Week 19

I am decorating my sleepy eyes with eyeliner and Mac is beside me, peeing. “We’re leaving in about 20 minutes,” I tell him, “we’re going to see your talking doctor today.”

“Today? I plumbed forgot!”

My sister is here with my friend Anna’s kids. Anna is on a biz trip. I think this might be what it would be like if my sister had two kids. I can pretend, anyway. I think she would have named her girls Amy and Nikki. They are playing well in the playroom. They always play well. Messes, yes, but cooperation and love, too. Amy is a month older than Sailor and they are best friends. Nikki is just about 19 months old. Which is how old Mac was when I found out I was pregnant with Sailor four years ago this past weekend. To me Nikki is still a baby in every sense. Mac was my baby but far from the stereotype for the age as he was having full conversations with me by then.

When Mac is done with his talking doctor we have too much time to kill. I suggest McDonald’s for free coffee day (for me, not for Mac). As we hit the drive-thru Mac asks for a “pack of French fries.” I think about the lunch I packed him. PB&J – all natural -- green beans and apples. I make him the deal that he can have the “pack of fries” if he eats his healthful foods. I spend a $1.10. I guess the coffee isn’t really free. It’s just a lure to get you to drive thru the golden arches.

In the car outside school, with more than 20 minutes left to kill, Mac tells me how much he likes to spend time with me. Which lasts only a minute because one of the Olivias shows up and Mac wants to get in line with her.

I park the car around the corner from my house. I will not be able to move it again until Friday. There is a movie shooting in our neighborhood this week and "no parking" signs have been posted everywhere. “I’ll move my car if they tell me where to park it and give me a part in their movie,” I said when I first saw the signs. “And you’ll get towed,” said whoever I was with at the time.

Sailor and Amy are in “bajamas” and baby Nikki is wandering around looking tired and lost. The house is a mess. But all three kids look happy. Sailor and Amy are having a blast playing in pj’s. Why? Because they are three.

Sailor falls asleep on the way to getting Mac. Mac tells me all about some fantasy involving a co-pilot whose assistance he needed today. I ask him what he did at school and he goes on. No, I repeat, what did you do at school today? For real? The boy has an active imagination to say the least. At home Mac does his homework. His class is on letter Qq. But the poem he is to read and circle all the Qq’s in contains exactly one Q and one q, including the capital Q in the title. I try to write a better poem. I find it ridiculous that people are paid to write this stuff and that no one checks it before it gets all the way home to the kindergarteners’ parents. The boys play, strangely clad, in the playroom. Mac has stripped off his sweater and jeans and wears long johns and an undershirt. He says it is hot in here. Sometime later Sailor has lost his pants. I check around the house and see how much needs to be cleaned up. I am inexplicably tired and cleaning up our Indian food leftovers does not appeal to me. I flick off every light, remembering the conversation I had with ComEd this afternoon about why my normally $53 electric bill is $82 this month. Rate hikes, I am told. 24% increase. