Week 4, or Another 4-Day Week

Monday morning is the boys’ first day of gym class at a gym not near our house. We are early. For what I am sure will be not only the first time but also the last time. The class is for 3-5-year-olds but Mac towers over everyone in the class. Sailor, my little athlete, is too tired to participate and keeps coming over to me. I have to walk him through some of the routines. But I’m not the only one. A cute blonde in ponytails and a pink leotard (why do little girls insist on dressing like ballerinas for gymnastics class?) is being escorted around the gym by her dad. I don’t feel so bad. At least I am not cheering my children on from the sidelines as most of the parents are doing. No, I’m ignoring mine and stocking up on sex tips from Cosmo, which according to their reader polls, I am three years too old to be reading. I do catch the teacher bullying another three-year-old, a tiny girl who is having a hard time paying attention and staying in line on her first day. I am pretty much horrified and for my children’s sake I am considering making an offer to serve as assistant. There go my 60 minutes of me-time. Eh, who needs ‘em?

It’s a gorgeous day and I am reluctant to bring the kids inside after our walk home from kindergarten. So I bring them in only long enough for Mac to change out of his nice shiny new school clothes (Old Navy had a "spend $50 get $10 off "sale this weekend) and back into his I-spilled-oatmeal-on-them-before-we-even-left-the-house-this morning new gym pants. We head to the playground, but detour into Starbucks on the way. One Tall decaf iced Café Americano, two chocolate milks, one in a “big guy cup” aka hot cup and one in a “lid cup like Mama’s” (where is that darn Starbucks card Sailor just got for his birthday and why on earth has it not found its way into my wallet yet?!), and 15 minutes later, we are on our way. And it’s actually still warm out. We ran into some of Mac’s classmates and the mom and little sister of one. I’ve seen his mom around for years, but only now are we saying hello. Our kids played well. The other kids in the playground kept eyeing the coffee and two chocolate milks that we kept abandoning for activities that require the use of our hands. We’re doing well until, like clockwork (I swear this ALWAYS happens) Mac runs over desperately. “I have to poop!” I am mid-conversation with the other mom about how her daughter is scheduled to attend a tap dancing class in the park district building in 15 minutes. A class I was told that, for 5-year-olds, did not exist. We high-tail it over to the building and I deposit Mac in the Ladies room while searching out the tap teacher. 20 minutes later Mac is tapping his heart away, albeit in his Crocs, while Sailor and I speed walk back home for Mac’s tap shoes, $20 for 10 weeks’ tuition (Halleluiah, I can afford this one outright), and a bag of fishy crackers. At half past the hour I am told my darling is not paying attention and is running around the dance studio. That’s my boy!

Monday night is traditionally everyone-in-Mom’s-bed-to-watch-7th-Heaven night. Thank goodness they put the show back on the air following last season’s series finale. We’re all in. Mac with a big cup of water (I predict a very wet bed will greet me in the morning …. I am right!). 7th Heaven is on. But the best character, Ruthie, is not. It’s just not the same.

Tuesday. Sailor’s 5th day/3rd week of school. He cried all the way there. I am losing patience with this. It’s breaking my heart and wearing me down at the same time. He was dressed in this super-trendy man outfit, complete with funky hat. (Old Navy sale again!) And in his arm he carried his new and favorite pajama-clad Curious George. Twenty minutes of “2 more minutes” and Mac and I are finally permitted to leave. …sigh….

No school for Mac. It’s a half day and school is let out at 12:05. Luckily for us, Mac doesn’t start til 12:35. No school. We don’t even notice the absence of the rush to get from the end of the preschool day to the beginning of the kindergarten day. We go, on Mac’s suggestion, to Flat Top Grill for lunch. But I walk about 6 blocks or more in the wrong direction. Pushing the double jogger. The one that weighs 30 lbs empty, plus 42 lbs of Mac and 29.5 lbs of Sailor plus extra pounds of miscellaneous stuff such as jackets and my purse (yes folks, we are, after 5 years, traveling without diaper bag – after all, Sailor has been out of diapers since February). That’s over 100 pounds. I don’t weigh even 100 pounds. The boys eat up. Well Mac does. About six bowls of various things. Sailor picks at fresh fruit and edamame. The waitress neglects to charge me for Mac’s meal (Sailor is free; gotta love this place!). It’s been a great 90 minutes of lunch. Yep, the kids sat and ate and ate for 90 minutes.

Mac had no fewer than six tantrums today.

