They Survived

The children all survived their first wee of school, plus the resulting aftermath of their first week of school.  Post-school interactions these first few days require constant refereeing, and when you think you're done- say, when all your angels are tucked into bed- you'll be drawn back upstairs because one has offended the other by... I don't know, being alive within ten feet of the other?

It can be rough, is what I am saying.

Our church's youth group kicked off the evening of the first day of school, too, proving it is not run by parents.  Parent-run organizations don't begin until the second or third week of school; this one is run by young adults.  The flip side of that coin is that those leaders have all the energy needed to herd a group of middle schoolers through an hour and a half of Bible learnin' fun, and the adolescents adore them.  So we'll take it, even if Adelaide did stagger into the house at 8:30 that night and ask if every day of middle school was going to be this exhausting.

What I imagine middle school ministry is like.  And thanks, giphy, for never letting me down.

It's not all bad that summer break is over, though.  I can finally weed through all the photos on my phone, which include ones of random kids holding circuit boards and bird houses, taken at the library so parents can see what their kids are doing at our programs.  I can also try to figure out why I took certain pictures of our own kids and what on earth we were doing.  A disturbing percentage of them relate to animal death.  Not that our kids are torturing puppies or anything; they just seem to believe that any dead animal they find deserves a proper burial.  This includes bird eggs they find on the ground that fail to ever hatch under their poor if good-intentioned tender loving care.  

A bird egg grave marker.  These things are stinkers to mow around.

I can also delete all those hair-cutting photos.  Adelaide spent a few weeks over the summer begging me to chop more of her hair off than I felt comfortable doing, but she eventually wore me down.  I did first extract two promises, namely that after I had done so she was 1) not allowed to be upset with me, and 2) was not allowed to cry.  She refused to promise to withhold her tears, but I said I'd do it anyway.  Then, just as I was about to start snip-snip-snipping away, she informs me that she also wants bangs.  I mean, bangs!  What could go wrong?  

*Let's all take a moment to appreciate that this gif both conveys "Yikes," AND is from the Great British Baking Show.*

Anyway, it all somehow ended up fine.  Adelaide was pleased with her hair, and I was so relieved that I didn't let my fine hand tremors and lack of overall hair cutting-related knowledge totally botch our daughter's appearance before her first day of middle school.  (Yeah, this could have gone really wrong.)

On to the second week of school.  We are optimistic but tired. 

Things I Learned on Our Son's Field Trip

Despite the fact that we have had at least one child in public school for nearly six full years, prior to this spring I had somehow managed to escape chaperoning a field trip.

This was 99% because we always had a younger child at home, one young enough they could not tag along on the various school-sponsored excursions.  The other 1% was pure self-preservation on my part.


But now, this year?  All our children are in school.  And I work at a place that gives me a ridiculously flexible schedule- great for dentist appointments, but at the same time siphoning away any excuses I have not to go on these field trips.

A few months ago, then, when Atticus came to me, brandishing papers from school declaiming the details of not one but two upcoming outings, I knew I was sunk.  My draft number had been drawn. It was all over.  And any other overly dramatic hyperbole you can think of.

I saw that one field trip was to the science center and immediately said no.  (Actually, I cackled for quite some time and then said, "No.")  We had a family membership to that place for a year, and while we all loved it, by the end of each visit I felt that I was barely escaping with the four things I had carried in the front doors with me- my sanity and all three children- so to help wrangle a few hundred children through there?  I'm good, thanks.

I did feel a little twinge, like maybe I should chaperone the trip to the science center- deserved to, even- when I remembered that I hadn't gone when Adelaide visited with her first grade class (small children at home, remember), and that this particular trip had just so happened to occur within the time that our daughter was deathly afraid of getting sucked into escalators.

The science center has an escalator.  Two of them, actually, since that's generally how escalators work.  And apparently the mother who chaperoned had a heck of a time with Adelaide and one of those nefarious, child-sucking escalators.  Is it terrible that I'm laughing hysterically recalling that story, but still refuse to chaperone a trip to the science center/escalatorland?  Or does it just make me smart?

Since the science center was out, it meant I was going to see a play with Atticus and the entirety of the second grade.  Hey, a play sounds fun, though, right?  And my goodness, it's Elephant and Piggie's We Are in a Play!  We love Elephant and Piggie, and the entirety of the Mo Willems canon, as a matter of fact!

It's sweet how naive I am sometimes, right?

Let me just say that the play was great.  Charming, entertaining, maybe one or two songs too long, as the vast auditorium full of children, who had previously been entranced with the goings-on on stage all began to squirm in concert when the second-to-last song began.  But cute, and a great celebration of the books and characters we love so much.  

The truly terrible part was the bus ride.

Why did I elect to ride on the School Bus of Horror?  Why didn't I drive myself?  (Oh, yeah- I'd never done this before.)  It's hard to describe what the ride there and back were like, except to say it was difficult to breathe.  It was an unseasonably warm day, and apparently there's still no air conditioning on school buses (?).  On the way there the kids were asking if they could put their windows down to get some air moving, but I was worried about the boys around me (I was surrounded by boys, most likely because I was sitting with our own boy) losing a limb as, being second grade boys, they inevitably waved it out the window.

By the time we'd gotten back on the bus to head home, I no longer cared whether or not I delivered those boys back to their mamas with all their limbs or not.  So down the windows went.

Also, an equation I don't remember learning in any science class ever but that would have served me well that day is HEAT + 8 YEAR OLD BOYS = A THICK MIASMA OF STENCH.

Oh, gosh.  It was so bad.  And the noise.  Another previously-unknown-to-me equation was BUS RIDE + 8 YEAR OLD BOYS = LOUD OBNOXIOUS SOUNDS COMPETITION.  

