Week 8

I roll over into a puddle of pee at 7:30 this morning. What am I doing still in bed at 7:30? You’re thinking. Well, we actually don’t get up at 6:00a.m. anymore, because we actually have places to be every morning now. We only get up at the crack of dawn in the summer, when there is no place to be.
Mac, the guilty party, is asleep. In his own – and, may I add, dry -- bed. Sailor and I go to the kitchen for breakfast. It’s not easy keeping a three-year-old quiet. Especially an especially loud three-year-old. Especially when your kitchen is right outside the bedroom of the child for whom you are trying to stay quiet. Still, I do my best. I slowly and gently unload the dishwasher. I fix scrambled eggs and banana slices and bagels and milk. And when Sailor insists on making weird and unnecessary squawking noises he earns himself a time-out.
“I think you owe me an apology, Mom,” Mac calls out from beneath the covers.
“What for?” I am game. I am fair. I will issue requisite apologies.
“For making so much noise.”
The words that run through my head are unfriendly ones. Unfit for print.
I do not apologize.
Mac drags himself out of bed after 8:00. We discuss why he was in his bed and not mine. We discuss the puddle. We discuss how I now have to find time to haul my, um, comforter, back to the Laundromat and sit for another 3 hours and $9 to wash the damn thing and how it’s much too cold out to be without it now. We discuss how he is not invited into my bed for awhile. He has to pee. Now. He runs to the bathroom, peeper in hand. Sailor is in there. Doing some sit-down business. I hear some yelling.
“I couldn’t wait, Mommy,” says the big brother, standing at the side of the potty. Sailor is still sitting.“Mac peed on my elbow,” Sailor whines.
Boys need rules for the bathroom. If they could understand them at an early age, like say, 5 and 3, they would be better men. They would also make better smelling bathrooms.
Boys Bathroom Rules
1. Only one person may use the toilet at any given time. (Though admittedly, I do recall hopping on with my sister at least once during our one-bathroom childhood.)
2. Do not pee on your brother.
3. Do not pee on your mother.
4. Do not pee on yourself.
5. Do not pee on the wall. (Sailor actually pointed out, and quite proudly, the other day, “Look, Mommy, I’m not peeing on the wall!”)
6. Wipe up any pee that does not make it into the potty.
7. (And the golden rule of the potty shall be…) When you are done pooping, GET OFF THE POT!

Sailor wants me to carry him from the car to gym class. He is going in to exercise. I am wearing boots. With heels. And it’s muddy. With an extra 30 pounds in my arms I am sinking in with every step. I disobey the rules along with 4 other parents and stay on the bleachers during class. I think about why bleachers are called bleachers. When you sit on them out in the sun, say at a baseball game, you get tanned, not bleached. I read the new-ish book by CNN’s Anderson Cooper. I watch a dad sooth his newborn, who then falls asleep in his arms. He paces back and forth with the tiny boy and at the same time he is reading a book! I am stunned at this man’s unparalleled ability to multitask. His wife should know how lucky she truly is. (And if she doesn’t she should pass him along to someone who does.) Then I witness this same dad have a conversation with his wife. Not about the baby, or the older child in the gym class, or things for the baby or their older child in the gym class. A conversation about real-life people stuff. I am so shocked by this that I find it difficult to concentrate on my book.
We drive to Trader Joe’s after sorting and dropping off the recycling . The kids really love this job, especially Mac. The kids ask to push their own mini-shopping carts at Trader Joe’s. I go over the rules: No running. No bumping. Push your cart like grown-up men.
Before we leave the store with 5 items totaling $20, both boys have had their carts and their licenses to drive them repossessed.
Mac chooses crab cakes and tomato soup over PBJ’s for lunch. Sailor doesn’t much care for these, or the fresh green beans I have sautéed over butter (ok, I burned them but they still taste good!). He eats only the oyster crackers. We have the French family coming over after school and I want to vacuum the hall stairs. Mac runs down, “Mom, there’s been a spill.”
“Clean it up,” I shout over the vac.
Mac returns, “Sailor is throwing soup at me.”
“Clean it up,” I repeat.
I assume Mac means Sailor has flicked some soup in his general direction but when I return to the kitchen, there is indeed tomato soup splashed all over the floor, the fridge, the table, the wall, and Mac’s bedroom door and floor. I am, understandably, furious. I hand Sailor a load of paper towels and order him to clean it up. I take Mac into his room to put on clean, tomato soup-free clothes for school. Did I mention I am furious? I am furious. I have to mop before we leave for school because it will be stuck to everything if I leave it. I am furious. I mop. I wipe. I yell a little. I am furious.
We are too late to walk to school. Sailor knows better than to say anything once we are in the car. He knows I am furious. Mac is on time. It is explained to Sailor that he will go straight home and to bed for nap when we get home. For once, he does not argue. He merely nods his wrapped-to-walk-in-the-cold head. Sailor is asleep by the time we get home and does not wake for over an hour. But when he does wake he is hungry. However, he remembers that I told him there would be nothing to eat until dinner. He hints, “I see some snacks,” and “I smell your banana,” and then straight to the point, “I’m hungry.”
I finally give in, but only a little. He may have his lunch. I heat up more soup, set out the crab cakes and oyster crackers. He enjoys the crackers and nothing else. I eat the remaining crab cakes and remove the soup and Sailor from the table. “But I’m hungry!”
Silently I turn and walk the offender back to the table. I re-seat him and re-place his soup in front of him. He leans over the bowl and spoons some of the room temperature soup in to his mouth. He doesn’t finish but soon enough he is happy again, “I finished my soup!”
Has anyone seen my award for patience lying around here anywhere?
We bring the French family home with us. The kids devour an apple, crackers, grapes and pretzels. “There is no more food!” the little French girl says, in French. “I’m STARVING!” Mac tells me. And so they tackle two pizzas, broccoli, and mini ice cream sandwiches while la mama and I look on in awe. I am still hungry when the meal is complete. She says she is fine. I want to believe her. But I feel bad. Of course, lately I am the one eating as if I were nursing baby again! I am hungry!
We have had wine. My French gets better. Her English gets cloudier. My sister has stopped by. She tries to understand. “A word here and there,” she smiles.
For once my house looks relatively normal when our guests leave. But darn it, the French mom broke my rule. Now I will have to help clean up next time we play at her house.
Sailor refuses to go to bed. (So what’s new?) Mac and I discuss the wearing of a diaper at bed time. Sailor taunts him, “Diapers are yucky! Diapers are for babies!” Mac cries. “I don’t want to wear a diaper.” Again I explain that I don’t want to change sheets again. I hate changing sheets. I never did it when his dad lived here. That was one of his jobs. I hate listening to my mother (who kindly washes our laundry) tell me that my kids are not potty trained, “at least not over night," she qualifies. I have never changed so many sheets in my entire life as I have changed in the past year or so. I set the diaper on the book shelf where he can see it.
We look at his “Big Brother Story” book, which I wrote for him. We study the photos. He is sooooo little at the time of his baby brother’s birth. Just 28 months old. He seemed so much older, like a 4-year-old, at the time. I feel so guilty for not seeing how small he actually was when he actually was that small. I don’t think he has suffered. But I know I have.
Sailor is asleep behind me in my desk chair. It’s time to head to bed. I will be sleeping on the couch tonight. I am out of bed-changing energy.

