Christmas Break: Week 2

Week 2.
It’s a brand new year and while I would love to say it feels fresh and new, it does not. I will work as hard as I can to make it a different year, however. Starting with a cleaned-up house. Which we had this morning and sort of have now. And with some new rules, like the one I set for Mac this morning: No running through the house, penis clutched in hand, yelling, “I have to go pee!” You must WAIT until you reach the toilet before pulling down your pants. I think he got it cuz he just did it and then called out from the bathroom to let me know he’d remembered his new rule. The one I gave Sailor isn’t sticking quite as well. It’s: When Mommy asks you to do something, don’t whine and fuss and say “I can’t” especially when Mommy says we are in a hurry.

We had a fabulous party yesterday afternoon: our 7th annual New Year’s Day Hangover/Leftovers Party, where guests are asked to bring whichever they happen to have. This followed a breakfast at our favorite tapas restaurant. In our pajamas. We were on the evening news on two different channels. A fun way to start out a brand new year. But today we are absolutely wiped out. I sleep in. I think the boys may have, as well. When I finally roll over and stretch I think to myself, “I hope it’s not one minute past 9:30 at the latest.” It is 9:30, on the dot. The latest I have stayed in bed since before Mac was born. And our friends are due for a play date at 10:00! My voice mail is stacked with work messages. Our friends don’t show up and I spend 2 ½ hours on the phone during which time I make breakfast twice and macker cheese out of a box (it tasted foul), clean up some stuff, make a snack (which the kids eat right out from under me). I am definitely the QUEEN of multitasking. Late in the morning I realize all the bills stacked up are due tomorrow. I make more phone calls. Then we head to the bank where I make a deposit and the kids get cookies and I reprimand my favorite teller (and next door neighbor) for blowing off my party yesterday (apparently his version of hangover was appropriately consistent with his 23 years). We run errands. We have things to return from the holidays, including a knit hat I bought Mac. The tag says it’s a size 7-8 but it doesn’t even fit Sailor’s head. We do Starbucks, where the boys each pay their own way with their own Starbucks cards, which earns a comment from the Barista. We need fruit. We do Trader Joe’s. Sailor is exhausted. But when we get home the boys want to try out their new soccer ball from Old Navy. Mac chose it and paid for it with his Old Navy gift card. Sailor wanted one of his own but the ball he chose looked different. “We have to see which one of these is actually a soccer ball,” is what I told them. A young boy, maybe 10 or 12, in line in front of us, points out that while Mac has chosen a soccer ball, Sailor is holding a volleyball. That settles that, and I thank the boy. Sailor cries. Nonetheless, when we get home the soccer game is a hit. The boys, who really don’t know how to play, coached by their Mama, who really doesn’t know how to play, kick hard and fall hard and get a fabulous workout on a 50 degree January afternoon. I will have to do this again, get the boys out to the backyard. Afterall, it’s conveniently located, though small in size, at the back of our house. We never have played out there in winter. For no apparent reason.

Sailor is not looking forward to returning to school and continues to insist he has dropped out. I am tempted to let him if for not other reasons than to save money and because it’s so cold in the winter I would rather not go anywhere we don’t absolutely have to go. But I don’t think I will let him quit.

We eat leftover spegli and the boys have their pj’s on by 5:30. We are pooped! I am reading stories and I think the boys would both be asleep long before 7:00 of not for the fact that their father comes for a visit around 6:00. They play, read, and enjoy an extended round of hide & seek while I work. He prepares to leave just after 8:00. The boys are still up. It doesn’t occur to him to put them bed for me before he leaves. I pry gumdrops off a mangled gingerbread house as I ponder this. Sailor is crying because he wants his dad to stay and play. Mac has just wet his pants and is hanging from his father’s neck, half naked. I am not pleased and send him to his room for underpants, “RIGHT NOW!”

We have a few plans for the week. Nothing amazing or crazy, tho at some point I have to find a police officer in the vicinity who is able and more importantly, willing, to tighten up Sailor’s car seat. It’s wiggly. So we drove around to three different police stations last week looking for a certified car seat tech to re-install the seat. But none was available. Not that having a properly installed car seat isn’t potentially a matter of life or death or anything! I pointed this out to several unqualified officers. They were neither impressed nor did they seem to notice the irony. If only I weighed a normal amount and were a normal height and could install these things properly on my own! If only.

My other project this week is to find t-shirts and make each of us our own Bee Gees shirts. You should be dancing, yeah! Mac comes to me with his suede covered canteen that my parents brought back from a vacation out west a couple years back. “Sailor put monkeys in my canteen.” All I can say is, “Monkeys?”