Week 12 – Happy Thanksgiving

If this school year were a pregnancy I might be starting to show a little bit by now.

It’s another regular week. More or less. We start our Monday with me oversleeping. We had a long weekend. Or I did, anyway. I drove over 100 miles on Saturday to end up right back where I began. But gosh darn it I was able to fulfill my commitment to present my book at the Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Day in the far southwest suburbs in the morning and still get my kids to my college best friend’s little boy’s birthday party in the northwest suburbs in the late afternoon. The party was at a smelly, dismal, badly-in-need-of-a-cleaning gym, but man oh man did we have fun. And I say “we” because my friend’s hubby (who also happens to have been one of my two best guy friends in college) egged me on and got me in the fun pit along with he and the kids and… well, the instructor. The rest of the parents stood enviously by and watched as we jumped on the trampoline, swung from the trapeze (screaming all the way, that was me!) and tossed our kiddies into the sticky foam cube pit. I nearly passed out from lack of breath but it was the most fun I’ve had at a kid’s birthday party since the one in April that was held at the father of the birthday girl’s bar. Oh, and the boys had fun, too. We all ate our cupcakes in the car on the ride home and Sailor declared, “After I eat my cupcake and drink my water, then I go to bed.” It was pitch black outside but only 5:30 p.m.
Our annual cystic fibrosis bowl-a-thon was on Sunday. Eighteen people showed up including my four favorite people who have CF. That was a rare treat for me and none of them had met one another before. I won the prize for worst bowler (having bowled a 53 in my first game, losing not only to all the adults but to the 8 kids who were bowling, as well). It was a fabulous event and we raised around $2,000. Mac, who, enjoying the buffet of semi-junk food that was mostly things I never allow him to eat, said, “Mom, this crap food tastes good!”

The kids chose to do their Toys R Us holiday shopping after bowling. My sister accompanied us around the store as we made an attempt to see what we could do with a $100 gift certificate. We realized we could either buy a lot of junky little things or a few fairly cool things or basically one or two great things. We went for a few fairly cool things and spent $85 on 4 gifts. It was freezing out and dark when we emerged, shaky and starving. So we headed to Panera so we could spend money we shouldn’t spend on food we could have made at home. And then we came home and collapsed.

So I sleep in on Monday morning thinking we are way too late for gym class. But when I finally drag my oh-so-weary self from the warmth of the covers I find that it is a few minutes before 8:00 a.m. It’s nice that it at least feels like sleeping in, even when it’s not. I give the boys a choice to skip gym or attend gym. True to form, one chooses the former and the other chooses the latter. I choose for them and we work well to get ready to go. We are on time for a change and when I try to drop the boys off out front the doors are still locked. Once they can go in I drive around and recycle and then head back inside. Sailor wants me to stay with him and says he won’t go upstairs unless I go too. So I climb two very long double flights up to the second floor, which is as high as a 4th floor, only to have the teacher (of whom I am not fond to begin with) say, “Ma’m, you have to wait downstairs.” Ma’m? Ma’m ?! Who is she calling Ma’m? I am someone’s MOM! She should be calling me MOM. That’s what you call someone’s mom when you don’t know her name. “But Sailor was upset and wanted me to stay up here,” I say, defensively. “If Sailor has a problem I’ll bring him down.” Sure you will, I think. Along with the 12 other kids in the class? No you won’t. You’ll belittle him. You’ll admonish him. You’ll make him feel bad for being upset and wanting his mom. I have seeen his teacher in action, and I have not liked what I have seen. It’s park district, so it’s cheap. Right. You get what you pay for.

I clomp back down the two flights. I am angry. These are my children. I have every right to stay near them. What is she hiding? I wonder. I have a very good mind to clomp back up the metal stairs and yank my kids out of this witch’s class, never to return. But I can see the scene Mac might throw, and that would only make it worse. So I cool off by talking to another mom and soon enough the class is over and we leave, planning not to enroll in the next session.

We head home for lunch and a bath because Mac has a birthday party to attend after school. We make it to school just in time to see Miss H forget to look back to see if there are any stragglers and shut the door as I finish unbuckling Mac from the stroller. Sigh. Caitlin’s mom offers to take Mac in for me but I decide it makes more sense for her to stay outside with my sleeping 3-year-old and let me run my boy in. I make a semi-leisurely walk home and then sit down to make phone calls and pay bills while Sailor sleeps. I spend half an hour christmas shopping for 6 items over the phone at Oldnavy.com because I think it will be faster than doing so online. While bill paying generally sends me into a tizzy, today it calms me. I am no longer short of breath when Sailor wakes up. I am calm and feel well. Until Sailor wants me to stay home. But I have to get Mac and the French boy and drive them to the triplets’ birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese’s. Sailor screams. I glance at the clock. I have to leave. I kiss his wet face and depart.