Atticus tried to warn me when we first settled in our seat at the beginning of our trip:  (whispering) "Mom?  Just so you know, that boy there and those two boys there are kind of wild.  Like, they're the wildest boys in our class."  "Wild" in our house doesn't so much mean Where the Wild Things Are but more "poorly behaved heathens who make you yearn for the days of corporal punishment." And when did second grade boys get so big?  It's hard to stink-eye a kid into submission when they're the same size as you.  Don't you worry, though, having two boys of our own and a brewing migraine, I managed just fine, thank you very much.  I probably don't have the reputation of Nicest Mom in our son's class, though.  This does not break my cold, icy heart.

A dear friend of mine and fellow introvert was similarly ensconced further back in the bus.  Toward the end of the trip we sent texts back and forth celebrating mile markers that meant we were that much closer to home and threatening to throw ourselves out the now-open windows into oncoming traffic.  I also sent Derek texts requesting he have water and ibuprofen waiting for me on my return.  You see, once Atticus and I returned, our family was immediately jumping into the car for a trip to Kansas, and I knew that if I allowed the field trip-induced headache to continue to grow, I would make everyone in the car miserable with my piss-poor attitude, plus possibly start puking.  Yay, field trips!

After all that, I am going on a field trip this upcoming Monday with Adelaide's class.  It's Pioneer Day at a park.  We have been instructed to bring bug spray and given specific instructions on what to pack in our tin cans so that even the lunch is period-appropriate.  What sedative would have been available to pioneer moms, I wonder?  The papers from school didn't say.

Away, Off We Go!

Adelaide had her winter vocal concert last night.  I can tell our kids are getting older, as the times of their activities are getting later and later in the evening.  Unfortunately, I am an old lady at heart, so my response almost always elicits an eye roll from Daughter.

"What?  You have to be there at 7:15?  This concert doesn't start until 7:30 PM?  But... but that's so late!  We probably won't get out of there until 8:30!"

*Adelaide rolls eyes, wrestles internally over whether or not she should dignify her mother's histrionics with a response*

*Her mother writes a blog post, shrewdly guessing at Daughter's internal monologue*

*Adelaide reads all this at school, gets yet another chance to roll her eyes at her mother*

And now you're up to the present.



But going back to last night, after Adelaide came downstairs, dressed and ready, Derek kept observing how grown up she looked.  He said this in an unemotional, here-is-a-fact kind of way; this did not stop me from growing increasingly emotional each time he said it until I wailed, "Stop!" because he was right.  She did look grown up.

I purposefully put the above photo at this point in the post, not just to brag about how good-looking my husband and daughter are, but also because Adelaide looks much younger when she's next to her father.  Maybe I should just hog-tie the two together.  (Note to self:  Google "How to hog-tie people together" ASAP.)


We arrived at the concert early, as Adelaide had given us very specific instructions on where she wanted us to sit, and if you want to be in the front two rows, you have to get ahead of a couple hundred people to secure your seats.  We sat right where she wanted us to, which turned out to be nice, as she saw us and we saw her and I got to take pictures of a bunch of my friends' kids to send to them.

There were cute little presentations between each song, and one of my favorites was two boys pretending to be reindeer telling each other really terrible jokes.

(There are heads in the foreground of every photo; we were in the second row, but there were people in the first row and I am not tall.  Just look past the black blobs, please.)

Two reasons these jokes were the best:  First, Daughter's face.

She is in the center, there, in the red.  She made this face every time a corny joke was told.  Everyone in the auditorium was chuckling.  Adelaide was wearing the expression she has when she feels one ought to know better than to do something, but don't worry, she'll just be embarrassed for you.

The other reason these jokes were the best is that for us in the second row, they were in stereo:  the family of one of the reindeer comedians was sitting right behind us, and apparently he had been practicing these jokes frequently in their home to prepare for the big night.  His little brother was directly behind me, and recited each joke, word perfect, along with his big brother up on the stage.  It was hysterical.  

Atticus did not share in his sister's reservations; he enjoyed every groan-worthy punch line.

Adelaide also had a small speaking role.

She performed it admirably, and looked so grown up!  *keens*

Our children are in three more winter concerts in the next two weeks.  By my calculations (meaning I've looked at all their song lists), we'll have heard large groups of children sing Over the River and Through the Woods four times by Christmas day.  If you find me wandering the aisles of our grocery store, repeatedly muttering, "The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh, the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh," while my left eye tic rages, don't worry, it's just because I have listened to these darlings of ours debate whether it's "over the river and through the wood," singular, or "over the river and through the woods," plural, ONE MILLION TIMES in the past month.  Happy holidays, indeed.

Coffee Dates of Varying Kinds

Derek's parents asked to have the boys for a few days, and while we didn't quite throw our two male offspring at them, we did respond in the affirmative with definite alacrity.

It's now been four hours since they left.  The house is quiet, to the extent that Adelaide commented, "It is so quiet that I feel like I should scream or something, just because my brain is apparently used to almost constant noise from the boys."  She has not screamed, but she does seem to have a smile fixed almost permanently on her face.

When your two noisy, rambunctious, lovable but high-energy sons/brothers leave, here is what a mother and a daughter do with themselves:

• Read a book because it is quiet enough to do so. (Daughter)
• Go for a run in the snow.  (Mother)
• Go to the library and take as much time as you want to leisurely peruse its offerings.  (Mother and Daughter)
• Go to the coffee shop (seen above).  Order a chocolate malt and a hazelnut latte.  Sit by the fire, discuss how quiet it is, smile like a maniac, play chinese checkers, observe and discuss all the interesting people sitting around you.  (Mother and Daughter, with pleasure)
• Return home, read some more books, write a blog post, occasionally comment to each other how quiet it is, think your thoughts.  (Mother and Daughter)

So, yes.  Of course I miss our boys already, but can I just tell you how beautiful silence can be?  No word from Adelaide about missing her brothers already, and I know better than to ask.

Speaking of Adelaide and coffee and happiness, have I mentioned how much we love her teacher this year?  Because man, do we.  For a variety of reasons, Daughter is sometimes a little withdrawn at school, and as a teacher with 20+ kids in a classroom, all with varying personalities and needs, I feel like it could be so easy to overlook the shy girl who requires little help with her work, especially when she's surrounded by louder, more demonstrative kids with more obvious needs.  

