral kittens.
They’ve stopped calling. Go figure!
I completely forgot to go grocery shopping this weekend. Seems like I should find a way to fit that in sometime today, if we’re planning to eat this week, that is. Maybe after I take a nap….
You know … I wonder if I pay the exterminators and tell them we still have a feral cat problem they’ll, I don’t know, trap all the feral cats in the neighborhood? That seems like it would be worth the money.
-otto
Is it Celexa? I am a napping machine on Celexa. Yay that I’m not constantly worrying and certain that the earth is staying in orbit solely based on the strength of my worry, but boo that I’m sleeping through everything.
I’m having a similar – but not – conundrum. My Kindergartener is having his continuation soon and my problem is…do I bring my other two (every crazy) children. They are two and four and couldn’t sit still if their life depended on it. Dad will probably be at work and I’ll probably have a migraine by the time the night is over.
My mom had a cool trick for when I went through my “OMG I just saw a commercial for Jaws and sharks are TOTALLY going to eat me in my sleep” phase, but I’m thinking it might not be so helpful for your literal-minded Monkey. Still, just in case, here it is: she gave me a bottle of something — anything really — her mascara, other makeup, perfume — and told me it was shark repellent. It worked for vampires, too.
I too am hurting for a nap today – and it doesn’t help that I’ve a big long drive ahead of me!
We still have a month of school left, but I have almost completely lost the will to nag my 4th grader into doing his homework, so it was Sunday evening before I got around to it this weekend. Luckily he didn’t have much. I think the teachers have lost the will to grade homework because 4th quarter’s been much more relaxed that the first three so far.
My friend recently told me that her daytime sleepiness improved vastly when she started taking her antidepressants at night instead of in the morning. Might be worth a shot, anyway!
And I’m sorry about the ceremony thing. Two of my sisters graduated the same day (one from high school and the other from college…two and a half hours away by car). And four years later? That same sister who got the shaft when she graduated from high school was graduating from college…the very same day I was graduating from high school (again, two and a half hours apart). It was Kind of a Big Deal at the time, but now it’s just an amusing anecdote.
Here’s to making it through these last few days!
One can only hope that the first time Monkey goes into the newly salted pool, he doesn’t remember that sharks live in salt water…
Um, that’s not helping you with the whole not worrying thing, is it? Sorry about that.
A nap? That’s what I missed yesterday! I knew I forgot something! I did manage to go grocery shopping, though. ;o)
I totally feel Monkey’s pain. Over the years I have been convinced that ET was in my closet after seeing that movie in the theater and also that my floor was CRAWLING with alligators and crocodiles (in the dark) after spending 3 weeks writing a report on them in the 4th grade. Amazingly I didn’t have any nightmares about elephants when I wrote a report on them 3 weeks later.
We are not that close to the end of the school year, but its that time where school and all the activities are filling every evening with concerts, programs, orientations for next year, on and on – and I often do beg a family member or hire a babysitter so my youngest ones don’t have to get dragged along, to the commentor who has young kids. If not, I take a seat near the door and we take lots of “need a drink of water” trips to keep them occupied when big sister is not “in action” on stage. You do what you can and just know everyone is in the same boat! I just attended a concert where 4 very young kids sat in front of me and were pretty noisy and the parents were stressing but since they weren’t mine, it really didn’t bother me all that much! sure, at times it was distracting, but hey, its an elementary school concert, not Carnegie Hall. Sit in the back so you aren’t bothering those parents/grandparents that come 30 mins early to save top notch seats and videotape every move and you will likely be fine!
I’m totally sick of packing lunches too, but I vividly recall the first week of summer being OH SO EXCITED about not having to scramble through that in the early morning hours, only to come to the realization 2 weeks later that this “no set time” for breakfast thing meant the kids were constantly cycling through the kitchen and I had more mess and dishes to clean up. hmmm this year perhaps some of them are old enough to CLEAN UP THEIR OWN MESS! wooo hooo. SO not looking forward to the constant bickering though or the “I’m bored” while I’m working…
I took a 4 hour nap on Saturday afternoon. The sleepiness seems to be a nation-wide problem. Or just an end-of-the-school-year problem. Or maybe a 56 degrees problem. There’s many similarities here. *cue eerie music now*
My kids don’t get out of school until the MIDDLE of the 2nd week in June. Yes, a Wednesday. Don’t as me why. I wish they’d cut out the 15 or so “Teacher Prep Days” scattered throughout the year and let the kids out now.
Maybe if I joined the PTA to be PART OF THE CHANGE I could do something about it.
Naaaah, I’d rather take a nap.
I think its the weather – I took a 2 hour nap yesterday – I haven’t done that since the baby was little tiny thing…
I can’t believe I had to wear a sweater to the Atlanta zoo yesterday and send my kids to school in pants/sweaters today. Um.. it was 90 last week.