Wednesday is ice skating day. Something we all (ok, Mac and I at this point) look forward to. Except I made the fatal error of answering the insidious call by one of my credit card companies. At 8-bleeping:30 a.m. I am in a foul foul foul mood by the time we leave, LATE, for the ice rink. We arrive 5 minutes after the 45-minute session has begun. Mac has to pee. Sailor’s skates won’t go on. Mac’s skates are too big. “I don’t like it when I skate!” wails Sailor. And why are we doing this?

Rush home. Make pbj’s. Give kids 4 minutes to eat pbj’s. Drop kids in tub. Scrub scrub scrub. Get dressed. Wrap gift for German classmate’s birthday party, which is today after school. Pack stroller with extra jackets (sky is ominous), birthday gift, and bag of stuff for friend who has just had twins and whom we are scheduled to see this afternoon. Or so I think. Apparently, in my haze of over-scheduled-underpaid-single-motherhood, while I have made communications with the other mom who is supposed to meet us, I have neglected to confirm with the twins’ mom that we indeed have plan. I haul it all back home.

Note about kissing: Mac has, for the past three days of school, caught sight of his teacher and run right into the building without second thought to his beloved mother or brother. Friday I let it slip. Monday I called him back. Hug. Kiss. Run. But Sailor is left standing on the pavement outside school with his arms flung wide open, hugless. His face fell. We run in to retrieve the missing hug and kiss. Today he has gone off again and only when I shout his name (at which I am such a pro) does he turn, search the crowd and blow us a kiss! The nerve. Sailor and I head into the school after him for that which sustains us for the next 2 hours and 40 minutes.

DEaRMOM
PlEaZE
COMETO
OPENHOUSEONTHURzda
Y LOVE Mac

I am beside myself. This is his very first full length note to me. He earns a true hug. I adore this boy!

Off to the German boy’s party. 7 blocks away. The boys run all the way. Sailor sleeps. German mom serves champagne. To me, not to the 7 little boys, two of whom (hers) only speak German, one of whom only speaks French, and one who is not invited (Sailor) and takes a good hour to warm up. My French is better than the German mom’s. This surprises me. The French boy understands me. Maybe it’s the champagne. We are amazed at how well children of this age get along despite the fact that there are three languages between them causing a communicational barrier. They don’t seem to notice. They are happy. I am happier than I was this morning. We party til 7:00 p.m. then walk home.

Have I mentioned lately that I am exhausted?

Eight minutes til midnight. I’m in the kitchen pouring Grape Nuts into a Baby Tweety and Sylvester bowl. Mac’s (and Sailor’s – why not kill two birds with one stone?) homework is on the table. Trace the Bb’s. I remember that Mac has requested a different breakfast tomorrow morning after pointing out that I have served oatmeal three days in a row. He moans in his sleep. I go in to kiss him and whisper a version of my nightly mantra into his warm little ear. I wish, though not really, for him to wake up with a fever in the morning, causing us to have to abandon all plans except the one to get Sailor to school tear-free. I dump more sugar than cereal into my little plastic bowl.

Have I mentioned lately that I am exhausted?

Thursday morning at breakfast. “Am I going to school today?” Sailor asks. “Let’s not talk about that right now,” I say, only awake for 3 ½ minutes and spreading cream cheese on bagels. “Mom, talk to me!” He’s three. “Yes, you are going to school today, but let’s not talk about it right now, ok, Honey?” Fine. He doesn’t talk about it. He whines and cries and frets for the next 90 minutes. Despite my pleas he will not stop. Mac, meanwhile, tries on 5 shirts from his closet, all too small. And he has only one pair of clean pants.

At preschool there are more tears and lots of the usual, “I want be with you 2 minutes, Mommy,” and after the “two minutes” are up, “Wait! I need tell you something!” He allows me to leave him – still clutching Curious George and still wearing his Yoda sunglasses -- after I promise to return with chocolate milk and waffles.

Some guy in Starbucks wearing a truly cockamamie outfit that includes shorts, hairy legs and loafers like I’ve never seen before, convinces Mac he’d rather have a banana than a cookie, but THEN convinces the Barista to give Mac a big chocolate chip cookie for free! Let’s hear it for the perks of being cute! Mac pays the check with his own Starbucks card (yes, I know he’s only five!) and tells me, “This is my favorite part of the day.” Moments later chocolate milk spills from the left should on down of his cable knit cream sweater.

“Mommy let’s shop at Jewel, I have always wanted to shop at Jewel.” We pick up our milk, eggs, cereal and juice at Jewel. But they only have partially hydrogenated oil-filled Eggos. Trader Joe’s here we come! The Gap doesn’t have a rugby shirt that I like for Mac. Why did we stop anyway? We still have groceries in the car and a preschooler to fetch. He and Curious George have weathered another day at preschool. But I am ready to cry. No really, I am ready to cry.