Tuesday. Many moms shower at night to save time in the morning. I have started eating breakfast at night. Cereal. Toast…. It’s a good plan, really. I can eat what I want in peace and quiet. No one questions how much sugar I am dumping on my cereal or why he can’t have any sugar on his cereal. Nothing gets cold or warms up to room temperature while I pop up and down from my seat retrieving dropped forks or cooking more scramma eggs. I don’t have to share….
I notice, as I am freezing my patooties off, that not only is Halloween a week away, but Christmas is just around the corner. I am thinking already about all the people deserving of our thanks, our photo cards and our holiday cheer. Our mailman, our doctors, the boys’ teachers – all how many of them? Mac’s reading buddy, the 4th grade boy whom he insists is named Hoolian (I think it just has to be spelled “Julian”) and who reads to him in class every Thursday. I think I will forget someone important. I’ll be making a list and checking it twice and most certainly I will be continuing my Christmas shopping, which began two weeks ago.
Yesterday Mac informed me that his class is no longer receiving French lessons. I begin a mental gymnastics routine to figure out not only how much it’s going to cost me to put both kids back into their old French classes, but also how I am going to raise said money, and when we might possibly fit an 85-minute class into our already insane schedule. I wonder if they have anything at 7:00 a.m. This morning I find a French page in Mac’s backpack. Relief. Though I am still somewhat put off by the way they are learning just one or two words a week. Mac is already way past that, as my new French friend has noticed. So maybe their old Frencg class is going to have to put up with us once again.
Many kindergarten parents have mentioned, following their stints as class parent volunteer, that Miss H could use some help. Instead of tending to other business, I decided to bother the entire afternoon kindergarten class last night. Via email. Would anyone be interested in creating a daily parent volunteer program? I’ll organize this, I promise. Sure. In my spare time. When the kids are in French class, perhaps.
Mac brought home his chocolate factory yesterday. Part of the cardboard box community built and painted by the kindergarten class a few weeks ago. He has two squat buildings – a Grape Nuts box and a granola bar box – and four smoke stacks – two tall paper towel rolls, two short toilet paper rolls. He asked me to purchase his factory for 9 cents. He put it on my dresser.
At 12:05 this morning I found the following email from my sister:
Tonight when I went to kiss Mac goodnight I noticed his lower lip looked chapped. I asked him if he wanted me to get something to make his lip feel better. He said, "Yes, a glass of milk." Sailor wanted to read the Grover book and told me that there were buttons to push. Then he told me that he wanted to be a button for Halloween so people could push him. I asked him what would happen when he got pushed and he said that he would say "Ho dear" (like Grover does).
I can’t even begin to guess how many miles I walked today. But I think I have worn out the soles of my feet. Sailor is reluctant to go to school again today. He says he is tired and that we should all put our jammies back on and spend the day in bed, “Mac and you, too!” If only! Even with Curious George (wearing a blood pressure cuff on his arm) under his arm, as usual, I have to leave him in S’s lap, screaming for me. I try not to feel guilty for leaving him. And I try even harder not to feel guilty for wanting to leave him. He has been such a pill lately that I just want to drop him off. Wherever. Yet the reality of that statement is that I still can’t stand to be without my babies!
Mac and I drop the car at the garage to be fixed. We need a tune-up, among other things, I am sure. I walk home. Mac rides in luxury in the double jogger. We had planned a nice morning at the bookstore’s coffee shop, but someone forgot his back pack. Which would be not big deal except we have saved his homework for this morning’s outing. UURRGGHH!!!
At home we tackle homework. We’re on letter F and he can read most of the poem this week. There is a French coloring page that he hasn’t finished, so I get out the crayons. An hour later we abandon the incomplete coloring page and head out to get Sailor. Except Mac can’t seem to follow a few simple directions, such as please go pee and put your coat on. I find him in the playroom reading. I repeat my instructions. Why on earth, I wonder, does it take him ten minutes to pee and wash his hands. This is not an activity!
We walk to preschool to retrieve Sailor. He is the last guy in class. Wearing only his hat he is insisting, according to S, that the last remaining coat in the classroom is not his. Funny boy!
We have 30 minutes to make the 20 minute walk so I get distracted talking to one of Sailor’s classmate’s moms. We are late for school not only because of this but because Mac (and, somehow, the stroller) has stepped in dog poop and we have to stop at a small puddle and then scrape-walk along the grass, and then Sailor and Mac want pretzels but Sailor wants to hold the bag so that every time Mac wants more he has to ask Sailor an I have to stop the stroller so Sailor can hand over the goods, and Sailor still needs his coat put on… I explain all this to Miss H when I bring Mac into class along with the class snack, which we are responsible for today. We bring juice boxes and cheese sticks. 27 juice boxes are heavy! Mac had to walk to school so the juice boxes could ride. We go out and come back in because we forgot something.
At home Sailor wants to play and continuously issues me a “just a minute” each time I ask him to join me for lunch. He is a busy boy but he finally comes to the table. Keeping him there, however, is the challenge. He plays and I sit down in the living room. Yes, that’s right. Sit down. On the couch. Where it’s soft. And my feet don’t have to work. Like a cat to a can opener Sailor is immediately upon me the moment I turn on the tv. “What we watching?” He disapproves of my choice: A John Denver concert video. “I want watch a boy vee-yo.” I didn’t ask what you wanted to watch. “I don’t like this.” Neither do I. He talks. And talks and talks and talks so it’s of little consequence whether or not I enjoy this video. I invite him to return to the playroom and his beloved toys. He invites me to read to him. Book after book. Until eventually it’s time to retrieve Mac. I ask him to put the books away and he drops them on the floor. I repeat this morning’s directions to Mac, to Sailor. Pee and put your coat on. He wanders around. He talks. He chatters over my request. I must be heard! I resort to yelling. “Listen to me!” I am tired. He obeys. By sitting down on the potty to poop. Was he NOT going to do this? Was he just going to leave the house with me, having to poop?!
Mac runs off again after he greets us after school. Which part of “stay with me” does he not understand? I ask him. He looks sheepish and cute. I explain that there are so many people and that it’s hard to run around looking for him while keeping hold of the double jogger, which takes up a ton of space on the narrow sidewalk. We walk. And walk and walk and walk and I can feel my feet falling apart. We walk no fewer than 9 city blocks. Mac walks without complaint. I am extremely proud of him. We deserve a break.
Sailor is asleep and we head into Borders and straight for the coffee. Mac requests a decaf iced latte and a cookie, but I convince him to get chocolate milk instead, which he changes to hot chocolate. We sit. We drink. We share a big cookie that the coffee guy offers to warm up but then doesn’t. We work on Mac’s homework! Yes, it’s done a full 19 hours before school starts tomorrow. Hurray! We chat. He looks at books. I look at him. The sun is on his face. The hot chocolate is on his chin. I look at his light red eyebrows, his lashes, the tiny red freckles that spill over his nose onto his cheeks. He is my baby.
We shop for the triplets in Mac’s class. Their mother has already shared the date of their birthday party, to which the entire class will be invited. I do not know the protocol for this kind of situation. Mac is friendly with the boy, and I had one of the girls in my field trip group, but the third triplet, another girl…. Neither Mac nor I have any relationship with her. Still, sticking within my price range, and using a $10 off coupon and the rest of a store credit, I am able to stick within my budget, purchasing matching gifts for the girls and a do-it-yourself super hero kit for the boy. Mac chooses 2 Halloween books and I pick up the Halloween book S was unable to find in her classroom this morning. I have a rich heart and an empty pocket.
The car is in need of roughly $1100 worth of “recommended maintenance.” I am told the car is now worth about $2000. However, nothing is really wrong with it and at a mere 83,000 my dear Honda could run well for a couple more years. We’ll celebrate its 10th birthday next month. I pay for an inspection, an oil change and replaced break lites. Finally we can drive. My feet hurt and I am exhausted. I think I have walked maybe 5 or 6 miles today. Not a big deal, except I have a cold and my stomach has been bugging me for 2 days, so I am a little run down.
Mac requests homemade spaghetti-o’s for dinner. They’re good. They go great with the popcorn shrimp I pull out of the freezer and the fresh asparagus I sautee in butter. The kids won’t eat the greenery. I share it with their dad, who has arrived in time for dinner. We chat as if we are happily married. I tell him all about the $1100 worth of maintenance my car needs in order to stay running safely enough to transport our children.
I skate and go to Target while the guys stay home. Sailor is in my bed. Mac is in his own. And I am in neither. Typical.
Wednesday. I am awake and out of bed for 9 seconds. Sailor wants his pajamas put back on. (No, I don’t know why they are off, or how, in the frigid morning these boys are playing wearing nothing but their underwear.) I numbly bend over to untangle the fleecy footy pajamas and Mac attempts to shove the earpieces of his toy stethoscope into my ears so I can hear him make the sounds of the ocean. I brush them away. I have been up for 13 seconds. I head to the bathroom while Sailor asks if I brought him Star Wars guys from Target last night. I did not. He cries. What did you bring, he wants to know. Well, I think… mittens for Mac. And for me? He asks. No honey you already have mittens. Cries again. Mac tells Sailor he’s supposed to say, “Oh, yeah, I forgot.” Sailor is undeterred. He continues to whine. I shut the bathroom door. I haven’t even finished peeing yet. I have no strength for this. I have only been out of bed for 19 ½ seconds. He whips the door open and cries in protest. I escort him out and slam the door shut. I get into the shower. Mac calls through the closed door, “I spelled INK.” “You did? Spell it for me,” I call back in my most enthusiastic see-I’m-still-paying-attention-to-you-even-tho-I’m-in the-shower voice. Silence. A thought occurs to me. “Spelled or spilled?” I call back. Though in retrospect I realize there is no ink in the house that could be spilled. “SPELLED!!!!” he shouts and disappears.
I am showered and getting dressed. They argue with me over why I won’t give them back their light sabers. I know I should never have let those toy weapons into the house. Mac is satisfied with getting his back when he is 6. Sailor finds more reason to cry. Mac is cold and needs me to choose his clothes for the day. Not that he was cold while playing in his underwear for G-d knows how long before I got up. “Yes I was!” he insists. Sailor wants breakfast. I want to go grocery shopping. My goal today is to get it all for under $80.
The rest of Wednesday is a blur of exhaustion. Our morning activity is grocery shopping. For fun I make lists for both of the boys. They have drawings of 4 items and the corresponding word. I think I am brilliant. The kids are kind of excited, too. The store is going out of business and I am like a kid in a candy store. I want to buy everything because it’s all on sale 10% or more off! I get the entire cart full for $64. I am thrilled. Except when we get in the car it is already 11:30. Mac wants to go see our friend’s new twins, whom he has yet to meet. I rudely tell him I don’t care what he wants and go on to list off, in detail, the things we are going to have to accomplish in less than an hour.
Drive home – 10-15 minutes. Find a parking space -- 0-60 minutes. Haul in the groceries 10 minutes (we live two flights up). Put away all of the perishables (10-15 minutes). Make and eat lunch (15 minutes). Walk to school (9 minutes).
I contemplate calling my dad to ask him to make some grilled cheese for the boys. But decide I do better in my role as martyr. Until Sailor falls asleep and I realize I am in trouble. I dial and hand the phone back to Mac. No answer. Yes, I am really in trouble. There’s a parking space across the street! I hate bringing in the groceries. They are so heavy! Mac helps. And he brings all the bags to the kitchen and Sailor wakes up after I make a special trip to carry just him up into his bed. We play store and I ask the boys to stock the shelves. They do well though there are still boxes and cans all over the place when we finish our lunch of long, tubular foods: turkey hot dogs, cheese sticks and bananas. The boys lose their ears and are unable to listen to my anguished pleas to please go pee and put there coats on (haven’t we been here before?). The yelling starts. I lose it. We have 7 minutes to walk to school and not the aforementioned 9, which we need. We begin at a run because I am pissed. But while my plan is to make Mac see why he needs to listen, I realize I am physically unable to keep up the pace I have set. We slow down to a trot and I admonish Mac that when we arrive at school late he is to tell Miss H he is sorry he is late but he and his brother have a hard time listening to their mommy. “I’ll try to remember to tell her,” Mac says. “You’ll tell her,” I insist. But lo! Miracle of miracles we arrive while the children are still lining up. Don’t ask me how. Mac is beaming. “Now I don’t have to tell her!” “No, but you have to apologize to me for not listening to me and for making me run all the way to school.” The look on his face can only be described as “perplexed.”
There’s an appointment with Dr. Dentist to get to. The installment of my new porcelain tooth. All is well until Sailor tips the double jogger backwards while I am in the chair. We lunge to save him from certain stroller trauma. He is fine but embarrassed and Dr. Dentist spends minutes marveling over the poorly designed center of gravity of this expensive piece of travel gear.
I think I walk another 30 miles delivering fliers for work and then taking Sailor home for a blanket. His legs are cold. I will never fully understand how it is that we dress our children for the elements from the waist up – undershirt, turtleneck, sweater, winter coat, scarf, hat, mittens – but unless the temperature outside is hovering near zero and we add a second layer consisting of thin cotton long johns, we do nothing for the lower body but cover it in the same jeans they wear year-round and add a pair of ankle-high socks under the shoes. We pass the French mom on our way and have a brief French conversation about the weather.
We return to school for Mac. While waiting I talk with several moms about the undying issue of the school age cutoff. It is here that I realize why Mac is one of the shortest kids in his class: he is far and away one of the youngest. With so many of his classmates turning six now, Mac has a long way until he catches up. In fact he won’t be six until about three weeks before the end of the school year. I am relieved at this realization actually, as it provides reason, if not excuse, for Mac’s occasional inability to act as maturely as his classmates.
We walk Mac to FTK. Sailor wants to play in the playground. Which is a great idea until 40 minutes into pushing him on a swing he says, “Push me again!” and I do and he forgets to hold on tight and falls right off. I think this boy ought to be wearing a helmet today! Again he’s fine, but he’s done with the swings. And he has to pee. We return to FTK and pee and with an hour left of class I am at total loss for what to do. I just cannot fathom the thought of walking to the book store or home or anywhere else. I fantasize about a spa pedicure while Sailor promises to play quietly but instead runs back and forth down the narrow hallway brandishing his lights & sounds Batman sword. (I have been told that Batman doesn’t have a sword, but the toy makers and small boys seem to think otherwise.) There’s another 3-year-old boy waiting with us. He wants Sailor’s sword. He wants Sailor’s Batman helicopter. He wants everything Sailor has. He is causing Sailor to make too much noise. He is seriously irritating me. I am too tired to move or stop the child or even do much more than smile in sympathy when the child begins screaming his head off and punching at his nanny’s head and neck. All I can think of is a very unsolicitous, “Brat!” knowing full–well that Sailor is prone to the very same kind of behavior. Is class over yet? It is! I have a handful of our new fliers for the mom of the celeb who does the morning radio show. His boy twin tells me, “You can give them to me and I can give them to my mom for you.” What a grown-up boy. I hand over my stack. His mom explains that the twins’ private school has a policy against handing things like this out. I’ll never understand that. She takes 10 to pass along to her friends. The boy twin approaches me while I talk with the instructor and he slips his little hand into mine. Only my own boys have ever been so comfortable. He waits until I stop talking and looks up at me sadly and says, “I thought one of those was for me.” He is ecstatic when I hand him his very own flier. With Mac by my side and the boy twin in my heart I have more energy for the walk home.
Something is for dinner. The boys need to go to sleep. Miraculously, without much fuss they do. Oh yeah, they were sent to their rooms for making too much ruckus while I was trying to talk business with Aunt Minny. Mac walked off mumbling something about having not been the one to make any noise. He may have been right. Nonetheless he is asleep when I check on him and my guilt is raging like an out of control hormone. I didn’t even get to kiss him goodnight.
I talk on the phone until 11:00 pm. It’s the only way I am able to cut out 30 squares of fabric and turn them into newspaper-stuffed pumpkins. We have exactly 30 and no more. Which means that if any of the children whose mothers neglected to follow the rules of proper etiquette and RSVP for Sailor’s Halloween party on Friday actually show up we will basically be screwed and I’ll be the one who looks like a jerk for not making extras.
I last through the 11:05 showing of this morning’s Oprah.
Thursday morning we all wake up at 8:05. Not again! What is it about Thursdays? The boys eat cereal and bananas while I set outfits for them on my bed. They actually get dressed while watching the 2nd story of the Curious George ½ hour and by the time I am dressed they are ready to go. Easy. Really. Ok. Garbage out. Kids to car. Sailor to school. Moderate coaxing. I look around at all parents who may or may not have RSVP’d but decide to keep my mouth shut. We don’t have any material left to make more pumpkins anyway. Starbucks. Mac’s talking doctor. (I am told at the end of the appointment to expect that Mac may have rough day ahead. They talked about his dad during their session. I smile, sympathetic to my little boy and tell the talking doctor that I had a bad day yesterday so I suppose this is only fair.) I pay bills without having a heart attack. I read. We do the homework – reading “My F Book.” And then we head to Jake’s Bubba’s house where Mac will spend 90 minutes watching over Jake’s shoulder as the boy plays a tiny hand-held Star Wars video game. I suggest they play something Mac can participate in. I consider letting Jake play at our house in the future but not having Mac play at Jake’s again. I realize the time at 11:50 and bolt for the door. Why am I late for everything? I don’t want to keep Sailor waiting. Or for that matter. I kiss Mac goodbye and remind him to pee before he goes to school and to hold Jake’s Bubba’s hand when he crosses the streets as they walk and then toss a quick, “I never do this,” over my shoulder as I leave, signaling to the Bubba that I am entrusting her with my Hope Diamond.
The drive to Sailor’s school is shorter and more direct than I expect. I call Mac’s school and leave a message for Miss H relaying the warning about Mac’s potentially rough day ahead. and I am on time for Sailor. He has made me a pumpkin out of a paper plate. We return to the grocery store for all the party food I hadn’t thought to buy yesterday. Mid-shopping I ask Sailor for a kiss, which he willingly plants on my lips. “Are you happy now?” he asks sweetly. Yes, I am happy. The store is still closing so I buy out the stock of natural peanut butter – 6 jars (which, I will find out in May, last almost to the end of hte schoolyear) -- and the last 2 bags of whole wheat flour. My bill is almost as high today as it was yesterday. We make several more stops before returning home to start the cupcakes. Sailor loves to bake with me and is a very good mixer and taster. GrandDad finally comes home and I am able to drop Sailor downstairs to walk back in the rain to get Mac. Except first he wants to go then he doesn’t and after he gets his coat on and I call my dad to tell him Sailor is not coming down Sailor says, “Ok, I guess I just go GrandDad’s house.”
At the big school I am paid two compliments. The first by Jake’s Bubba who tells me Mac was very good at her house and I have to look up to see who is talking to me and even take a moment to register the fact that I had left Mac with her and that she had brought Mac to school a mere 2 ½ hours earlier. The second by the French mom who asked me a question in French. When I hesitated after having not heard the first part of the question, she apologized and said she’d forgotten I was not one of the French moms.
At home my mom and I scour the basement for a clown costume and a big red wig. We come up empty handed and Mac has to choose another costume for tonight’s dinner out. There is a costume contest at our local favorite restaurant, and though I really don’t need the first prize of a $100 GC to Toys R Us (ok, yes, maybe I could use it for some Christmas and birthday shopping) I am determined that a three-year-old in a Santa suit is a shoe in for the winner. I dress Sailor, pad his tummy with his baby pillow – “Look, I have a fat tummy!” – and paint his eyebrows white. He is the cutest little Santa ever. (Ok, maybe not “ever.” There was another really super cute 3-year-old Santa roaming around our neighborhood two years ago.) “Ho ho ho! What you want for breakfast? Ac’shly, what you want for Christmas?” Sailor/Santa asks.
I bake and frost four batches of chocolate cupcakes. Sailor goes to bed and Mac doesn’t. That’s a switch. My friend who had the big birthday bash last weekend calls to tell me that indeed she is pregnant with #3, which I was 99% sure of anyway. She says I can come to the birth again, as I did with #2. I drain the last of this morning’s Starbucks and feel no guilt for having recently upgraded my lattes to Grande. This cup of jo’ lasted no fewer than 11 hours. I look around me. The house is a mess and our friends from Kenosha are driving in for breakfast, or if you ask the boys, to return Darth Vader, whom we left at their house back in June. Theirs is the kind of house that begs you to clean up your own. But alas, mine is the kind of tired body that begs me to go to bed. Stay tuned to see who wins!
Friday morning. We are all up at the same time. Early. A flurry of social engagements await us on this day. We scramble around to tidy up our otherwise lived-in looking home. Our friends from Kenosha are headed our way. While I put things away I am barraged by a series of questions from Mac. All the same. When are they going to be here? I tell him they will be here in an hour (and panic as I have not yet showered, I’m on the phone with my best friend, and there is still vacuuming to do). Nine minutes later he is upon me again. It’s been an hour, he is certain. This is a job for the kitchen timer, which I set and hand over to him. He is excited. “This is for me?” Indeed it is. Except my friend calls me 20 minutes into the last 45 minutes on the timer to say they are stopping for a potty break at Micky D’s, in the county just north of ours. So when the timer rings so does the disappointment. But by 10:30 the car arrives and I escort the older girl in while I direct my friend to find parking “wherever.” It’s a mad morning. I have goodie bag tags to assemble, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches – two loaves of bread’s worth – to make, a car to load up. I feed three of the 4 children (my friend’s younger girl has dietary restrictions beyond even my healthy kitchen’s limits) and chat with my friend about all the things that have happened since we visited their house in June. I prepare all the pb&j’s and attempt to use cookie cutters to make them into witches and ghosts and pumpkins, but when I ask the 8-year-old what the witch looks like to her she says, “a blob of sandwich” thus saving me a colossal effort and a lot of wasted sandwich remnants.
We scoot out at 12:15. I’m in a proverbial tizzy because I have not only not left enough time to run back and forth to the car four times but I have also not left enough time to set up for Sailor’s party on the other end. Decked out in cowboy boots, tights, a very short denim skirt, and a bandana and cowboy hat choking the life out of me, I am having much difficulty trying to open the trunk of my car. With my booted foot. A nice man walking by stops to assist me. Could it be the short skirt or do I really look as if I am about to drop three trays of finely decorated cupcakes all at once?