Her teacher this year, however (who I kind of doubted was actually old enough to be a teacher when I first met her), has gone out of her way to reach out to Adelaide, a task that takes perseverance when you have a kid that doesn't immediately respond to your efforts.  Her latest venture happened the week before Christmas break, when Adelaide came home and happily reported that her teacher let her stay in from recess and share a coffee with her.  I'm sure this isn't something they endorse in the district rule book (if such a thing exists), but it's a pretty clear sign that her teacher understands how this particular student operates.  Quality, one-on-one time?  Check.   A break from the loud, busy environment at school?  Check.  Coffee?  Check.  Not every school year has gone this well, so I fold my little hands and say a hearty "Thank you JEEEsus," every so often for the teachers we're enjoying during this one.

List

• I have done the impossible:

That, my friends, is a dahlia, whose tuber I buried months ago with little hope, because although I can grow all manner of things, dahlias (and crocus and carrots) have never been one of them.  Is this bloom small and runty and more chewed up than I'd like?  Yes.  But it's alive- IT'S ALIVE!  (Say the previous statement with less Easter morning and more mad scientist tone of voice, just so we're all on the same page.)

• It would seem that fourth grade is when they really start piling on the homework.  One month in and Adelaide spends at least an hour after school every day plowing through math and social studies and recorder practice *shudder*.

When sharing with the family her Best Thing/ Worst Thing last night at supper, however, her Best was homework.  In reply to the expected incredulous stares and sounds from the rest of us, she merely shrugged her shoulders and said, "What?  I like homework."  I'll take it while the takin's good.

• Blondies are one of the best desserts ever when done right, and I found a recipe that does them way, way right:  Glazed Apple Maple Blondies.  They're easy and come together quickly, not to mention the fact that they're delicious.  These things are super rich, so a small portion goes a long way, unless of course you've had a long day, in which case I will not judge you.

Dog Days

We're closing in on the final couple weeks of summer vacation, and I'm a little blue.  I always have trouble letting go of our kids in the fall- school just takes up so many hours of their day!  It's one of the few ways in which I am thankful to be a muggle:  At least they're still living at home!  They could be going away to school (um, somewhere- Rowling never addressed exactly where or what the North American school of magic was.  It would most likely need to be somewhere remote, right?  Wyoming, maybe?) until Christmas, so I suppose I'll console myself with the fact that I still get to see them everyday at 3:20 pm.

I've learned to accept that I panic a bit every August:  Where did the summer go?  Time to do aaaaallll the fun summer things I put off in June and July, packing the zoo and Reiman Gardens and pancakes for breakfast and one last trip to Big Creek and late nights watching meteor showers (this one's not my fault, as I have no control over the Perseids...yet) into three short weeks, the hopeful effect being our children will be good and sick of me come the first day of school, and eager to jump on that school bus and march into those classrooms where they will, naturally, be star pupils.  (You are welcome teachers- also, please be advised this little fantasy of mine does not apparently feature my own children.  I'm as sad about this as you are.)

In addition to the manic We Will Have Fun or Die Trying activities, we still have to do our back-to-school shopping.  This is a gauntlet that does not end, as you might believe, when every item on a myriad of lists has been checked off, oh no:  It's over when none of our children are speaking to me and I have made at least one cry tears of rage and/or self-pity.  Because, as it turns out, the lack of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle-themed backpack in one's life is totally worth crying over.  Thankfully I have a titanium-plated heart (at least according to one of the more dramatic of our children, i.e., ALL OF THEM) and cannot be swayed by tears or begging.  At least I don't have any pillows to make this year.

I therefore have two specific sets of instructions for you all:  Internet companions, if it seems like I've become one of those irksome parents who does All The Things, filling each day with a precious something-or-other for our offspring; and Real Life companions, if you see me at the store- any store- with heart-broken children; to both of you, all of you, please realize that it is simply August, and this is how we do.

A Wax Museum and a Driving Range

Adelaide pretended to be two things last week.

She was Tutankhamun for the third grade wax museum:

She was responsible for engineering all of that costume except the makeup, for which I am to be held accountable:  plenty of my eyeliner and bronzer, the last of which did make her skin look a little darker, but it was less "ancient Egyptian king" darker and more "too much fake tan on a white girl" darker.  It was somewhat orange and reminded me of those two girls who sat in front of me in an A&P class I took in college.  I only remember them because of their blinding orange hue, streakey blonde hair, and conversation that made me want to kill myself rather than have my IQ drop any lower just from accidentally overhearing the things they talked about.

Anyway.

Adelaide did a nice job, had the informational speech she'd written about King Tut fully memorized and ready to recite over and over and over to any who walked by and pushed her "button" (that red dot near her shoulder).  Step 1:  Have kid research historical figure in order to create a costume.  Step 2:  Write a 1-2 page report on chosen person in history.  Step 3:  Get the kids amped up about their families coming to see them dressed up in fun costumes, have them repeat that report so many times that they have that information memorized for the rest of their lives.  You certainly know what you're doing, Ballard third grade teachers.  

We also went to the driving range one warm evening, where Adelaide pretended to be a golfer.  The three kids and Derek swung metal poles at little balls.  I took pictures.

If you spend any time at our house, you quickly begin to notice that our boys have this somewhat strange practice where they watch Derek and then rearrange their limbs and voices and way they move to reflect whatever he's currently doing.  It's not one of those obnoxious games of mimicry, but more a form of intense hero worship that I by turns find adorable and disturbing.

It seems to help, however, when Derek is teaching them to golf.  They've already tuned their movements into his, so copying whatever he does comes naturally to them.

Adelaide was dispatched to get a bucket of balls shortly after we arrived.  See that bundle of fabric she has stashed in the crook of her right arm?