Mac finds me by body slamming me, despite my adamant protests when he did this to me last week. He really knows how to take a great moment and make it a lousy one. I do love his enthusiasm, though. He goes back for the French boy and reminds him, in English, that he is coming with us. I say something in choppy French, but it’s enough to make him follow me to my car. I ask the boys in English and French if they are hungry or thirsty. Mac is neither, his friend is both. I strap them into the car seats and provide the French boy with an organic chocolate covered granola bar, which he devours. I try to keep the conversation with Mac light as I am conscious of the fact that his friend understands little of what we are saying. We try to make a McDonald’s run for Monday’s free coffee for me, chocolate milk for my boy and plain milk for his pal. But alas, the mother of the triplets has timed her party well. As it should have only taken about 6 minutes to get to the party, it takes a full 30 and we arrive just as the party is set to start. I don’t have the strength to try to explain the lack of milk-stop to the French boy, so I am sure to get him a drink as soon as I can once we are at the party. The kids play like mad using their tokens on all sorts of fun activities. The German boy seems to be getting along quite well and his English is blossoming. I guess that is what has to happen when no one around you speaks a word of your language. I fear the French boy is actually at a disadvantage with so many French-speakers around.

It’s a long party, or so it seems. The kids, all 22 of the 26 classmates who have come to celebrate the triplets turning 6, are the most exhausted 22 kids I have ever seen. I volunteer to drive home the girl whom all the boys like because she likes boy stuff. But she has to turn in her tickets for fabulous prizes first. And then I can’t locate Mac. And then I realize I have the French boy’s backpack in my car, and since one of the other French moms has decided I should speak only French with the other French moms for the night, I explain the situation to the French mom in French. But then we can’t find her boy. And then we can’t find her girl. And then she realizes it makes sense for her to drive home the German boy because he lives upstairs from her. Which is when we find out that the German boy’s back pack is in the car of the mother of the triplets. So we have to gather a total of 5 children just so Mac and I can go home. Which is no easy task. But we get it together and finally we are in the car.

I Mac begins telling the girl whom all the boys like because she likes boy stuff some make-believe adventure that he supposedly took last night just after washing his hands and going to bed. He talks and talks, weaving in and out of the fantasy. When Mac is done with his long, drawn-out monologue about his imaginary odyssey last night, the girl whom all the boys like because she likes boy stuff is quiet for only a moment. Then, “Mac? One time I was eating rice. The rice was so sticky some of it stuck to my nose! Isn’t that funny?”

“Yeah.”

Then the conversation turns to the five-year-olds’ version of religion. The girl whom all the boys like because she likes boy stuff tells Mac, “Hanukkah lasts 8 days. And on the 7th day G-d rests. Because that’s what he has to do. I learned that in Sunday school. Where we learn about holidays and G-d and stuff like that.”

I drop her off, email her mom the details of this conversation, and deal with an acute stomach cramp that is the result, no doubt, of the two cups of pure sugar water I was forced to consume along with 2 pieces of Chuck E. Cheese pizza and a small slice of cake. Mac seems fine, but he’s wiped and falls asleep easily.

Tuesday. Sailor wakes me just before 6:00 a.m. to pee. I am annoyed, which I shouldn’t be, considering the alternative. Neither boy has wet the bed in quite a few weeks. I am truly amazed, and relieved, and pleased, and very glad not to be changing sheets every other day!

At breakfat I go through Mac’s backpack. I find a coloring page of a pilgrim.

We get Sailor to school by talking animatedly about the Thanksgiving feast he is going to enjoy this morning. Mac replays his memories of the fest the year he was four (which was all of a year ago). Sailor seems a little bit excited. We drop into the classroom but I just can’t stay and I make my best effort to leave with Sailor clinging to my leg. S pulls him off and I go. “Why do you do this to Mommy?” I hear her ask. Poor Sailor. My sympathies are with him and I feel like a huge hypocrite for always saying things like, “If my child were that unhappy with school I wouldn’t make him go.” If S didn’t reassure me over and over that Sailor has a great time every day and if I didn’t see him looking so happy when I pick him up each time, I would not have such a dilemma going on inside me all the time.

One of Mac’s school friends is coming over today. Not for an official play date but so we can babysit her. It’s part of the her-mom-owns-a-cleaning-business-and-I-need-my-house-cleaned trade.
She is well-behaved and drinks all the milk I pour for her (I just hate when children ask for milk, and they leave it, wasting my costly, pain in the butt to run out to the store for, milk) and eats well when I make home-made pancakes for brunch. She decides to hitch a ride in the double jogger when we walk to pick up Sailor from preschool. When we arrive, Sailor is alone in the school with S and he has a cornucopia that he has glued fruits and veggies onto. He is happy to see us. Our little girl friend pushes Sailor in the stroller about 1/3 of the way to the big school, which is astonishing and helpful at the same time. Mac has been in a show-off-y mood all morning and just as the kids are getting ready to go into school, he winds up bopping her in the eye and she is crying. Nothing a quick call to her parents won’t fix, but still. Not a great way to start out this trade. And I really want my house cleaned!