But back in the car I am party to this conversation:
Mac: Look Mom, there are four Toyotas, I mean Hondas, see?”
Sailor: Yoda? Where Yoda?
Mommy: Toyota. It’s the name of a car.
Mac: No I said Honda!
Sailor: Who he?
Mommy: Honda is the car we have.
Sailor: You buy him?

By miracle we find a parking space in less than 15 minutes and closer than a mile away. We get ready to walk to school. Except Sailor needs a jacket, and he wants to go in and play. “You said!” “Yes, but we have to take Mac to school first! Are you hungry?” “Yes.” “What do you want to eat?” “Nothing!”

Mac remembers both the hugs and the kisses before disappearing into the brick and concrete building.

The sun is in Sailor’s eyes. “I want my Yoda glasses.” I don’t have them so I offer to walk down the shady streets. But this is no good for my over-tired preschooler. “I WANT MY YODA GLASSES!” It becomes his mantra. The whole way home. With only breaks to interject such gems as, “I don’t like you Mommy!” and “You’re not my Mommy anymore,” (if only I could kick down the stroller brake and walk away, if only for a minute!) and perhaps the best one, “You’re stupid!” (I keep my hands on the stroller.)

“Ok, let’s go take a nap!”

“I’m not tired!” This boy can scream. I mean really scream. I bring him to his bed. He kicks and thrashes. Just 4 hours earlier he lay upon the same bed, tugging the covers over him, protesting, “I’m too tired go school! I need a nap!” Stay there! Don’t get up. Back and forth. I slam his door. He opens it. I put him back on the bed. He gets up and slams the door. And so it goes. But, as I promised him, he did not win. He is asleep and the house is quiet. Of course, maybe he did win, because I hate myself.

Mac has a new friend. “I played with Olivia today. To make her feel better.” Her grandfather just died. “I told her I was going to make her a card. I told her my name because she didn’t know it.” What a golden heart! “OLIVIA!” he calls to the cow-print clad kindergartener atop the playground’s monkey bars. “BYE!”

Mac’s first class field trip is to the neighborhood fire station a few blocks away. Thank goodness. Yes, I check the box, I will assist (what I don’t write is that if I am not in attendance neither is my son). I abhor field trips. But this will be an easy one. Though I can’t help wonder where I might be expected to rest my weary feet between 12:35 drop off and the 1:00 trip. Don’t make me walk home and back! Cost of field trip: $0. Permission slip due date: October 9th. As in Columbus Day. As in a day off. Someone is really paying attention! Actually, I hope they are paying better attention to my kid than they are to their calendar!

Also in Mac’s folder: Wrapping paper sales! Right. Like I am going to fork over $7 a roll when I have perfectly good wrapping paper in the basement purchased at the end of last season for TWENTY FIVE CENTS! I don’t care how cute the flamingos-in-Santa-hats paper is! Circular file here we come. On the other hand…. Perhaps this would be a good time for Mac’s employed father to step up. I think we’ll have to send this form to work with him next week. Mama, you are brilliant!

Have my dad set to watch Sailor while I attend my annual darn-it-no-I’m-not-having-another-baby-yet appointment with my beloved obstetrician (I hate the word gynecologist and, even more, the shortened gyno, which make no sense given the fact that the word is spelled “gyne…”) on Monday. “Monday is Yom Kippur,” my dad informs me. What? Another, four-day week ahead? You’re kidding me, right?

I am early to the open house at Mac’s school. The irony in this is that until an hour ago I had no babysitter for my boys. My usuals, my parents and sister, were going to a 75th birthday party and babysitting for children who had bad colds respectively. My last-ditch effort to find a sitter, the kids’ dad, was in Springfield. “Don’t you remember I told you that I’d be here til Friday?” he told my answering machine. No, Dear, I don’t remember what I wore yesterday. I don’t like to be the first one at a party unless I can help out. So I made myself available to the kindergarten teacher. She didn’t need my help so I suppose what I was really doing was annoying her. She wore a beautiful smile the whole time, though. The gym was full of exotic foods such as curry chicken burgers and unidentifiable casseroles, and lots of sushi and pasta dishes. I did not contribute to the spread. But I most certainly enjoyed it. While standing alone in the crowded gym. Sushi in hand, pita in mouth I sidled up to another stray mom. “If I stand next to you then neither of us will look like we’re standing alone.” We chat about school until her husband rescues her from me and a friend’s neighbor rescues me from her. In the auditorium, now sporting not only purple velvet stage and window curtains but a purple floor as well, we are greeted by the principal, my sister’s former 6th grade teacher, an intense man with a very pronounced Napoleon complex. “Good evening.” Silence. “Good Evening!” he repeats. He actually expected a response. “GOOD EVENING!” he got one.