It turned out to contain an array of nail polish she'd smuggled onto the range.  "Moooom, can't I please paint my nails while the boys are all playing?  I'd like to get something useful done while we're here."

After being denied her "useful" occupation, she decided she might as well hit a few balls herself.

See her ball, flying in the air, a bit in front of her there?  She couldn't get that from painting her nails!

Never mind the temptation I felt upon seeing those pretty bottles of polish.  This was for her own good.  Or something.

Flat Stanley, King Tut, and my Mother

Yesterday, for approximately the 500th time, Adelaide did this adorable thing where she says, "Oh, I almost forgot!" then went hunting through different backpack pockets and coat and jacket pockets until she finally unearthed a crumpled piece of paper.  Last week the paper was her latest standardized test results that she had previously thought lost until she remembered that "Oh, yeah!  I forgot I put it in the toe of my shoe so that I wouldn't lose it!"  And sure enough, there it was:  Folded into the smallest possible size and stuffed into the toe of a shoe in her backpack.  Because... folders are for losers?  She's the Anti-Franklin Covey?  Please do not ask me to explain this, because I can't, despite the fact that she gets this penchant for, ahem, non-traditional organizational methods from yours truly.  You should see the top of my dresser.  It causes deep despair in the heart of my husband.

Last night's unearthed document was a letter from Adelaide's teachers to parents.  In it, there was a request for the name and address of whichever family member you most want to exact revenge upon, because the person you volunteer was about to get a homework assignment from some random teacher in Iowa.  (Note:  Not the exact wording used in the letter.  I'm translating its message into the Language of Truth.)

Had I seen this paper anywhere close to the time it was first sent home, I would have been able to ask various family members if they pretty pretty please wouldn't mind receiving a "flat child" (don't ask) in the mail from our daughter, then carting this thing around different places in their area, taking pictures with it, and sending the pictures and a letter describing the "flat child's" vacation back to us.  (See?  HOMEWORK.)  Because I only saw this last night and the name and address of an out-of-state family member was due TODAY, I wasn't able to call around and grovel and beg; instead I did what you do when you don't know what to do:  I scribbled down my mom's name and address.

I probably should have felt a little more guilty about this, but instead laughed and burbled with relief:  I didn't have to do anything, wheeeee!  Please keep in mind it is March which means I am SO DONE with school projects and forcing myself to care about our children's education, something I will have to hide during this week's Parent Teacher Conferences.  Also remember Adelaide came home two days ago and announced she had to pick a pre-1950 historical figure to research and create a costume for, and her choice, from which she would not be moved, was Tutankhamun.  My grand plans for her metamorphosis into King Tut so far involve copious amounts of black eyeliner and that is all, because they did not cover ancient Egyptian royalty in either the Psychology or in the Spanish I studied in college.  Could I interest her in Carl Jung?  Perhaps Quetzalcoatl?

Step One:  Spray paint her face gold.  Step Two:  Pierce and insert guages into her ears.  Step Three:  This is an impossible costume.

I soothed my twinging conscience over volunteering my mother for this project by telling myself that it's good for my mom to have periodic reminders as to why this stage in her life- that of kids out of the house, grandkids coming for visits- is so wonderful; not that she seems to need reminding- she frequently tells my sisters and me that this time in her life is SO GREAT, grandchildren are so much easier than actual children!  I would feel resentful of this, but you see, I was there for my childhood and adolescence, and I think Kelli and Steph would agree that Mom has earned these years.  (Hey, Kelli, remember that time we went down to the old highway and I taught you how to play "Chicken" with passing cars and, to break up the tedium of risking our lives in front of motorized vehicles, I coaxed you into tight-fitting drainage tunnels?  Remember how a neighbor ratted on us and told Mom, whose face turned a color I can only describe as "puce"?  Good times.)

Really, though, Adelaide and her class are lucky- God only knows what kind of photos my mom will send back!  They could be of local landmarks, like... um... the statue of a sad angel outside of mom's school?  Or they could just as likely be of whatever injuries have come into her office that day; Mom seems to forget that not everyone appreciates a good infected open sore as much as she does.  It's like Russian Roulette:  The Pus Edition.  You are welcome, Iowa schools.

That's More Like It

Thanks to wonderful, wonderful friends, I think I've almost got this Valentine-party-game-situation licked.  Adelaide is thank-you-God capable of addressing and preparing her own Valentines this year, so that's done.  At least, I assume it is.  I think I glanced her direction all of one time while she was filling them out the other day, and she seemed to have everything more or less under control.  She's come a long way, baby.

Atticus has been steadily working on Valentines for his classmates since Saturday, which meant that, as of 10 pm last night, all that was left to do for this completely useless holiday was prepare Atticus's Valentine box for his classroom.

Unfortunately I had made the mistake of searching Pinterest for "Valentine's Day boxes" while Atticus observed from over my shoulder.  It took several minutes to explain to him just how little I was willing to invest in this whole project:  Zero dollars and maybe two television episodes' worth of my time.  That wiped out 90% of the results on there, but he did find an Olaf box I decided was reasonably do-able.

According to the Olaf Valentine Box Tutorial, I needed:

• One empty Kleenex box
• White Cardstock
• Black Acrylic Paint
• Scissors
• One Orange Pompom
• Two White Pompoms
• One Black Pompom
• Rubber Cement
• Low Temperature Glue Gun and Glue
• Black Craft Foam
• White Craft Foam
• A Sharpie

Of those things, I had:

• One empty Kleenex box
• Scissors
• A Sharpie

Instead of all those fancy materials I cut up an empty granola bar box for various appendages and taped the heck out of the whole thing.  He also sports the tip of a real carrot for his nose, which is rather precariously attached to his face.  I thought about calling him White Trash Olaf, but Fiscally Conscious Olaf or Refurbished Olaf sounds way more pretentious and makes me sound like I made it this way intentionally due to my high-falutin' hippie ways.  The truth is I can't bear to buy all that stuff for something that will no doubt be trash in a matter of weeks.  