We fly to school. I throw Mac out the car door and take off for the art studio. Ok, no, not really. Truth be told I stop to talk to a couple of moms despite the fact that I am leaving myself less than 15 minutes to set up Sailor’s Halloween party. When we arrive at the art studio Miss M is still chaperoning dawdling students and their moms out the door. The stress on her face to set up this party in 15 minutes mirrors my own. I toss her a turkey hot dog – Mac’s uneaten lunch—and we get going. Sailor’s girlfriend, Sadie, is joining us with her mom and baby sister. Four of the six classmates who have RSVP’d ‘yes’ arrive in due time. It’s awkward at best as none of us really know one another. The final two guests arrive quite late. A cell phone rings and the owner spends the first 15 minutes of the party engaged in a conversation peppered with enough, “Are you ok?”s to let us all know that this is a really important call. All too soon the children have finished both art projects, their cupcakes and their lemonade. Sadie’s mom to the rescue! The former librarian charms the children in the book corner while I try not to stick out like a sore thumb in my ridiculous cowgirl costume and make conversation with 6 moms I don’t know. The party ends just minutes before I need to leave to get Mac from school and bring him back for his party. The catch is, we first have to gently ease Sailor’s party guests out, then we have to re-set the stage for Mac’s party, then we have to drop off Sailor with Nana and GrandDad and then pick up both Mac and the German boy from school and get them back to the studio to finish setting up before the rest of the class can get there.
And miraculously, we make it. Twenty of the 22 guests who said they’d be here arrive. There are no fewer than 6 princesses and 5 super heroes (2 Batmans, 2 Spidermans and some flamey guy whom we called the “fire man”). There is a homemade clown costume, which I am most impressed with and the class Diva comes in a hand-made white furry cat suit, complete with professional make-up job. Mac is Darth Vader and he’s pleased that his buddy Jake is decked out in full Yoda gear. There is a girl dressed all in black who claims to be a Ninja, and a girl with very short hair who calls herself Rapunzel. (Did you already let down your hair? we wonder.) We have two Vaculas (Sailor’s way of saying Dracula) a girl is Chinese pajamas and flip flops, and a cowboy. When Mac sees the guns in his holster he takes note. He knows that gun play of any sort is not tolerated by Mommy. We serve a colossal amount of pbj’s and carrots and more than one child asks for seconds on cupcakes, but as there are only two to spare, I save them and allow Mac and the fancy cat to eat them when no other children remain and they are helping us clean up. Throughout the party I am continually impressed by the cohesiveness of this group. They have good manners and they follow directions well. They seem to like one another and more, they really seem to care about one another. As evidenced by the number of children who flocked to the beanbag to keep company with the clown, who had developed a post-pbj, pre-painting tummy ache, and the girl who politely told the French boy, “You might want to take off your Spiderman mask. You’re getting frosting all over it,” even though he couldn’t understand a word she said. The party was a great success as drop-off parties tend to be. I make a note to tell Miss H on Monday what a fab job she is doing with our kids. I then stand back to survey the mess. One like we have never before experienced at the art studio.
Nonetheless we are home before 7 and devouring a large cheese pizza by 7. We are wiped out and my feet have had it. A full day in cowboy boots is such a bad idea, no matter what the circumstances. Tomorrow is Saturday and we only have to be in Mt. Prospect to see Kelly’s new baby by 10:00 and then get to my best friend’s house by 10:30 so we can take our costumed kinder (Mac in a last-minute toss-on: a Tigger towel he received as baby gift; Sailor as Curious George – who else?; and my friend’s kids as a cowboy and a baby cow) to a fall fest where we get to choose our own pumpkins and take a hayride and let the kids eat their very first entire candy bars with only a little help from Mama, and then traipse out to another Halloween party in Palatine by 6:00. No biggie!
The afternoon is nice and I insist on feeding my friend’s baby and let him fall asleep in my arms, thus rendering me useless in the parenting department for the other kids and providing myself with a good old fashioned Mommy break. When the baby wakes up after Mac not-so-gently gives him a hello squeeze of the head, Sailor asks to cheer him up. I suggest he sing a song. In good Beegees form, Sailor sings “You should be dancin’ YEAH!” until the baby quiets down and Sailor declares, “It worked!”
It really doesn’t occur to me that I was supposed to bring my own costume to the evening party until it’s far too late to have done so. And so when Snow White asks me who I am supposed to be, I say, confidently, “A hot mommy!”
“In that outfit?” she returns, “not a hot mommy!” Thus completely crushing my entire sense of who I am and what I truly look like in contrast to how I have thought I looked all this time. After all, I am actually wearing one of my real hot mommy outfits, or so I had thought.
The bold word that flies through my head is not one that I was actually able to say aloud. But a few minutes later I gather my wits about me enough to face the princess again and explain that actually I was not wearing a costume but was in fact a true life hot mommy.
My self-esteem and self image have still taken a major blow, however.
When we get home it’s late and my Tigger and Curious George are asleep in their car seats. I find a parking spot nearby, but not right out front. So I call in the troops. GrandDad comes out and sits in the car with Curious while I haul 42 lbs of sleeping Tigger down the block and up two flights of stairs and thru the house to his bed. At least I have the foresight to change from my boots to my comfy walking shoes before making the trek. Without benefit of a spouse, moments like this can be a challenge. Thank goodness for my parents. I’d be lost without them.
It’s only just past 10:00 so I make the mistake of checking emails and the answering machine. I hang up from talking with my sister at midnight. I don’t bother changing the clocks back, as I plan to remain in daylight savings time denial for at least a week. And it won’t matter much when my boys wake up at a time that begins with a six because the VCR has automatically changed the time for me. We have nothing planned for most of Sunday. We’ll just have a nice leisurely day at home. I’ll start by making a batch of orange pancakes that I use cookie cutters to make into Halloween shapes. Then I’ll haul 7 loads of laundry and a box of summer gear to the basement, fold and put away four baskets of laundry, tidy up the entire house with the help of the kids (twice), bake a batch of muticolored cut-out sugar cookies (hey, we are on such a sugar high already, why not!?), create a basket-of-laundry costume for Mac and a garbage bag costume for Sailor only to have him decide he’d rather be Santa again, take the kids by bus to a nearby grade school called Nettlehorst (which Mac hears as the Metal Horse School) Halloween Hoopla because Mac can’t sit in his carseat while wearing a laundry basket, carry a sleeping Santa off the bus and back into the house after the fair, rescue my sister from being locked out of her car, autograph and package up two books, pay a bill, write three thank you notes, build a haunted house out of a small cardboard box and a bunch of little skeletons, paint, and rubbery frogs with Mac and Sailor, make lunch and a snack and cook diner and sweep the kitchen floor twice and unload the dishwasher twice and set out another round of costumes appropriate for gym class in the morning, paint Sailor’s face, and console Mac just moments after tucking him into bed for the night. Seems he is still angry at his dad for leaving. Which I can understand. But the fact that he is also angry at me for getting a divorce is more than I can handle. I patiently, oh so patiently, explain to Mac again that the demise of my marriage to his father had absolutely nothing to do with me except for the fact that I am a female. Sailor finds us in the bathroom in the middle of this teary heart-to-heart and asks, “Hey ever’body, what you doing in here? I brought you a snack.” He proceeds to eat his big box of cereal and babble babble babble on about things he thinks are relevant to the conversation Mac and I are having (“I’m sad, too. I’m sad Uncle Marvin died.") until I finally have to tell him to be quiet. Which sends him away in tears. Oh the drama of it all. And a fine ending to a quiet, peaceful, easy Sunday!
I wish I could say Monday might be a calmer day. But late in the day I realize I have two extra activities to squeeze between our regularly scheduled Monday activities and I am so confused by it all when I call my mom to make appropriate babysitting arrangements that I just can’t wait to see who I forget to pick up or where I forget to leave one of the kids. At least there is no school this coming Friday….