The kindergarten teacher “walks” us through the blazing hot kindergarten class. She is pummeled with questions by a well-meaning father who has apparently not asked any questions in the 4 weeks prior. I connect with the French mom who is entrusting me to walk her little boy to my house for an after school playdate tomorrow. (Another word I dislike, “playdate”. When we were little we just “came over to play.” Now all of a sudden our kids are on some kind of newfangled date?!) I flip open Mac’s journal and the page before me has a heart and some letters that look as if they are trying to spell “Mommy.” I read the message loud and clear: “I love Mommy.” I love this boy. Which I write back to him to find when he next opens his journal. I walk home behind/with a group of parents and discuss amounts of weight gained during pregnancy with the mother of a girl named Samantha.
Friday morning Mac is working on writing letter “Bb.” He says, though, that he is too tired to finish his homework. The German boy comes to play. The make sympathy cards for Olivia, the one whose Grandpa died. Now I have to decide what to write inside. I make macker-cheeze instead.

Over lunch, the German boy talks animatedly. About what, I have no idea. Though he uses his fork to gesture toward the various foods on his plate. He doesn’t realize that aside from some random words – I pointed to his apples and said a well-rehearsed “apfel” – we understand nothing he says. Likewise my own boys don’t grasp this concept either and attempt to discuss Spiderman, Curious George and whether or not the German boy wants an invitation to their upcoming (but not until December) boys’ only pajama party. The German boy shrugs or smiles, says no or, if he does understand, yes yes yes. We resort to recitation of our numbers, up to 36, and a chanting of the alphabet song. Yes, those we all understand. Aside from all this, language barrier not withstanding (I keep trying to speak French to the lad; argh! I don’t speak German!) the boys have a fantastic time and at 12:15 we head out for the walk to school. Someone has turned on autumn. Where are our hats? We’re all still tan.

We brought one of the French boys home with us this afternoon. This one speaks English. Ah, the irony. He and Mac walked along while Sailor wound down to whining after a 40 minutes screaming tantrum about…. What was it about? I have blissfully blocked out the ridiculousness of it. At home I cut a hot dog in half for the boys. But Mac didn’t like that it was charred and the French boy didn’t like mustard. They had pretzels and cereal for snack while I yelled at Sailor and tried unsuccessfully to get him to take his much overdue nap. The 5-year-olds played well. There was no language barrier.

I am unclear on the directions to Mac’s homework. We’ll figure it out later, maybe Monday morning. Mac’s pal from preschool last year, a boy with whom he conflicted every single day, has extended a verbal invitation through his father to his birthday party next Saturday. We are all invited, Mommy, Mac and Sailor. As if I’d let Mac go without me to the home of a boy who allegedly beat him up every day last year.

Mac is, without a doubt, the best dressed boy in kindergarten. I ask myself, though, why it would be so difficult for me to just put him in regular boy clothes. Like the get-up the German boy had on today. Nothing unusual. Just long red shorts. A striped t-shirt over a long sleeved light blue shirt. Socks adorned with soccer balls. Gym shoes. He looked fine. Like a little boy of 6 should. Mac looked like he was just finishing up a photo shoot for J Crew or GAP Kids. Navy turtleneck sweater. GAP khakis. Penny loafers. Is he a geek? Am I? Are all the other kids who can’t match their own clothes? Does it matter?

Mac understands that Sunday is October. He wants to buy and carve his pumpkins. He wants to start getting his Halloween costumes ready. Have mercy!

Mac is working on his letter B. But there is a challenging Y in his name and he wants to know how long til the class gets to Y. A long time, I tell him. And his teacher. Mac is thrilled when I tell him his teacher gave me a Y page to practice on. “I’m going to learn Y before everyone else!”

But sady I misplace the page and never actually give it to him.

Tomorrow night is the kindergarten class parents potluck dinner. I have been assigned to bring an appetizer. I think I am bringing something really tacky: homemade onion dip and potato chips. My dad made some today and offered it. I doubt I'll have any choice because I won't have time to stop at the store. But it is really yummy!

[Note: Sailor had a 2 ½ hour tantrum this afternoon. You know what my crazy 3-year-old did during his final crying stint?! You'll NEVER believe this: He CLEANED his room! Completely! It looked as if I'd done it. Can you believe that? I asked him if he knew why he was in his room and he said, "Because I didn’t stop crying."Ok, so punishment was over. He went out to dinner dressed as Santa Claus. But he started another routine at bedtime, not listening, bugging Mac in his bed, not putting on his pj's. ...and yet at the end of it all he wanted was to "be with you Mommy." My heart is broken. Again.