Good enough, says I, says Atticus, says Reused Household Materials Olaf.

Do Kids Still Play "Upset The Fruit Basket"?

I received an extremely disturbing email from Adelaide's teacher last week.

It would appear that at the beginning of the school year- you know, back when I was fresh off summer vacation and believed I could learn to like doing things with large groups of children, aka completely insane- I signed up to help out with the Valentine's Day party in our daughter's class.

Once I got over the shocking message contained within that email, suppressed memories began misting back.  I'm pretty sure I had blocked almost all traces of that fateful Back-to-School-Night to preserve my sanity in the intervening months.  I now recall that by the time we got to Adelaide's classroom and had stocked her desk, met her teacher, etc, all the easy jobs like bringing drinks and napkins and themed-snacks had been fulfilled by parents who had already come and gone, leaving the stinker responsibilities like "games" for all the holiday parties.

Thankfully my friend Anne was also a latecomer that night, and is to be my partner in Valentine fun.  I sent her a rather desperate and not totally coherent (I PANICKED, OKAY?) email right after I read the teacher's message stating I had signed up to coordinate games for 25 third graders for one hour.  Honestly, even now a part of my brain is having trouble believing this, because this is just not like me.  I'm not sure how I ended up this way, but I (usually) have little problem saying, "No, thank you," to people, and am not someone who feels pressure to say "Yes" to everything under the sun.  This likely has less to do with strength of character than my hermit-like tendencies coupled with having strong female role models in my family who were not afraid to say what they thought.  AND YET.  Here I am, searching Pinterest for Valentine's Day party game ideas.

This is probably because I know that if she asked me to, I would organize games on a monthly basis for Adelaide's teacher.  The way I've been carrying on since receiving her email you'd think Adelaide's school was some kind of displaced Gulag camp amid the Iowa cornfields.  Of course it's a fine school, but that teacher is in there for hours upon hours with those little vectors (I just can't seem to shake my mom's pet name for children, no matter how I try), whereas I'm slated to be there for one measly little hour, after which I will stagger out the door and renew my prayers of thanksgiving for teachers, who will still be stuck in there.


Upon finding out he would be coming with me, Caedmon, however, reacted as if he had won the lottery.  He cannot believe his good fortune:  One whole hour?  With Adelaide?  At school?

Hmm.  I put that gif up there to illustrate Caedmon's state of extreme excitement and anticipation, but I feel like it represents how I feel about the party pretty accurately, too, though for admittedly different reasons.

Comedy vs Tragedy vs Fierce

Last week, both Atticus and Adelaide had their schools' winter concerts.

Obviously thrilled to look out and see a packed house.

This is the fourth year we've had the pleasure of watching our daughter perform in these little vocal exhibitions, and it's always been enjoyable.  Getting up and singing in front of a large audience isn't really Adelaide's cup of tea, but she dutifully learns the songs and performs them with reliability if not gusto.

The expression on her face for 98% of her time on stage.

She had a small speaking part this year, which she recited perfectly.  Bravo, Adelaide.

Since Atticus is in kindergarten, this was his first year to stand up in front of all those people and sing.  He's watched Adelaide alongside the rest of us for the past several years, and I thought that perhaps he would follow his elder sister's lead and give us a perfunctory performance.


Not

Even

Close.

Ours is the one acting like he's lost his mind, right next to the sweet girl who's probably wondering if she should stage some sort of intervention.

All his wild gestures and barely restrained enthusiasm were so entertaining to watch, although it was a little disconcerting to be the parent of the stage ham; we've certainly never played that role before.

I feel like Atticus and Adelaide belong on those drama faces- you know, the comedy and tragedy things.

Yes, those!

But then which will Caedmon be?

It's hard to say.

Five Things Friday

• It's been one of those weeks, hasn't it?  Everywhere you turn, terrible, terrible things are happening, and then, when you're still reeling from the news, people start saying the most moronic, the most utterly hateful things and then have the gall to call it capital-T Truth, because apparently you get to do that when you're a Christian blogger and there is no end to your finger-pointing and your ugly, disturbing pride.  I see this man's blog shared and liked by well-meaning Christian acquaintances all over social media, and even though I know it's going to make me so angry stars bust across my vision, I do it.  I click through and I read.  Then I go on and on and on about it to Derek who eventually asks, "Why were you reading this guy's blog again?" and I have to say "I DON'T KNOW."  

I ended up spending waaaay too much mental energy on the whole thing, but thankfully I had the two Ann's to pull me out of the fury twister I was riding; both wrote beautiful pieces on mental illness and Christ and suicide and compassion.  (Actually it's Anne and Ann- I think I've made it clear how important spelling is to me.)  I encourage you to click on their correctly spelled names and read what they had to say.

• I have seen one, I repeat, ONE, Japanese beetle this year.  According to the Iowa Gardener, this is because of our last brutally cold winter; it killed most of the larvae happily sleeping in our soil (now millions of tiny corpses, MUAHAHAHA), and the large amounts of rain we got in the spring drowned out the rest.  Hal-lay-loo-yer and pass the basil that hasn't been eaten alive by beetles this year.

• This was our last full week of summer vacation.  School begins next Wednesday.  Adelaide is mostly ready.  Atticus is pensive.  I am saying what I say every summer:  "Hmm.  Homeschooling is suddenly very, very attractive."  Caedmon still believes he will soon be attending preschool, because he's three and when he says, "I am Batman," in his mind he is Batman, so why shouldn't "Adelaide's going to third grade, Atticus is going to Kindergarten, and I'm going to preschool!" likewise work?  Never mind that I've spent the last four months telling him he has a whole 'nother year before preschool- I'm just the Mother, what do I know?

• This week has been a good running week.  Not too hot, not too humid, and my various injuries have finally shut themselves up enough for me to run, run, run. 