Week 7. 7th Heaven Moves to Sunday Night

On a drive home from the ‘burbs Sunday night we discuss the many potential Halloween costumes available. We have an overflowing bucket of costumes in our playroom, yet for one reason or another (too small, has a mask….) Mac has deemed each and every one of them inappropriate for the upcoming festivities. We mull over ideas. I am thinking “inexpensive” and “easy to put together.” And, with the wacky winter-like weather we’ve been having, “warm.” I am hopeful to resurrect the Santa costume Mac wore when he was three. But most of my suggestions are met with, “Eeeew, gross,” which doesn’t even make that much sense (ok, for my suggestion that they go as girls it does make sense). Finally Mac hits upon a creative idea (as I have already told him he should be something fun and unexpected). “I want to be a popsicle.” Right. We kept thinking. Finally, “Ok, I want to be a blender.” And before I can wrap my head around how on earth I could create a kitchen appliance costume using hot glue and strong will he continues, “I could dress in lots of different colors and then whatever I am near I will blend with.”

Monday morning. This afternoon is Mac’s first kindergarten class field trip. To the local fire station. I let Miss H know in no uncertain but very polite terms that I will chaperone the five block walk. Because I hate field trip. And no child of mine will go on one unaccompanied by me. Ever. (Until maybe college. Though those field trips are usually to Europe. So maybe even then.) Last week I was informed by the room mother that I was not needed on this field trip. That there will be plenty of other volunteer ops this year. I informed the room mother that if I don’t go Mac doesn’t go. She tells me I would be most welcome to join the group. Mac is very excited to go to the fire station. So am I. There may be good looking, single fire fighters there. Like maybe that one I saw on a Thursday night in August….
But first we must take out the trash, drop surplus baby clothes and baby gear for donation at the home for unwed teen moms at the corner, drive by Salvation Army to drop off a bag of I-can’t-remember-what, swing by the art studio to leave a couple of bags of clothes for Anna’s friend’s little boy, and then get to gym class by 9:15. First things first. The field trip isn’t til 1pm. We have a lot to accomplish today. I have written “find a date” on our list of things to do.

I am one of six parents assembled for the class trip. Mac is very excited to have me there. I am excited to be on his first field trip. He is one of four children assigned to me. The others are a French girl (who speaks English but who also has a hard time paying attention and spends most of the time somewhere in her head and certainly not paying attention to the hot firefighter), and two girls with the same name: Ema and Emma. Both have somewhat long last names. I ask for middle names. Ema is reluctant to reveal hers as she doesn’t want anyone to know it (in kindergarten!) and Emma thinks it might be Susan, but then remembers it’s Claire. I call her Emma Claire for the rest of the trip. We hold hands in a chain and I am pleased at how well the children are able to follow directions and to keep up during the long walk. With the exception of my French girl, the children stand and watch the firefighter. They are enraptured. He is a cutie. They try to ask questions, but the firefighter puts them off, “Wait til the end.” But he never gives their questions another moment’s thought. The kids don’t seem to mind, however. Engine 22 is out on a run, for which Smokin’ Joe (I think his name was actually Greg) apologizes profusely. So he talks. We listen. A call comes in. We watch the EMT guys run back to their ambulance and take off to parts unknown. We get to see the kitchen. It smells like a cafeteria and looks like something I remember from a fraternity house. It could not have been a more unattractive room. We get to see the bedroom. A stark room lined with 12 unmade beds. The kids want to sit, bounce, jump, and, in the case of my French girl, “I am tired. I want to take a nap.” We thank the firefighter and head back. On the walk the children are expected to collect 10 leaves apiece. Except it’s raining. The parents each have a bag to hold their group’s leaves. Except I forgot mine at the fire station. I am distracted trying to keep an eye on my four. The French girl wears a bright green hat with a pompom, and Emma Claire is wearing a pink coat. That helps. But they run in four different directions, nonetheless, and the French girl lags way behind. This is why I don’t have four children, or more precisely, quadruplets! We make it back to school by 2:15. School doesn’t get out til 3:15. The German mom and a mom I just met suggest we go for coffee. Twist my arm. We bustle over to a trendy little coffee shop (not Starbucks) and I try a decaf Jamaican latte. It tastes like tea. It’s good. We’re tired and it’s warm. We contemplate naps before returning for our respective boys. Mac and I walk home and I provide him with the granola bar I was saving for myself. He’s extra hungry these days, finally. We mess around at home until it’s time for tap class. Mac’s teacher says he really needs to practice at home. She expects me to remember the combination she quotes me. I ask her to write it down. I take the slip of paper home and tape it to my calendar. Maybe we’ll practice once this week.

Dinner: vegetarian refried beans topped with fried tofu and taco blend cheese. No one will ever accuse me of a lack of creativity in the kitchen. Mac asks for seconds. Sailor won’t even sit down. We make it to bed by 8:00 and I fall asleep at 9:30. I forgot to unplug the dishwasher, turn out the playroom light and pee. I’m tired. Sailor has been crying for chocolate cake and a snack for over an hour. I am adamant: “Your dinner is in the fridge.”

Tuesday. Sailor cries all morning for a cookie. Which I don’t need. The crying I mean, not he cookie. Sailor is the one who does not need the cookie. Though he thinks he does. The kids were up early and my extra five minutes of sleep left me with a wake-up time of 8:00 a.m. Preschool starts at 9:00 and we have to be there by 8:50 so I can acclimate Sailor for a few minutes. We’ll make it! Even tho the boys need baths.


Wednesday morning. The boys are playing with their pirate ships. “Superman comes in the middle of winter eating cake,” says Sailor. That has got to be his most imaginative sentence ever.

Sailor screams through ice skating this morning at the indignity of Mommy making him skate on his own. Miss Kim more or less asks us not to come back next week. Not in so many words. But she suggests I tell the boys they could not come back until they can skate on their own and also that there is no screaming on the ice. I think that was their plan all along. Sailor’s anyway!

He has become quite the pill as of late. Just as Mac is regrouping and becoming a welcome child again, Sailor’s behaviour just begs for me to leave him behind (with a willing caregiver, of course).

We have been very bad about homework this week. Really, the novelty has just SO worn off. On Tuesday Mac forgot the backpack with the one folder holding the one piece of paper. I excused him to Miss H. He brought home loose papers. This morning he writes half a sheet of Ee’s while I put Sailor’s shoes on. It’s 12:15 when he starts the homework. We are usually walking out the door at 12:15. Still, Miss H gives him a :-). Tonight the homework remains in the folder. I looked at it earlier but can’t even remember what he is meant to do. We just don’t have enough time in our schedule to fit in this daily work. I know it’s good practice for Mac to do his homework, but really, if it’s rushed….?

Better time was spent yesterday afternoon playing at the home of one of the French families. We all practiced our French and by the time we left my children were saying a few spontaneous words in French and I am truly inspired to…. I don’t know what. Re-enroll the children inn French class? Write an email to the mom telling her how comfortable I am trying my French with her? Speak French to the children all the way home to the point that their dad thinks we’re nuts (and is irritated because he doesn’t understand a word) when he met up with us for dinner. Well, we have definitely caught the French bug and I like this family quiet a bit, so perhaps by the end of the year we will all be speaking much more fluently.

A great deal of time was spent over the past weekend giving our home a mini-facelift. Photographs were re-framed and re-hung, an unsightly wardrobe was hacked to pieces and carted to the alley leaving us almost an entire new room; light fixtures believed (by the former man of the house) to be broken almost two years ago had their light bulbs replaced. But here we are, mid-week. And I don’t care if I leave a cup of coffee in the bathroom, or a pile of laundry on the dining room table. It’s Wednesday. I am tired. We are busy. I will care again on Saturday morning. For now I will just have to take a hot bath, leave the soggy parenting magazine on the floor afterwards and go to bed early enough to see what’s showing on The Learning Channel.

Thursday morning. Last night did not end as well as it began. Mac wandered in around 11:00. Sailor just before midnight. Mac said his cough hurt his throat, but refused cough medicine. Then his butt hurt, so we went for a wiping. Then his butt still hurt and I suggested he fall asleep where he wouldn’t be able to feel anything. Sailor lay quietly for a few minutes and then asked for a snack. A few minutes before midnight. No way! And he’s thirsty too. Of course. I direct him to the fridge but he throws a fit. The child almost doesn’t see Thursday morning!

Mac makes breakfast. I oversleep. I have 45 minutes to shower, get dressed, put on make-up (yes, I am one of those moms who wears make-up on a daily basis. I even shave my legs every day too!), dry my hair, remind Mac to pack up his not-yet-done homework, fill my bag with bills to be paid and all the accoutrements for this project (oops! Almost forgot the check book!), and alas, it’s Thursday morning, which means the garbage cans have to go out.

We get it all done. And we get to preschool pretty much on time. But Sailor is reluctant today. Mac waits in the car (preschool is on the only street in the entire universe that I – or any other conscientious mom – would leave a child moderately unattended in the car during drop off). I finally release Sailor’s iron grasp and Mac and I are off to see his talking doctor. From there we head to a very early lunch, where Mac does his homework at the table, and then to an 11:30 haircut with the Lithuanian Hottie. Mac and Sailor both love this guy and I make it a general practice to look nice when we go to the overpriced kiddie hair salon for the boys’ quarterly trims. Today I ask him, just to hear him say, “No, I’m not married,” whether or not he has kids (well you certainly can’t just ask a guy if he’s single now can you?). He admits to a 13-year-old son, a 2 ½ -year-old daughter and a stay-at-home wife in the same suburb where my best friend lives. Well I’ll be darned. He promises to keep an eye out for a sale on new husbands for me. I promise myself to stop looking at his butt.

We are late picking Sailor up from preschool and so we are running late when we stop at Trader Joe’s for meatballs. Meatballs? Sailor requested meatballs along with his usual request that I bring him chocolate milk after school. So, meatballs. Which cost $20 because we also buy two boxes of organic whole wheat waffles and a tall bottle of grade A real maple syrup and a tub of organic vanilla yogurt and … no, I think that’s it. It fills just about the bottom of the grocery bag.

We are late for kindergarten.

The novelty of everything has absolutely worn off at this point.

Sailor falls asleep in the car and sleeps until just about the time when I am wondering how the heck I am going to make it to the big school in less than 10 minutes to pick up Mac. The kids are already being released when we arrive. I speak briefly en anglais and en fraçais with my favorite French mom and invite her and les enfants for dinner on Monday night. She asks what she can bring and I tell her nothing because I won’t want to bring anything when she hosts dinner at her house.