I was a little younger than Monkey the first time I saw Jaws. Oddly enough, it wasn’t the shark that I found so disturbing, it was that part where they find the dead guy underwater. The next time we went to the beach, I was terrified– not of sharks, but at the idea that there were possibly dead people (or parts of dead people) in the water, just out of sight. I actually wasn’t all that afraid of sharks until the summer between my jr and sr year of high school, when our assistant principal lost most of his arm to a bull shark.
If you time it right, you can nap through dinner and Otto will have to buy take-out pizza. I’m sure the children would be devastated.
Stacy Q – PTA doesn’t set the calendar for us, the school board does that. So Be an Involved Parent does not help us with that.
We have a month…I’m done now.
I can’t stop sleeping either, and I don’t have any drugs to blame it on, I think I’m just sad and lazy. I went from fantastic blogging frequency to loathing the site of my computer because it really interrupts my naps. Your excessive sleeping actually makes me feel better….which I am sure helps you out a lot, particularly with grocery shopping.
I can’t wait to hear about how everyone feels about the salt water pool, I’ve heard great things.
I did read one person’s comment above about this being much closer to the environment of a shark, which might be a bit unsettlling for Monkey.
Please keep us updated…I’m sure you will. :)
My girls don’t finish school till 01 July – but then they have 9 WEEKS of holidays. I know for a fact that all three of us will either have killed each other or gone insane by the time 05 September hits… I have no money to take us away anywhere, I have no family to help out (a few friends perhaps, but just for the odd afternoon here and there), I have no car to take us places (just public transport for stuff in town, and a coach network that can get us down to the beach at awkward times/extortionate prices) and I have to work pretty much all the time (from home, admittedly) to try and get us to break even at least. So while I like being able to spend time with my girls, these long haul holidays are a NIGHTMARE for me (and, by about the second week of August, for them too)…
I saw JAWS! And was afraid to turn on the water in the sink because a shark might come out!
Now? I don’t watch scary movies at all for any reason! It’s not worth the nightmares.
Do NOT let Monkey take the next sales call from the exterminators or they’ll be there to de-sharkify the house, too.
(Although, REALLY, I think his point about the dreams was extremely legit. And not because I check on the children as an excuse to get hugs after MY bad dreams. Ahem.)
Naps are good. They’re your body’s way of doing a defrag on the brain. If you don’t get enough sleep, you’ll be spacey as all get out. Not that you’re ever spacey, my dear.
Oh! Oh! So, my kid, my last kid, my PRESHUS BAYBEE graduates from high school this week. THAT high school – the and-now-you’re-an-adult high school. And for months I’d been all high-fiving myself and pointing out that those fledglings? They have FLOWN man, and now I’m off to my villa in Italy and probably my holiday home in Fiji, and DAMN I’m good because they’re gone, they’re done – if they were turkeys, that button would be popped.
Right up until I realized that The Real World now loomed and unless I pulled my worry-pants on and buckled that belt on tight my tender little children that I loved so much were going to be totally steamrollered by those evil, evil Other People who won’t see their value. [AUGH! Money? What will they do for… and UNIVERSITY! I can’t be there and… um… ]
So I’ll be way over there in that comfy corner, rocking back and forth over the Way Big Ginormous worries that come with launching these darn kids and wondering, really, seriously, does the panic ever go away?
I should have had guppies…
I missed grocery shopping this weekend too. Today’s packed lunches consisted of, uh, various foodstuffs I found in the kitchen. I used the last pieces of bread for sandwiches, which meant my younger son got a toasted hamburger bun when he asked for toast. He totally did not buy my argument that a hamburger bun is the same as bread, just in a different shape. He is getting really good at the eye rolling, he will definitely be ready for middle school in the fall.
Are there other parents like myself who do not feel the need for annual moving up ceremonies? I can wait until High School graduation. Perhaps that is too grinchy. I don’t recall so many graduations and moving up ceremonies as a kid and I don’t recall feeling in any way deprived by that. Hope you can get to both events with ease and grace.
Chickadee likes manga? That. Is. AWESOME. I will politely refrain from asking for further details.
Shark fear has to lack logical. I remember when my aunt and uncle allowed my cousins, my brother, and myself to watch Jaws. (They did a horror movie every week. The cousins loved it. My brother and I were scarred the weeks we spent there one summer.) I was terrified of getting off of the bed because OH GOD THERE MIGHT BE A SHARK UNDER THE BED AND IT IS DARK AND WHO NEEDS WATER WHEN YOU’RE AN EVIL, FOOT-EATING SHARK?
This is the last week of making lunches for my younger son, who is graduating from high school. And heading 400 miles away to college. I’ve been trying not to think about it.
And why would Monkey be afraid of sharks in the ocean when clearly snakes in the pool are a much more real nightmare?
Jeez, I feel like *I* should take a nap now. That’s a whole lot. I can’t believe your kids’ schools are already letting out. Let me know how it goes, okay, so I can be prepared in a few weeks. I’m not looking forward to it. But that no lunches thing sounds nice. Also, no school would probably mean less notes from the teachers about my kid misbehaving.
I think your shark cage idea was a good one. I can’t believe Monkey didn’t buy it.
ack a rainbow tye dyed futon… that is really occidental not Asian.