I appreciate this all the more because this summer was the summer that I realized I'm not 21 anymore, and when my old lower back injury flares or my shin splints make themselves known I don't just get to elevate a foot or apply a heating pad for an evening; nooo, I have to rest and ice and coddle these high maintenance body parts for days on end before they'll give me so much as a couple miles.  Let's not forget about the asthma attacks, either, one that started to hit me when I was four miles from home and turned legitimately scary- and honestly, I don't scare easy when it comes to these two divas that I call lungs- I imagine the home that they have made in my rib cage to be some sort of Liberace-meets- the creator of the Bedazzler monstrosity, and they have one whole wall with different velvet knotted ropes hanging, each with each own placard:  "the gut," "the throat," "the skin," and on and on, and when they pull on each they make its subsequent organ break out in hives or swell or do a peristaltic boogie and Dance, Monkey, Dance.  I realize that it's my immune system that's really the problem, here; it's just that I've long thought of my lungs as my own personal mental whipping boy.  They're not to be trusted, and I'm sure they feel the same way about me.
I do try to keep in mind that even when All The Parts are hurting All at The Same Time, I still don't feel as bad as I did in my third trimester of my pregnancy with Caedmon, when my body said, "You want another pregnancy?  Okay, lady, I'm going to pregnancy symptom you TO DEATH."  This is why I laughed so hard when I first saw this on Pinterest a couple weeks ago:

I feel like that cat's face is the mental face I'm making half my waking hours.  Somehow Derek didn't find this photo as funny as I did (I roar every time I see it)- but then, he's never been pregnant.

• I couldn't think of a fifth thing in the three minutes I have to finish this post, so I called upon Adelaide in my hour of need, and here's what she's happy about right this second:

"Back To School Night is only three days from today, and school is only five days from today."  It's almost like she wants to leave me.  

4-H Crafts for Grown Ups

See this?

Right away, let me assure you I did not come up with this idea.  I first saw this monster Valentine box idea on Pinterest a long time ago, and it has since mated and reproduced and made many, many monster babies.  Also?  I did not think that analogy through.

Backing off of the reproductive practices of monster boxes and onto the advent of Valentine boxes:  If you have school-age children, you know that it is not longer enough to send your child to school with a plain old Valentine.  They must now have a small treat with their standard Valentine (something that was only reserved for the over-achievers when I was young), half of their classmates' Valentines won't even be those cheap, perforated, store-bought numbers; they will be beautifully crafted, hand-made creations you'll feel guilty about throwing away (oh, but you'll still do it), and you will be expected to create some kind of receptacle for all those gorgeous Valentines and treats and other guilt-inspiring doodads ("guilt" because I don't generally do those things).

Enter the Valentine box.

Somehow, when you see those amazing Valentine boxes on Pinterest, you believe that it's just that: something that that one mom on Pinterest does, while the rest of us are content to wrap old Kleenex boxes in butcher paper and hand our kid a crayon to decorate it (this was my actual plan, FYI).  Then you walk into your kid's preschool and see glittering castle Valentine boxes and Lego Valentine boxes and boxes that are covered in real chicken feathers (don't even ask).  At this point you realize that your slacker parenting methods aren't going to work this time.

I know how this all works, okay?  I was in 4-H.  I competed in the fair every summer and won my share of ribbons.  (And not those lame reds or, God forbid, white ribbons, just so we're clear)  I can lose sleep and cry real tears over meaningless crafts with the best of them, making these Valentine boxes right up my alley.

Still, it's been a long time since I was in 4-H, and there are no ribbons on the line here (soccer moms prefer to deal in guilt and shame), so I find myself veering toward the ideas on Pinterest with key words like "Under 10 Minutes!" and "So easy I was able to do it in the middle of the daily ten-mile run!"  Unfortunately, Pinterest moms are dirty, dirty liars, as this box took me approximately one and a half episodes of Doctor Who to complete (although, to be fair, one of the episodes was Angels Take Manhattan which I absolutely recommend if you want to have a panic attack every time you see a statue for the rest of your natural life- it may or may not have slowed me down a teensy bit), and involved around half a roll of tape.

It also seemed really plain when I was done, so I twisted up and added some random sparkly pipe cleaners to the top.  I thought this jazzed it up nicely enough, until our children woke up and saw it this morning.

Adelaide's verdict was "It's funny," but Atticus looked at it, smiled, then turned to me and asked, "Why did you make my Valentine box look like Ms. Hollie?"

Ms. Hollie is one of Atticus's preschool teachers.  She is not red.  She does not have the shape of a Kleenex box.  She does not have blue eyes, nor does she have three eyes, nor does she have lazy or wandering eyes.  She does not have a gaping maw of nightmare teeth.  So I asked, "What do you mean, Bud?"

"It looks like Ms. Hollie.  You know," he gestured to the top of his head, "crazy hair."

Ah.  Ms. Hollie does have a head full of curly, corkscrewy hair.

This all gave me an idea for a terrific new reality show:  The 4-H'ers of [Washington, Cowley, Story, whatever] County, where you follow young 4-H kids as they get ready for the fair.  The tears!  The drama!  The animal excrement!  The sewing machine-induced injuries!  And- plot twist!- all the 4-H judges are preschoolers.

Makes about as much sense as anything that's on tv now.

Humans Should All Just Hibernate Through Middle School

Here I was, all set to write a post about the new levels of disgusting-ness I was forced to explore today via our children's illness when I stopped and said to myself the thing I most often want to say to random strangers:  Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.  (I feel bad about this.  As a Christian I should probably most want to carry around a sign that says "Free Hugs" or something- although I shuddered just writing that.  Instead I most want to say "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."  I should re-think my life.  Some other time.)