What did you do at school today? I read recently that boys require a great deal of prompting to answer these sort of questions. “Which center did you go to today?”
“Math. I mean, science,” Mac tells me.
Funny, witty, my-father’s-daughter Mama asks, “Did you dissect a frog?”
“No! We didn’t have to dress like a frog!” Like, duh, Mom!

I’m laughing so hard I can’t even re-ask the question.

The boys are cold and I make hot chocolate. They are mostly interested in the whipped cream. We set about making soup. I guardedly entrust Mac with a vegetable peeler and Sailor with a serrated knife. Mac peels zucchini, yellow squash and a turnip. Sailor cuts the zucchini and yellow squash and a cucumber for a snack. Every once in awhile I hear a very quiet, “ouch” from Sailor and then as he smooches his tiny finger, “I’m ok, I kissed it.” It is somewhere before the cucumber but after everything else that I ask the boys when they last washed their hands. I think most germs would be cooked off in the soup, right?

At dinner Sailor asks me, “Mommy, please you buy me handcuffs?” I calmly and quietly inquire, “Why?”
“Because Mac want dem.”
That’s logical thinking.
The boys then discuss in earnest which will be the good guy and which will be the bad guy. Barbies, anyone?

The mother of one of Sailor’s classmates calls to RSVP to Sailor’s Halloween party next Friday. In the background I hear the little girl: “I want to talk! I want to talk!” I hand the phone to Sailor, “It’s your friend Lauren from preschool” (who, until 3 minutes ago I didn’t know existed as we have not been given a class list as of yet).

Sailor eagerly takes the phone. Just to clarify he asks, “She a boy?”
They discuss his upcoming party. “Mommy, she coming my party!” and what costumes they’ll wear. “I don’t know what she saying! What dumbo means?” and what they are doing at this exact moment. The conversation is utterly precious and I am pleased with that Sailor was so chatty and capable of holding up his end. A skill he will undoubtedly lose by the time he is 21.

I am not pleased at bedtime however, as both boys decide to become screaming, wholloping, animalistic monsters who must run circles around their mother’s legs while she is on the phone. And to make matters worse, the phone call is from the owner of the dance school where Mac took tap lessons over the summer. “The check you paid for classes with came back to us,” she informs me. “As in ‘bounced’?” I must clarify. “Yes, bounced.”
Fantastic. I give her my ex-husband’s phone number, his cell phone number and his address, which she realizes is on the check. That he wrote to pay for the lessons. For Mac’s birthday. That has now bounced. I am the responsible parent, I tell the poor woman, but I am not responsible for this check. But, I tell her, please let me know if she has any problems. Not that I have a spare $123 lying around or anything.

I send both boys to their rooms for the yelling. Mac goes quietly. Sailor puts up a fuss and now I am yelling. I hate this part of parenting. He cries in his bed until he says he has to go pee and I have to let him. Uuurrgghh!

Why is it that even when I yell at him, he still calls for me for comfort? Oh, well, it just makes it that much easier to love him like crazy!

Friday morning we have nothing to do. Except run about a million errands. We have a long list and I am hell bent on accomplishing it before 12:35 drop-off. We start by returning those darned garbage cans to the neighbors’ yard. I tell ya’, there is nothing cuter than my tiny little guys hauling garbage cans taller than they are down the alley. And boy do they love this work. And I feel absolutely zero guilt in letting them help out, as the payment for this task makes the monthly tuition at preschool.

We head to Old Navy to return a pair of black leggings, which, I have decided I am too old for. The probable rule of fashion thumb is that if you took part in the fashion the 1st time around, chances are you are too old for its reprise. The salesgirl tried to convince me otherwise, however, especially when I exchanged the leggings for a green sweatshirt miniskirt for next summer (on sale for 47 cents! Who could resist?!).

Next stop, Target. I am returning one item. I have to buy a bleach pen and some of those do-it-yourself business cards. The kids have to look at Star Wars stuff. This is actually an activity to them. As in, “What would you like to do today?” “Go to Target and look at Star Wars stuff.” We discuss at length whether or not Sailor should spend the last of his Target gift card on more Star Wars guys. He finally decides on a two-pack of Luke Skywalker and R2-D2. Mac wants one too and I explain that he and Sailor can share. He gets mad and cries. In the middle of the aisle at Target. Which I won’t have. I grab Mac by the hood of his sweatshirt and explain in no uncertain terms that it is fair, that I am not buying Sailor the toy and that Sailor is buying the toy with his BIRTHDAY STORE CREDIT! Yes, I am loud. Yes, people are staring. I ignore them as I snatch the toys from each boy’s hands. Mac gets it and quiets down immediately. Sailor loses it altogether. For the next ten minutes he cries, “I want it now.” Not, I want it NOW, but I WANT it now. He stops finally after we check out and slide into – you guessed it – Starbucks. He orders two chocolate milks and I patiently but pointedly remark that if they can’t fill the cups up all the way with milk then could they at least put some ice in it to make me think I’m getting full cups. As we are leaving Sailor quietly says, “Thank you for trying, Mommy.” "Trying what?"I ask. “Thank you for trying to buy me the Star Wars toy.” Wondering whether or not I caved and headed back into the store for Star Wars toys? You betcha!

“You’re the best mommy.”

It’s all worth it in the end.

A couple more boring stops and we have just 30 minutes til school. In which time we must find and eat lunch. I pull into Burger King. Mac reminds me of the excuse I gave as to why we couldn’t eat there last week, “But this is crap, Mom.” And so it is. But it’s fast crap and it’s available crap and so we park and head in. I send Mac and Sailor to a table where I can keep an eye on them. Mac still has his homework page to do. But instead of doing it, he drops and retrieves his penny loafers, plays with a BK crown someone has left on the table, messes around with Sailor, and plays with the pen I gave him, despite the fact that I have called his name and given him “the look” at least three times. TEN MINUTES LATER ("What part of this is supposed to be fast?" I ask another guy waiting in line with me for our food. To which he replies, “The time it takes for the money to go from your pocket to theirs.” He smiles a self-conscious smile. He knows he’s made a good one.) Our food is up and Mac has only just begun his homework. “How do you spell ‘elephant’?” he shouts to me as he hold up his drawing of an elephant. Lord help me!

We have about 6 ½ minutes to eat.

I am not a happy mom. Did I mention here that I have arrived at a full-blown cold? Or that when I put my left contact lens in this morning I nearly burned my eyeball out of my head? Seems I accidentally filled the little lens cup with cleaning solution rather than conditioning/soaking solution last night. I soaked my eyeball in cold water. Still it turned red and started to swell shut. I am wearing my glasses today. Which is fine until the clouds dissipate and the sun comes out. I can’t see a thing without sunglasses! So instead of going with my gut and ripping up Mac’s homework in frustration, I scribble a hasty note on the top corner:

“Sorry Miss H, We’re having a very hard time finding time for all this homework. SingleMommy”

I also draw a line pointing to the elephant, an oblong thing with an eyeball, a trunk with an erection, and four stick legs all placed just under the chin area. Though I am totally pissed at this point I can’t help but be impressed with the drawing, which he did without help. Drawing is not Mac’s strong suit.

It’s 12:25. School starts in 10 minutes. We don’t make it. But Clyde’s dad is late too. And so I throw out an, “I’ll watch the little ones if you’ll take the big ones into school.” This is the best idea he’s heard all day. I supervise his 16-month-old and Sailor while he drops the big boys inside. And we’re off for a few more errands. There’s no parking outside our house anyway, so we might as well press on.

We have a little time at home, Sailor and I. While I get a bit of work done, he meticulously wraps one Spiderman bandage around each of his fingers. And then he has to go potty, which means he has to wash his hands. Which means the bandaids fall off. He is in the midst of re-applying the overpriced character strips when it’s time to leave. I have to stop by the bank. The cookie bank. This should provide motivation but it does not and I have to put up with his fuss. Once at the back he is a happy little boy dancing around eating his Oreo. Until I tell him he cannot have a second one. He fusses most of the way to school as I patiently and repeatedly explain that if he doesn’t stop the fussing he will not get a cookie the next time we go to the bank.

As we walk home from school 2 ½ hours later, Sailor has trouble keeping the tray on his stroller engaged. It keeps popping off. Until finally, just outside our house, the tray flies open, Sailor falls out and one of the front wheels falls off. I’ll have to remember to find a new stroller this weekend. It’ll be our 10th in half as many years.

It’s the end of the school week. I have big plans to attend the birthday party of one of my close friends tonight. The kids get to spend a few hours with their dad, who is due to arrive at 5:30.

My parents invited us to see a play Saturday morning, downtown. You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Which I was in 16 years ago. I know the kids would love it but after saying yes I change my mind and explain to my mom that Saturday is an official “day off.” A whole day with no plans. Nowhere we have to be at any particular time. And I would be grateful to keep it that way. Our next day off isn’t until November 4th. My entire family wishes me a restful day off. Put your feet up, relax, says my dad. I spend a while (too long) deleting the 2000+ unread messages in my email inbox, and I have whittled the read messages down to 1500. Mac does his homework and I reply to Miss H’s message about how important the 10-15 minutes of homework each night is. I suggest, on three small pink post-its, that for explanation as to why we don’t have time for this, that she check out my blog. The kids and I wash their little wooden table and chairs and completely rearrange the playroom to fit them in. We empty out a bin of my college stuff to make a place to store their dress-up costumes. I take out the garbage. Bring 5 baskets of laundry down two flights to the basement. I start the laundry. I bring up and fold and put away some laundry. We drop by the bank. Sailor wants a cookie. Remember yesterday? He does. I am patient. I remind him. He fusses and cries. I am still patient as I explain that if he continues to fuss today he won’t get a cookie next time either. “But I will! Because I didn’t fuss!” Mac rubs this in. Outside the bank Mac is thirsty. “You told me you didn’t need me to bring a drink for you,” I remind him. I suggest, “Why don’t you ask Sailor for a sip of his milk?” “Because he probably won’t give me one.”
“I might,” says Sailor quietly, no longer fussing about the cookie, “because you are my brother.”

We head to the farmers’ market for pumpkins. I let them each chose one from the $3 pile. They are good-sized and rather heavy. Each boy holds a pumpkin in his lap in the double jogger. And I have just missed a Kodak moment. I have perhaps even missed the perfect Christmas card photo.

“Read this sign,” I prompt Mac. With a little help he manages to read “Pancake Breakfast.” For five bucks the kids and I have pancakes, sausages and orange juice at the local high school, from which, it pains me to admit, I graduated 20 years ago. And yes, it does actually seem as long ago as it sounds.

Our pumpkins are still tucked nicely into our stroller when we emerge, full and happy from the all-you-can-eat, at which one hand painted poster declares, “all benefits proceed UNICEF.”

Around 3:00 I come to the realization that it’s much too nice out to be inside rearranging furniture. We head to Starbucks and the playground. We are really, truly at the playground only five minutes this time before Mac’s, “I have to go to the bathroom.” On the way to the Cultural Center to poop I inquire as to the whereabouts of his chocolate milk. “In the playground. I left it behind on the cement.”

When he needs help I find myself in the men’s room wondering why I didn’t just accompany him into the ladies’ as I would normally do. We return to the playground and the milk, which is still where he left it. It’s getting colder and greyer. We head home to carve the pumpkins with Nana and GrandDad.

After I have put the kids to bed I head Sailor rustling in the bathroom and ask what he is doing. “I have go potty,” he says. But I still hear rustling, which doesn’t sound like potty. As I am writing about his Spiderman bandaids of yesterday he is adorning his fingers with Madagascar bandaids. That’s the last straw. Off to bed with you! He is crying, which puts him to sleep immediately and I am free to enjoy my day off. It’s 9:00 p.m. There are no sheets on my bed because someone (aka Mac) peed this morning. Oh, well, I can’t breathe enough to sleep anyway.

10:44 p.m. There are NO MESSAGES in my inbox. I haven’t seen that message in literally years! I feel triumphant!

Week 6 Already?