Mac has made a complete recovery from his accident last week, tho apparently the frenulum is not going to grow back into place. Eeew, gross, I know! There are tiny spots on his tongue that you'd only see if you know to look. Unfortunately, Spiderman made another daring climb tonight, thus revealing to his uninformed father that he was indeed in the ER a week or so ago. Oh well, if I am expected to go it alone, I have to be expected to go it alone.

In the afternoon Aunt M comes over to watch Sailor and pick up Mac from school so I can go see my doctor. He decides I need a CBC, a chest X-ray, an MRI, a CT scan, an echocardiogram, and a stress test to determine why I have been short of breath for two weeks. However, by the time I get home, terrified that I am dying of lung cancer or HIV, I am beginning to suspect the lip-plumping lip gloss I have been wearing for the past two weeks. Because I realize I am not wearing it today, which seems to coincide with an absence of respiratory problems. Hm....

Mac has an unprecedented half day at school on Wednesday that requires him to be there for morning kindergarten. At 8:53 a.m. And we make it on time. Sailor and I head to the lab for the blood test. It goes quickly. Sailor is curious about the hole I will have in my arm. The tech asks me to pee in a cup, which fascinates Sailor to no end. I hope the tech isn’t too disappointed by my 1 ounce. I have been told it is a fasting blood test and therefore have had nothing to eat or drink this morning. We pop into the X-ray lab and meet two of the nicest ladies! The receptionist is just charming and the tech does all she can to make us both feel at ease. After all, it’s a little awkward bringing a 3-year-old to get an X-ray. When I get a chance to look at my X-ray, I see nothing that frightens me, and so we are off to Trader Joe’s to pick up some rolls my mom has ordered for Thanksgiving, which is tomorrow. Sailor asks if there will be bagels and cream cheese there because that’s what he is hungry for. Then he promptly falls asleep. I drive through a Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee and his bagel, which will please him no doubt. We spend $27 on the 2 packs of rolls and a bag of replacement foods. We went thru the contents of the fridge last night and found either artificial colors, artificial flavors, and/or high fructose corn syrup in the pickles, mayo, dressings, teriyaki sauce, and several other items, which we bagged up for the homeless guy under the bridge. And now all these foods need to be replaced. With smaller containers of higher priced items. “Hello, Mac’s new friends,” Sailor says to the new foods, remembering Mac’s, “Good bye, old friends,” when we bagged up the offending fridge contents last night. We get in the line for 10 items or less. But there are mint Oreo-look-alikes (without all the bad ingredients) in the impulse area and we just have to get them. “We had 10 items when we got in line!” I explain to the checkout guy. He lets us slide with a smile.

We get to Mac on time. 11:30. Our kindergarteners come pouring out. Each has a crafty, paper, glue, pipe cleaner and popsicle sticks turkey in hand. They are a very cute bunch, our little boys and girls. The principal follows them out. “If you can read this, thank a teacher,” reads his sweatshirt. I guess it’s casual day today. “So how did this work out?” he calls out to the crowd of lingering parents. There are some mumble and grumble responses. He catches my eye and I give the “so so” look. I didn’t mind coming to school at 8:53 this morning, but I know I will hate it every day for the next 11 years. But what’s really inconvenient is that while the kindergarteners are released at 11:30, the rest of the school won’t come out until 12:00, so if you have a kindergartener and older child…. Which thank goodness I do not. So I have nothing to bitch about today.

We plow through traffic for our photo retake at Target. Our appointment is at 12:20. We are on time. The studio is not busy and nearly empties out after we arrive. Unfortunately, part of the mass exodus is the photographer, who has to buy the new X-box for her 10-year-old son. The shipment has just arrived and she can’t miss her opportunity. So we wait until 1:00 for our sitting. Mac and Sailor are bored, tired, hungry, getting grumpy. While we wait we choose a few books from the adjacent shopping area. Mac listens as I read a “Cars” book to Sailor. “This is an opposites book, Mom,” he observes correctly. When I finish reading he picks up the simple stage 1 reader and begins to read it himself. I watch in awe as my little boy, my baby, my first born, reads his very first book. Of course the book ends up in our cart. How can I not purchase the 1st book my child has ever read!? The last photo is the winner and the photographer grants me an extra free portrait sheet because she made us wait. We shop around and arrive home exhausted a few hours later. Sailor is asleep. It’s beautiful outside and I know we should go to the playground or something. But we are all too tired. I allow the boys a bit of television and I begin the prep work for the Thanksgiving dishes we have offered to make for tomorrow.

Thanksgiving. I’m cooking up a batch of pumpkin pancakes. Mac is looking closely at a fridge magnet that his dad brought him from a trip to California. “There’s the lake,” he says. “Ocean,” I correct. “And look, there’s Brotherly Hills.”

We spend the next four days in an exhausting obstacle course of eating turkey and shopping and eating turkey and shopping, with a quick (ok, afternoon-filling) trip to church for Baby Parker’s “Bath Tizing” during which I am bombarded with questions from my two little gentlemen -- the elder dressed like an earlier day school boy and the younger dressed like the former Senator Paul Simon – that I am unable to completely answer, including Sailor’s most insightful question, “Why they didn’t eat water and cheese?”