Yes, even on the internet, just because you can, doesn't mean you should.  I thought about plunging on ahead anyway, but then realized that the only person who would have been able to bear to read it was my mom, because she's a middle school nurse.  Obviously as a nurse she's had to see all manner of vile human by-products, but I believe the true test of her mettle is her willingness to work with junior highers.  Have you seen those things?  I visited her office a couple years ago, which features a wide bank of windows looking out onto a main hallway.  Everything was going fine, just me, mom, and one of her co-workers chatting it up, when the bell rang, and then the Freak Parade began.  It was like being in a reverse kind of zoo, where all the frightening creatures are on the outside and you're afraid to tap on the glass lest you draw their attention.  A full third of them must have relied on sonar to navigate the hallway; there's no way they could have seen where they were going with all that greasy plumage hanging over the part of the face that I'm hoping contained human eyeballs.  And that was the "boys"!  (Those are intentional quotation marks, in case you were wondering.)

Look, I remember being a middle schooler.  It was awkward, and awful, and overall a little bit tragic.  I honestly don't know how my mom didn't flinch every time she saw me.  ("NGYAAAAH!  Oh.  Oh, it's just you, Kristy.  I thought one of the vet's experiments had escaped again."  At which point I snarled and cringed away from the sunlight.  Oh, how it burned!  And yes, we had a veterinarian who lived and practiced behind our house, but he never engaged in unlawful experimentation.  Not to my knowledge, at least.  It is a little curious how all our cats chose to end their lives right in front of his house.  Never mind that's where the highway is.)  But somehow time manages to distort even the most heinous of our memories, or you're like me and become awesome at compartmentalizing to a degree generally only shared by women named "Sybil."  Either way, memories of middle school are locked safely away, and you manage to convince yourself it wasn't so bad- until you visit a middle school as an adult and wonder why, with all our scientific advancements, we haven't figured out how to skip this whole stage of life entirely.

Sure, you have weirdos like my mom who talk about her subjects with amused affection, much the way this dog's owner likely speaks of her:

via

Pretty sure I saw this girl walking on two legs in that hallway.  She was sticking up for the really ugly ducklings.  (And I can make jokes like that because I would have loved to look this good in middle school.  If you knew me then, you know exactly what I'm talking about.  You have burned every photo of me from those years like we talked about, right?)

So even though years of working with cripplingly strange middle schoolers- oh, and sick people- may have inured my mother to stories like the one I was going to tell, I know that the rest of you would have had no choice but to leave this blog and never come back.

Good thing I found this supremely relevant tangent to write about, hmm?

The Good and The Bad From Adelaide's Winter Concert

• Good:  I got Adelaide's Christmas dress at a garage sale last summer.  She was pleased with it.  I was pleased with it.  It cost $5.  Everybody wins.

• Bad:  It turned out to be way too big.  The length was manageable, but the midsection was really loose.  I decided to try and baste the back of the dress real quick to try and create an inconspicuous gather, and lo and behold, it worked!  You have no idea how thrilled I was.  These little let's-make-this-work-ten-minutes-before-we-have-to-leave things rarely work out for me, so this felt like a triumph.  So this one turned out Good (I know, I know, it should be "turned out well," but I have a theme going here).

• Good and Bad:  Listening to little children singing.  I know they're only two years younger than Adelaide, but those little kindergarteners are so darn cute singing their sweet Christmas songs, fidgeting, waving at their parents.  Their little voices are the most adorable thing you've ever heard in your entire life for exactly three songs.  At song #4, you feel the smile slipping from your face.  The end of #5, you give the most perfunctory clap possible, enough to satisfy the parents of the kindergarteners, but hopefully not enthusiastic enough to encourage the little beasts.  Halfway through song seven you wonder why you're being forced to listen to hell's soundtrack and your husband looks like he's contemplating mutiny.  Then, thank the sweet baby Jesus, they're done, the ticking under your left eye abates, and all is well with the world again.  Until you realize you haven't even heard your own kid sing.  It's not over.  Some part of your brain goes walkabout and you wonder if it's possible to get PTSD from a children's concert.

• Good:  Adelaide's music teacher expects much from her students; as a result, they learn a lot more than one might expect from a standard elementary music program:  by the end of kindergarten our daughter could read music (just basic treble clef), and this year she had the second graders singing in a round, and although she allowed them to sing I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas, she stressed that the voice of the girl on the original recording was of a poor tonal quality; too nasal.  All this meant it was far less painful to listen to the second graders than it was to listen to their younger classmates (it also may have helped that they sang half as many songs).  Adelaide was one of the students chosen to play the metallophone:

Ours is the farthest to the right of those standing behind the metallophone.  If you click to embiggen you'll see she's also the weird one.  This is surprising to exactly no one.  I think she liked the feel of the fur collar on her chin; she kept unconsciously doing it when not singing.  Better than picking her nose, something a couple of her classmates felt no compunction about doing in front of an audience.

• Good:  Atticus and Caedmon sat so still and quiet throughout the whole thing.  It was absolutely wonderful.  Last year Caedmon kept climbing in and out of his folding chair, which was only a problem because the chair kept folding him up into it, causing panic on Cade's part.  This did not stop him from doing it again and again and again.  Atticus was pretty good last year, but had not yet mastered the art of whispering things his parents really didn't want everyone around them to hear.  The year before that I hardly remember watching Adelaide at all because Derek and I were so busy trying to keep a one- and three-year-old quiet and seated for 45 minutes past their bedtime.  With these memories fresh in my mind, I did not take our sons' delightful social compliance for granted.  (It didn't hurt that the family in front of us had three small children they were trying to wrangle while watching an older sibling perform.  I felt such strong feelings of empathy I engaged in a tacit staring contest with the second-to-littlest, which only kept her busy for about 90 seconds, but still- 90 seconds can be a lifetime to mothers of littles.)

So: except for the nightmares I still have about those kindergarteners, it was overall very, very good.

Why, yes, that is a potty chair in the corner of the photo.  I'm not real sure what it was doing by the front door.  Nor do I know what's up with our children's faces.

I've Honestly Never Seen That One On A Spelling List

The other day Adelaide and I were going through her spelling words; specifically, the words she and her teacher come up with to pad her spelling list and make it a bit more challenging.