Monday. Columbus Day. No school. Hurray! Except Mac doesn’t even notice. I drop him off at my art studio for a morning of camp with a few of his favorite girls: Anika, his fiancée, Carter from preschool last year, and Olivia, his new favorite girl in kindergarten. Sailor opts to go to Dunkin Donuts for coffee with me, Carter’s mom, and Nanea’s mom and baby sister. He licks the powder sugar off his donut and is fairly patient. GrandDad calls and wants to come along to stock up on canvasses for the art studio. Not sure why he thinks we need his help, but maybe he’s just lonely. We pick him up. We pick up a cart full of canvasses. We go shoe shopping at a horrible store at which I have an unfortunate $100 credit. We drop off GrandDad. We drop off a bag of playroom debris at the Salvation Army, or as Sailor calls it, just the Army. We retrieve Mac and head to lunch with Anika and her sister and mom. We simply could not pass up the invitation to dine at Mac’s favorite 50’s diner where the waitstaff is downright rude and Mac thinks he can be, too. And we also couldn’t pass up a date with Anika. After lunch (where no one ate anything except the French fries) we do a quick bit of birthday shopping (more pj’s!) and head home cuz Mac has a tummy ache. Mac does well at his tap class and has passed his probation period. He is allowed to stay (and I am allowed to pay!). We scarf down fish sticks and pasta and hop into Mommy’s bed for our favorite show at 7:00 only to find that it has been moved to Sundays. Sigh. Sailor goofs off so much I have to send them to their own rooms. Mac obeys and is out like the proverbial light. Sailor creeps back in to my bed and falls asleep.

Tuesday. Sailor climbs into the car and steps on the purple balloon monkey that was made for me at Mac’s bully’s birthday party on Saturday night. Which we walked to. The balloon has made its way to the car because I left it on our stairs, hoping it would disappear rather than come home with us. It didn’t. Sailor rescued it and now it’s in the car. Except Sailor steps on it. “I’m sorry I popped your monkey, Mommy. I guess it’s not a monkey anymore.” Does is sound as funny on paper as it did in real life? I break the preschool ice by asking Sailor if he thinks Curious George will want Monkey Chow for snack at school. “Let’s ask S if she has Monkey Chow,” I suggest. Sailor giggles away and thinks it is a terrific idea. Except he wants me to ask. And when we arrive I do. We had planned to make S laugh. Instead, S steps right in, “I’m sure we absolutely have Monkey Chow here at school. You can help me make it.” Score another for this teacher! Ten minutes and Sailor is reluctantly ready to be escorted to the bean bag in the corner. I choose a book for him, give more kisses and hugs, and I am off. No one is in tears. At least no one from my family.

“I don’t want to be Mac anymore. I don’t like that name.”
I suggest he go by his middle name, instead. Do all kindergarteners do this, I wonder, recalling the day 33 years ago when I changed my name. I wore a nametag proclaiming I was “Jenny Rebecca,” all day. I was fond of the Barbara Streisand song of the same name. My classmates didn’t like my new name. They liked my name better, so they told me. I changed it back the next day.

“What if they can’t say it?”
Yes, “Seth” could be a little difficult for the more verbally challenged.

Sailor bounds out of school, George under his arm. “MOM! I made you a project!” Indeed, he hasmade three. “I made them to make you happy.”
“Well, you sure did make me happy. Thank you!”
“When we going to BRODY’S HOUSE?! LET’S GO!” He has become somewhat impatient these days. We have scheduled a lunch date with another of his classmates in the ongoing attempt to acclimate Sailor to school. In the car we ask Sailor what he did in school today. He describes lion cookies and berry juice. And then he says, “I was checking out Mac’s friend from last year.” Though we are unable to figure out of what child he was speaking, we both thoroughly enjoy the statement.

We drop Mac at the big school. I poke my head into a minivan to convince pretty little Samantha that one day without her backpack won’t kill her. In nicer, more convincing words. Nothing like some grown up you don’t know talking directly to you and telling you what to do to get you to do it. Samantha hops out of the van, ready to play. In Mac’s backpack, tucked into his otherwise empty folder, is an envelope containing 10 $1 bills. The room mother has requested that all parents contribute $25 for Halloween festivities, field trips, etc. I contribute $10 and a note of explanation of our finances. Sailor and I drive back over to Brody’s, where the kids play until Brody decides he wants a nap. At 2:00 we leave and head for Target so Sailor can spend his birthday gift card on a very noisy and obnoxious Batman sword. Since when does Batman need a sword?

Starbucks is in Target. Tall decaf iced pumpkin spice latte. Two kid chocolate milks.

Sailor is asleep moments after we exit the parking lot. I get to school in time to get the last of the illegal-but-ok-to-park-with-your-blinkers-on-for-a-minute parking spaces. But I wait till the kiddies come out, almost 10 minutes late, before running across the street (without the crossing guard’s permission) to grab Mac. “Who’s coming over to play today?” he all but wails as we near the corner to cross back to our car. “Um…” quick, think! “Well, your dad is coming tonight. Is that good enough?”
“Oh. Sure. Ok.” Phew!

Homework tonight. Read the poem. Circle all the Dd’s. We’ll do it in the morning. Hurray for letter D. I think I may use these worksheets and poems as Christmas gifts. Why not. If we get at least to N for Nana by the holidays everyone in the family can have their own unique set of Mac’s Homework, in their own first initial! It’s a keepsake gift, for sure!

14 kids have RSVP’d yes to Mac’s Halloween Bash on the 27th. At the Paintmy art studio. Where we have seating for 16. Hmmm… This ought to be interesting.

Mac spends the remainder of the evening trying to get me to engage in an impromptu fire drill. He had another one at school today. And he watched a video in library because Miss D wasn’t there. He knows all the teachers names: his class teacher, the gym, music, library and art teachers. Yet he spent two years of preschool asking me which of his three teachers -- who look absolutely nothing alike – was which. Sailor has that one down already!

Wednesday morning the kids decide to boycott ice skating in favor of playing at the German boy’s house. We leave the house at 10:30, driving over to save time. Sailor spends the entire time talking about the French boy who lives downstairs and wondering when he’ll be there. When we leave at 12:20, our bellies full with pepperoni pizza bagels and gummy bears, we are greeted with much chillier weather and the realization that Mac has left his backpack at home. Glad for the car we head home for said backpack and warmer jackets. Sailor falls asleep on the way home but wakes up after I gently place him on Nana’s bed. I wrap him in a blanket and plop him into the stroller. I am 15 minutes late for step 3 of 4 of my root canal/new tooth. I arrive in a bad mood. But Dr. Dentist points out how cute and little my cute little guy is and reminds me how soon he’ll be a grumbling teenager like his own three. I can’t stay angry for long. I leave with my face numb and swollen. I have a crooked smile and blood breath. Sailor falls asleep for real on the walk home and I am able to deposit him on Nana’s sofa. I retrace my steps to retrieve the kindergartener. The 3:15 bell rings as I sit on the wet bench in the cold rain. The mother of the triplets takes pity on me and offers me her extra umbrella, which I take. When the children emerge, late as usual, Mac and I book over to FTK. The twins, son and daughter of the male half of the morning radio duo, greet Mac and share his cookies while I return the little boy’s Spiderman underpants to their glam mom. I remind Mac not to make a silly video today and walk over to Barnes & Noble for some moments of solitude. I find and read half of a great book before buying a tall decaf Americano with room for cream and totally dissing the new coffee shop at the nearby competitor bookstore. I splash and spill decaf all over the plastic bag holding the book on my walk back to Mac. I am not so glam, I decide. An impostor really. A real glam mom can walk without spilling coffee.

It’s now freezing and still raining and we have quite a long walk home, which I try to do while holding Mac’s little mittened hand with my right and the splashy coffee with my left. My bag is digging a trench in my left shoulder.

Dinner is on the table by 6:30. Mac is pooped out and in bed by 7:00. I call Lisa. It’s been way too long since we’ve talked to anything but one another’s answering machines. Sailor goofs off. Eat, I tell him. He gets up and pulls magnets from under the shelf and begins decorating the fridge. At 8:00 Mac knocks over his baby rocking chair and half the books on the top shelf of his book case. Mommy is unhappy. I hang up with Lisa and tell Sailor it’s time for bed. Sailor looks for the remnants of dinner and finds only a clean kitchen table. Sailor is unhappy. He wants food. I patiently explain that if you leave the table it means you are done eating. A battle ensues. I tell Sailor he must find his own food. He wants me to cook food. I refuse and yell at both boys.

Sailor ends up sleeping in my bed. Mac wets his.

Thursday. It’s COLD out today. The preschool field trip that we are not going on is cancelled and Sailor has to -- I mean gets to – go to school. He goes willingly, pretty much. In one hand, Curious George, in the other a leaf he retrieved from the gutter yesterday for his teacher. In my back pocket, tuition. In my hands invitations for Sailor’s Halloween Bash and The Giving Tree, which Sailor had decided last-minute to bring to the class. Sailor is also wearing the top half of his monkey costume: A very warm, padded jacket complete with not only a hood but mittens. This was an easier choice for mittens, after discovering the chill in the air while taking out the neighbors’ garbage cans, than going to the basement for our winter gear. He is a happy little monkey this morning. I escort him to the beanbag, his safe haven in the classroom. He wants to keep the monkey suit on but tells me after school that he did have to take it off when he was doing his project for me because glue kept getting on it.

Mac reminds me to stop for coffee on the way to the talking doctor. He needs a banana to go with his hot chocolate, which he gets because it is snowing. The hot chocolate, not the banana. Yes, snowing. On October 12th. He is sure we will have snowball fight later in the day or tomorrow.

After discussing my anxiety ranging from partially hydrogenated oils to North Korea with Mac’s talking doctor, we head to Ulta for nail polish. Mac spies Subway and we spend $9 on sandwiches, which we bring home. No parking. I opt to double park for 30 minutes. We’ll drive to pick up Sailor. But I hear the “ooga” of a police horn and book out of the bathroom to find a parking space. Leaving Mac in the house. He’s fine but I am freaking. I get a space on our street, we eat, and we bundle up to go get Sailor. He’s a happy little monkey with a project for Mom! He falls asleep on the way home but it’s the same false sleep as yesterday.

Later we sit at Nana’s house waiting for Sailor to wake up from his very late and very real nap. Finally he does, but I am completely unmotivated in terms of dinner. I sit in my mom’s kitchen soaking up the warmth of being parented instead of parenting, if only for a moment. I feel safe here. My mother is safety for me. Even now. Will I always be safety for Mac and Sailor? I hope so. I have made promises of safety to them. It’s what moms do. And the thing is, as I am promising, I am also believing. It is my duty to keep my children safe, and by G-d I will do that, whatever the cost. Mac asks my mother, “Where’s GrandDad?” Downtown at the Daily Center, she tells him. “Mac, that’s like at your school. You have centers there, too!” Sailor exclaims, so excited with himself.

Mac announces he wants to be a firefighter when he grows up. Again. He vacillates between firefighter, doctor and something akin to Renaissance man. It seems to be fire safety week at school. Again? Still? I was lead to believe there is a fire drill once a month at school. Yet Mac seems to be having them regularly. “Mom, you go out the gym door right here. See? If there’s a fire in the gym.” He wants to have a fire drill at home and keeps ringing voiced alarms. But it’s never convenient. I am a terrible mom.

Friday. We spend the morning in a high rise. Have I mentioned how much I loathe high rise buildings? We are visiting the 23rd floor. The view of the park is stunning. I can’t wait to leave. Mac likes this little girl because she likes boy things. They play with Star Wars toys and look through Star Wars books for the duration. My boys are in Star Wars Heaven. This girl has five light sabers! My boys only have two of the good ones. The kids eat “spegli” for lunch and the mom says she’ll drive the big kids to school. No, I say, we have the stroller. We’ll walk. She is surprised and mentions that she was planning to drive them to school. Yes, and she was planning that I would drop Mac off, too. This mother does not know me. I begin to explain about the car seats; our top-of-the-line super-safe European car seats have been installed by a certified car seat tech (yes, really) and I never take them out of the car. What kind do you have? the mom wants to know. Britax. That’s what we have, she assures me. Ok, but still. I have to go in for the kill. “No one has every driven my kids anywhere. Except for me. Sorry. I’m just a ridiculously overprotective mom.” She understands. “Ok, so how about if you just take my girl to school with you then?” Sure. No problem. I’ll walk her to school. Easy as that. I really am way too overprotective. We get to school and the girl slips into the building before I see her do so. So I have to assume she is really in there. Which is why I don’t let others take my kids. Right, I even grilled Jake’s grandma earlier this week about how she will walk the kids to school next Thursday when I let Mac play with Jake (I’ll have to leave to get Sailor from school, and there’s no sense bringing Mac along as Jake’s house is so close to school). Somehow I put more trust into Jake’s grandma than in most of the moms. Perhaps it’s just because we have had enough time to get to know one another while waiting for our boys. Nonetheless, I was sure to regale her with tales of my overprotectiveness and pummel her with questions such as, “You’ll make them stop at the alleys?” She doesn’t think I am nuts.

“Mom, when I go to college, will you come with me?” Mac is obsessed with the notion of college. Perhaps because he sees it as a separation from me. Thirteen years from now. “Yes, I will live very close to you.” I am obsessed with the notion of being separated from my children. I hope they decide to attend the same university. “Maybe you can go to the college that is right around the corner,” I suggest on Friday night as we drive toward DePaul University on the way to a birthday party. “Where, Mom, where? I don’t see it.” Be patient, I tell him. It’s right around the corner, and I’ll tell you when we pass it. “Can you live with me?” No, I explain, he will have a roommate. “But we can get together for coffee every single day at 2:00,” I say, inspired, and optimistic that we will be financially stable enough to buy that much stock in Starbucks in the year 2019. “Ok, Mom, maybe during recess we can get together and have coffee.” Yes, and I used to try to imagine how one would actually sleep at school.

Mac goes crazy at one of those fancy, brightly colored, over-priced gyms where one of his preschool classmates from last year is celebrating her 5th birthday. These children. Five years old. It seemed as if they were all such big kids last spring when one by one Mac’s classmates turned five. But now, I look at my little boy and see just that. A little boy. A very little boy. Five is just kindergarten. He shares his goody bag with his little brother when he gets home. Not that I give him a choice not to. It’s bad enough we had to leave brother behind.

Mac falls asleep easily but Sailor is requiring fewer and fewer z’s as of late. Once I have them both tucked into my bed (which has remained dry for nearly two weeks now, knock on wood!) I head to the nursery with a screwdriver. Sailor has been out of diapers for 8 months now, yet his changing table has remained in place, assisting with very few diaper changes, but doing double duty holding all tiny size 2T/3T underpants, tiny undershirts, a mass explosion of pajamas, and un-foldable bed sheets. It’s time to dismantle the last effect of babyhood. The crib was replaced by the toddler bed over the summer so it could be used by one of my friend’s twins. The diapers are long gone. The highchair has been a furniture fixture of the kitchen for so many years we don’t see it as anything more than a holder for the wipes that double as table and face wipers. All that remains of my babies is the changing table. Set up nearly 5 ½ years ago by an eager father-to-be, an excited grandfather-to-be, and a very young uncle-to-be. It was probably the first piece of furniture Mac used when he came to our first home. It was probably the most used piece of furniture, as well. I set to it with a screwdriver. It is easy. Physically, anyway. Emotionally, I put the beautiful cherry wood pieces away longing for the day I’d re-mantle the changer, as Sailor called it, perhaps for my sister’s first baby, or perhaps for my third. In the back of my mind I know there’s a chance I’ll never have to re-mantle it. I wonder if that’s a word. I force the notion of never form my mind.
I am nostalgic. Or maybe just ovulating. (No, not yet, maybe next week.) But I want to jump back into that great circle of life. I want to mother a tiny baby again. These two are getting big so fast. I have been so lucky and so blessed to be their mom. Are they lucky to have me? Mac says he is.

I don’t think Sailor will be happy to see his big boy room. So I don’t point it out in the morning. Mac notices, though. And when Aunt M comes to visit, Sailor proudly declares that because we have made more room in his 6-foot x 6-foot box, “Now I can get more toys!” Did I really say we could do that? Well, it sounded good at the time!

Both boys have been full of great lines this week. If only my computer hadn’t caught a nasty virus, I’d have had them all down here for the reading. And you’ll just have to stop by and listen to their chatter yourself. Or take my word for it.

Mac’s folder on Friday afternoon is filled with more papers. Not homework or finished work but notes for me. The PTA is in need of volunteers for the Thanksgiving Fest coming up in a month. And they need donations of used books, CDs, DVDs, videos…. The wrapping paper sale is almost over. Get your money in ASAP! There’s a raffle thing-y, too, and parents are needed to chair the event and solicit raffle prizes. And can we send over some more money too, while we’re at it? I hope it’s enough that we are clipping Box Tops for Education and that we’ve solicited our friends to help us. I have dropped some books to the school library. But I just can’t buy all this stuff. Nor can I volunteer for everything. But I really would like to. Really.

Week 34 Happy Birthday Mac

My baby turned 6 today. Which may be why he woke me up at 6:00 a.m. “Mac!” Sailor cries. “You’re 6!” “Say ‘Happy Birthday’ to me,” Mac whispers back. “Happy Birthday.” Mac kisses me. “I’m 6!” and I’m tired. He reads me the time off the VCR and I beg the kids to go back to sleep, which they don’t. So out of desperation I turn on the tv. Mr. Rogers is on. “It’s Uncle Rogers,” Mac is excited to see the quiet man he first discovered a few years ago – which seems like a lifetime ago – just before the icon of children’s television died. They let me sleep til 7:15. I feel hungover when I drag myself out of bed. Mac wants to open a few things. Three. No, five. Six. I am trying to pull his coveted Cabbage Patch Kid (or Patch Kid in Sailor lingo) out of its box when I decide it’s of greater priority to me to go pee. I am soooo tired. The CPK is named Pierre, which means he must speak French! Hee hee. Mac is excited by new t-shirts: “Cool, Mom, did you order these for me?!” and he loves the little silver heart charm I am hoping to pin to the inside of his backpack. He opens a bag of chapter books about Anne Frank (which he wants to read right away), Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Harry Houdini. He get StarWars things and I am amazed at his ability to be so excited about a toy he himself picked out at Toys R Us just yesterday. I prepare a very nice breakfast and I am soooo tired. Mac gets the first shower, I tell him, becuz it’s his birthday. We get it down to 5 minutes today and I am drying him off at exactly 9:38 a.m. “Now am I six?” “Yes, now you are officially six.” And he is. To the minute. And I pick him up and hold him. He is 3 feet 10 and about 45 pounds but in my eyes, in my arms he is 17 ¾ inches long and just 5 ½ pounds and his whole butt, not just half of it, fits in my hand. He is beautiful. Red hair. Soft skin. Freckles. I am in love.

And in this moment I realize we are only going forward, never back. With every passing moment, every passing year Mac just gets bigger and bigger and more and more capable of living. He is not going to ever be the tiny baby I could nurse while putting on make-up. Not ever again. Or the tiny miracle who said his first word at 5 months old (I swear, it’s in his baby book!). He’s never going to be the smartest baby I have ever known. He is never going to be small enough to pick up and hold for more than a minute or two. He was. It was him. It still is. But he is moving forward and I want to stay in the past. I cling to Sailor, just 3 ½ and still small enough to be a “baby.” I love the kid Mac is becoming. And I love the connection that he and I share. I let him go to his room to get dressed. But the clothes I have left out confuse him and he comes back to ask if there are choices. No, I explain, underwear then outfit. With t-shirts sometimes going under the main shirt and sometimes going over, getting dressed can sometimes be confusing. Mac has a very long phone conversation with my sister while I get ready, during which he tells her he invited his dad to his birthday dinner tonight even though he doesn’t like his dad very much anymore. Apparently he also puts the new CPK, Pierre, and Sailor’s CPK, Danny, on the phone, as well. Everyone enjoys the conversation. It’s getting late and I want to take Mac to lunch. I didn’t plan well so we can only go to our fave little place in the neighborhood, Cosi. Mac brings Pierre and Sailor brings Curious George. He fusses through most of lunch, but the guy who works there makes up for it by buying Sailor a lemonade and each boy a hot chocolate before we leave. I carry a cup holder with 5 drinks and Curious George in one arm and hold Sailor’s hand with the other hand. Mac thanks me for taking him to lunch. And I know I am doing a good job with him.

It’s getting warmer and warmer outside and we get home in time to change Sailor’s chocolate covered shirt and pack the cupcakes, milk, cups, napkins and Sailor into the wet stroller. Mac is wearing the cardboard crown that reads “It’s My Birthday,” which he got at Toys R Us yesterday. I think he is a dork. I wonder if he will wear this crown to school next year when he is turning 7 in 1st grade. I realize he is not a dork. He is merely an innocent little boy. And I love that about him.

Sailor is confused. Why didn’t Mac lose a tooth today? He isn’t really 6, his tooth didn’t fall out!

Sailor and I hang out at school with Mac in his classroom and after the first activity Sailor and I, or I should say I, set up 30 places with a napkin, cupcake, and cup of milk. I video tape Mac standing on a chair conducting his class in their singing of “Happy Birthday to You (cha cha cha!)” and snap photos like a tourist of my two little boys enjoying their cupcakes side by side. Sailor is so well-behaved in the kindergarten class. He is shy, maybe even intimidated, but he holds his own. Sailor and I escort Mac to the principal’s office where Mac offers a banana cupcake to the head honcho, who invites him into his inner office and offers him a birthday pencil and takes a few moments to show him (and Sailor, who is peering out from behind my leg, literally) a rain stick and a thunder drum. I am surprised by the display. Most of the kids seem to like our cupcakes and everyone but the Australian girl wants more milk. One would think no one remembered to feed these children an hour ago. I am heartbroken to leave Mac at school. In six years I have never been away from him on his birthday. Not for even a moment. I try not to look back. Sailor and I walk home slowly. I am hoping he will fall asleep but he does not. We inflate balloons and tie them to chairs and finish getting ready for our party tonight. Sailor falls asleep in the stroller on the way back to school an hour later. I let Mac play in the playground for a bit but I am so disgusted by the behavior of some of the older children -- “What do you mean my little boy was humping you? He would never behave that way! He doesn’t even know what that is! So don’t take his hat. If you have a problem, come find me and let me know.” “Fine.” “Don’t take attitude with me or I’ll find your mother!” and then from another charming bigger boy to a girl, “Hit him, hit him!” Me: “Hey, you hit him and I’ll hit you!” I am only not put off by the boy who comes to me to tell me that he did not take Mac’s hat (because I yelled at him for wearing it, even tho I saw another boy put it on his head). I tell this boy he is fine and not to worry. 4:00 comes not fast enough and we leave. I think seriously about talking to the principal about this bad older kid behavior.

We discuss the fact that Mac is now officially old enough to eat popcorn, now that he has finally outgrown the risk of popcorn as a choking hazard age (tho anyone can choke on popcorn) and we try to think of a time we can either go to a movie this week or just have some popcorn at home together.

My sister and Mac’s “aunt” and two little “cousins” are waiting outside when we get home. “Happy 6th Birthday Mac!” is written in chalk on the sidewalk.

Inside I start dinner while the kids destroy every last bit of the work just completed by the cleaning girls. My sister opens the wine. There are a mere 9 people in my house and yet the noise, chaos and mess are overwhelming. Dinner is delicious tho. Mac and I have chosen to serve our new fave, broccoli, tofu and brown rice. There are balloons, streamers, StarWars masks…. A special “Happy Birthday Mac” banner that I got from a mom whose son had his birthday party at the art studio a couple weeks ago. And Mac’s birthday portrait is on the wall. It’s a party. Mac’s dad doesn’t eat. My dad avoids the tofu. I drink wine.

After dinner Mac opens a firefighter raincoat and his very first umbrella, roller skates (which Sailor takes over immediately), books, work books, a new leather belt, a dino dig, and a StarWars fighter plane of some sort. He is happy. He is well-loved and spoiled a bit. But mostly just well-loved. Sailor handles it all pretty well, especially as he is sure Mac will share everything. Which we know he will, if not today then soon.