Normally the teacher gives her a sound: short A, long O, etc, and she and the teacher take turns coming up with words containing those sounds.  Last week their list was comprised of double consonant blends; words like blend and scarf that both begin with two consonants and end with two consonants.

We were just about finished when Adelaide informed me that "I came up with another word but Mrs. C didn't write it down."

"Why?  What was the word?"

"I can't quite remember..."

She hemmed and hawed for another minute while I continued to fold laundry, then began to perk up.

"I know it had something to do with how babies are formed..."


Horror bloomed.

"Oh, yeah!  SPERM!"

I was silent for maybe two seconds while my poor brain processed this, then I began to laugh and didn't stop for a very long time.  Adelaide got a bit upset and embarrassed, but I told her she wasn't in trouble and that she'd just caught me off guard and she settled right down.

Right about now is when I should probably explain that when Adelaide was very young I decided I'd always do my very best to be as honest as possible with her, even when it was tough or uncomfortable (especially when it was tough or uncomfortable).  I do try to adjust some of my answers for age appropriateness to the endless line of questions that have been issuing from her mouth for the past six years or so.

It was this rather inconvenient pact that somehow caused me to one day find myself not only baking cookies with a six-year-old Adelaide but also having a rather comprehensive discussion on sex.  SHE JUST WOULDN'T STOP ASKING QUESTIONS.  For every question she asked, I gave her an honest answer (not brutally honest, though, okay?  More of a soft honest.  I used the correct terminology but I did what I could to not scare her.).  Because of this conversation she's had a somewhat premature working knowledge of human reproduction, which can be a little jarring when certain words (OR MORE QUESTIONS) come out of her little mouth, but at least I know her information is accurate and not a crazy playground legend some kid with three older brothers has been spreading (<----- that's actually happened at Adelaide's school already).  I've also cautioned her with the instructions not to make it her quest to educate her classmates (unless Little Brother strikes again- I don't see anything wrong with correcting erroneous information), not that it seems to come up much in the endless Cheetah and Turtle Shells games Adelaide plays at recess.


I did ask Adelaide what her teacher did when she suggested the word "sperm" for her spelling list (it is a double consonant blend, after all).  She said she smiled like she was trying not to laugh but didn't write it down.

Parent Teacher Conferences are this week.  Should be fun.

Adelaidey, Adelaidey, Adelaide-Hee-Hoo

I love singing the above phrase to the tune of that yodeling song in The Sound of Music.

She loves it, too.  Except not.

Still obsessed with cheetahs.  

Last Saturday she and I went on a Mommy- Daughter Date.  She chose to eat at Olive Garden for lunch, followed by going to one of those paint-your-own-pottery places, with a quick stop at a used bookstore before heading home to the men-folk.  I couldn't have chosen a better itinerary myself.

One last hurrah at the playground last night before...

Today.  The first day of school.  

Adelaide is in second grade.  I have no idea how this happened.

Survival of the Fittest

It's inevitable that parents are going to screw up their kids.  We just are.  We're human.  It can still come as a bit of a shock, however, when we're faced with the specifics of that passed-down disfunction.

After Sandy Hook, Derek and I both talked to Adelaide about what had happened.  We knew she was going to find out about it at school (it was interesting to talk to parents who decided not to talk to their children about it- a decision I have absolutely no problem with and understand completely- who were then astonished to find that their kid had then heard a garbled version of the truth on the playground).  Obviously, the story as we related it to our daughter was heavily filtered, but still: she knew what had happened.  I then went on to talk about what I expected her to do if, God forbid, an armed gunman were ever to enter her elementary school or our church.  We talked about available building exits, which windows open and which don't, and the relative merits of hiding vs fighting vs fleeing.

We've continued in the vein of this conversation several times over the past few months; just the odd discussion here and there.  Every once in a while, though, something she does will take me by surprise.

At church a couple weeks ago, I was hanging up our coats and the boys were changing out of snow boots and into shoes when I noticed something strange around Adelaide's neck.

"Adelaide- isn't that the strap to one of your purses?"

"Yes."

"Why are you wearing... you know what?  Never mind.  Just take it off and put it in my bag.  You can put it back on after church."

"But Mom!  I need to wear this in my class!"

"Why would you need to wear a purse strap around your neck in class?"

"Because if a bad guy comes into my class this is my weapon!  See, I'd use this little hook thing to scratch his eyes out and then I'd loop the whole strap around his feet so he couldn't escape!"



Then yesterday she and I were making cookies when the conversation underwent a rapid shift from M&M's to home invasions.

"Hey, Mom, do you know what I'd do if a bad guy broke into our house and wanted to rob us?"

"Um, no."

"I'd tell him that there was a pearl necklace up in my room, and it would take him a few minutes to get up there and realize that the pearls aren't real, and while he's doing that we could escape."

"Uh, yeah, I don't really-"

"Or if there's ever bad guys that come in the house and we hear them coming before they see us, I have our escape routes all planned out.  (Goes on to detail a complex but well-thought-out plan.)  Then, Daddy could lift me over the back fence first, because I'm a really good climber and could help him, then I would be on the other side to help catch the boys."

I wasn't really sure how to respond at first.  I was torn between wanting to praise her for her forethought, the need to correct and point out the flaws in each plan so that she could correct them just in case the need ever does arrive to employ these plans, and subtly inquiring after her mental health.

I went with mental health.

"Adelaide, do you think about bad guys coming to get you a lot?"

"Of course I do!  Don't you?"

Oh, tricksy, tricksy.  Because the answer to that question is a resounding "Yes."  But I'm also not really comfortable with the idea of saddling a six year old with my personal brand of paranoia.  Alas, honesty won out.

"Yes, I do."  Now how to tell her that not everyone thinks this way and not make her feel like the freak she is?  "But you know, not everyone does.  In fact, I think the majority of people don't think about this kind of thing nearly as often as we do."

"Well, that just means that if something terrible happens to a whole bunch of people, we're going to be the ones to survive, and they're going to wish they'd made all kinds of great plans like I do every day."


Hard to argue with that.