“I want to eat some cake,” requests Mac’s four-year-old “cousin.” My sister brings up Mac’s chocolate cake with white frosting (per his request) that is decorated with his StarWars guys in battle, and a very cool candle: Darth Vader holding a red light saber – a candle. It’s a great cake. And I hate how it takes so long to prepare the cakes and only a second to cut into it and destroy the beautiful picture. After my dad, Mac’s dad, and the rest of our family guests leave, I assign everyone a room to clean up. More or less. Sailor runs around and Mac gets into bed. I read to him from his new Houdini book. “I’m really into madicians and StarWars,” he tells me. “And Anne Frank, and … (I name a few other things he really likes these days) and Mommy!” I snuggle him. “That’s the thing I’m into most,” he tells me. I love this kid!

After three chapters I am antsy with exhaustion. Tho never as tired as I was the day he was born. That was the most tired I have ever felt in my entire life. Tonight I am tired from everything I have put into making today great for the little boy who has made me a mother and made my life great.

I kiss his pink cheek, his freckled nose. I am so grateful for this little being. I am so amazed that he is mine. That I still have him. That the world has not destroyed itself and us with it (which was my fear, when, at nearly 4 months old, I thought we would never see his 5th birthday after we suffered through September 11th together). I am eternally blessed by this child. Mine. My very own. My baby boy.

It is his birthday today. And it is the day that my life was irrevocably changed because I became a mother. Six years ago. Forever ago. I cherish every moment, cliché that it is.

Happy birthday my beautiful baby boy, my little Mac. I love you like crazy!

Two nights ago I told Mac it was his last night of going to sleep 5 and still waking up 5. Last night I told him he’d go to sleep 5 and wake up 6. Tonight I tell him he will go to sleep 6 and wake up 6 for the first time. I am such a sap!

Tuesday night we sit at dinner. The back door is open. It feels like summer. From no where Mac asks, “What’s a Piscalalian?”

“A what?” I ask.

“A Piscalalian. What Nana is. You know, not Jewish and not Christian.”

I have to call my mother. “Be patient and listen to Mac’s question,” I tell her, trying not to giggle.

I hear Mac’s end of the conversation only. “I know what a church is…”

When he hands the phone back to me a minute or two later he has some idea of what an Episcopalian is.

Wednesday morning Mac has kindergarten. The school has a half day and it’s the afternoon kindergarten’s turn to get to go to school and the morning class’s day off. We walk over. School starts at 8:53 a.m. so we get a good taste of what school mornings will be like next year. I think it’s going to kill us. Because despite the fact that we were up at 6:40 this morning we still had to kick it to get to school on time.

Sailor and I walk home and stop at the bank to deposit the bi-weekly child support check. And then we run home to pick up the video camera and drop off the stroller. We drive to soccer and get stuck in traffic on the way. Sailor’s friend Lauren is joining him today. Which I am hoping will help him feel more comfortably in the class without Mac. We arrive to find Lauren sitting in the stands with her mother and little brother. Shy like Sailor, she is reluctant to join the class on her own. It takes Sailor far less time to warm up today and he does not cry. I get cute video footage of Sailor and Lauren sitting together, so well-behaved… Is that really my kid? I wish this version lived in my home.

Sailor invites Lauren to join us on the picnic we are going on after we pick up Mac from school. We make a plan to meet in the park at noon and hurry to Trader Joe’s for brioche, turkey, blackberries, strawberries, lemonade, and crackers. We barely make it home with 5 minutes for me to make a complete picnic lunch, go to the bathroom, and get Sailor to put his shoes back on. Luckily we find parking almost immediately.

It’s nice picking up Mac so early. We have the whole rest of the day to do as we please. Our picnic is delicious and when the kids run out of our sight too many times we move over to the playground. Where Sailor’s little friend pops on a diaper to pee. Whatever.

Mac got roller skates for his birthday and he and I picked up a new set of knee and elbow pads for Sailor on Tuesday. So we gather up all of our roller gear and head outside after a quick water break. While sitting on the front steps Mac suddenly calls out, “Rat!”

A small, cute-ish, terrifying, rat is laboriously climbing up the next door neighbors’ steps and heading our way. “GET IN THE HOUSE!” I scream. I dash up the stairs. Sailor is crying hysterically because he can’t get up the stairs in his roller skates. I run down and grab him. The rat disappears and we are all so disgusted and horrified I never want to set foot on my front steps again. We regroup and head back down. Making lots of noise so Ratatouille does not come out for another visit. We head around the block for a 40-minute skate. Really. Sailor and Mac are wearing matching camo Superman shirts. Mac’s is big but Sailor’s is enormous. Pair this with their helmets, knee and elbow pads and gloves (Sailor’s set came with fingerless gloves and Mac has pulled out a pair from winter – a smart move) and they are smashingly adorable.

The day goes on and on and we are really getting a nice taste of what summer is going to be like.

Thursday morning Sailor trashes Mac’s room. He gets in trouble. Yet he cries when I try to leave him at school because he wants to be with me. I swear… the boy has exactly 3 days left of school and he is still crying at drop-off!

Mac and I do some shopping for birthday party food for Saturday. And then we stop for a coffee and sit outside in the warm sunshine. I tell Mac about my plan for him and Sailor this summer regarding French class. As Mac doesn’t want to go and Sailor does but won’t go without Mac, I have decided to stoop to the level of bribery. I tell him that I will give him $1 per week to take Sailor to French class. “You’ll have quite a lot of dollars by the end of the summer,” I tell him, “and if you want, you can buy something special.” “Like maybe a bunch of flowers for you,” my dear darling boy replies. I am gushing! “Oh Mac!” he comes to me and I wrap him in my arms. “Why are you so sweet?” “You raised me this way,” my beloved son says.

Mac feeds pigeons. “Pichkins” he used to call them when he was not yet 2 years old. I tell him not to feed pigeons. He thinks he is sneaking them food. But I am not that unaware.

We have a nice morning. When I am with him I wonder what my life would have been like if he were my only one; if I’d never had Sailor. Yet when I am with Sailor I wonder what it’d be like to be the mom of just a 3-year-old. Each of my children is so unique, so utterly delightful when he wants to be; so much to cherish. I love their smallness.

We walk to get Sailor from school and on the way to the big school he takes off his sandals, which he claims hurt his feet. Mac is making similar claims about his sandals as well. Which leads me to regret spending less than $15 per pair. And which will lead me to Nordstrom over the weekend to pick up two pair of StrideRites. By the time we arrive at school Sailor, who wants to get out of the stroler, can't because he has lost a sandal. We backtrack several blocks before finding the stray crossing an alley without a foot to walk it. And all for a pair of shoes I plan to return next week (but I guess you can't return a pair if you don't have a pair!).

Sailor convinces me to let him watch tv when we get home. I don’t know how he does it but I think I am just too tired to protest. My feet are falling off – the $76 sandals I bought a few weeks ago have given me blisters on the bottoms of my feet and every other pair of sandals is cutting the heck out of the tops of my feet and since I walked probably no fewer than 4 or 5 miles yesterday my legs are just wiped! He watches one video – an old one about Elmo and a Firehouse which Mac used to call Elmo Fire when he was a baby. He comes into the kitchen to find me mixing up yet another batch of banana cupcakes – my 3rd in a week – and says, “The tv was faster than you.” He is pleased with this and goes off to play. We play pirates for a few minutes, which basically means we put together the pirate ships. And then Sailor pretends he can’t put on his own shoes when it‘s time to leave and the next battle begins. He sticks his tongue out, I let him taste soap, he spits said soap at me, I ask him whether he wants more soap. I realize he is tired so I leave him in the bathroom and finish gathering snacks. And he falls asleep on the way to school.

There is a thing going on at school tonight. Tho nobody seems clear on the who, what and why of it. I fill everyone in on the fact that there will be hotdogs at 5:30, a reception for the retiring principal (for whom Mac has purchased a flowering plant and written a card this morning) and teachers at 6, a band concert at 7 and an art fair in the gym. Several moms decide to wait with me in the playground until 5:30. I am armed with sippy cups and water, fruit and crackers. We are here for the long haul.

Until Mac has to go to the bathroom. Bad. No big deal. He always waits til the last minute. Run to the bathroom, leave Sailor asleep in the stroller under the watch of one of the kindergarten moms. I wait in the hallway and he seems to be taking a bit too long. I knock. “Are you ok?” “Yes. I just have diarrhea. But I’ll clean it up.” Clean it up?? I go into the boys’ room. Mac is in the middle stall and he tells me, “Some poop got on the front of the toilet.” I push open the door and there is poop everywhere. The floor. The toilet. Mac’s underwear. The back of his shorts. And it stinks. And I love being a mom. Because this is where my real mommy self kicks in. I clean it all up. Clean him up a little (it’s too hard without wipes) and make sure he feels ok enough to go home. He wants to go home and put on his pj’s and go right to bed. So much for our evening at school. We walk home quickly. He feels sick-ish and my feet are burning. We make it home. He gets a bath. And despite the fact that he eats a slice of watermelon and macker cheese for dinner, he is perfectly fine for the rest of the evening. I blame the episode on the strawberry shortcake ice cream bar-o-crap that I let him buy from the vendor outside of school. Never again.

During dinner Sailor tells us he has a song to sing for us. He performs an adorable preschool version of 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed. I love it. Then Mac tries to out do him.
A: Now you sing a song, Mommy.
H: Sing something from "Annie."
M: The sun'll come out tomorrow...
A: How come Annie's diarrhea was on the floor?
M: In the movie?
A: No, the other thing.
M: (clearly bewildered by Sailor's question) Do you mean the poopy kind of diarrhea?
A: No, the book kind. (Meaning Anne Frank's diary, which was found on the floor by Miep Geis after Anne and her family were discovered and taken away.)

Mac and Sailor are playing so nicely in the playroom after dinner. I am too wiped to do much so I retreat to the living room. I want to pop on the tv but I know the kids will be all over me like a cat to a can opener if I do, so I grab a book I started weeks ago and settle on the couch for some “me” time, which is exactly what the book is telling me to do. I listen to the boys play. I read. It takes them roughly 45 minutes to need me. And then all hell breaks loose. Or I should say all Sailor breaks loose. Mac is tired. I can see it in his eyes. He wants to go to bed. Sailor wants Mac to play with him. He throws a fit. When he is over it we play a rock game to see which boy’s story I will read first. Sailor wins and I read a dumb Batman book. Then it’s Mac’s turn. We are on chapter 5 of his new Houdini book. Sailor wants milk first. Then he wants more macker cheese, which there isn’t any of, and he wants to play with my nose and he is being terribly rude. I give him a choice: listen quietly or go into his own room. He chooses his own choice: continue to be an obnoxious and disruptive and tired little boy. He gets carried to his room. A battle ensues.

I am duly punished for taking 45 minutes of me-time. The boys want snacks and I wonder for the thousandth time why I ever bother to feed the boys dinner at dinner time. We always have to have a snack at bedtime, which occurs roughly right after dinner. Sailor uses his 15 minutes of snack time to whine about being thirsty and never actually eats his snack. And then it’s 8:30 and both boys are in bed. Except Mac is afraid and wants me to stay with him. I have to go to the bathroom first. Sailor hears me and wants to ask me a question about two illustrations in the book he is looking at. “Why,” he begins, flipping pages til he finds what he is looking for, “is he sad? And why is he…” he flips more pages, “angry?” Mac is waiting for me in his room. I am one mom. With two children, whose bedrooms are located on opposite ends of my house.

I am so harassed. And once again it’s after 11pm and I am still up and hungry. Sigh.

Friday.

My children’s perception of time is a little uncertain as of yet. Mac asked me today (which happens to be the 30th anniversary of the premier of StarWars), which came first, StarWars or the Titanic sinking! Mac was wowed when I explained that the Titanic sank before GrandDad was born and StarWars came out when I was nine!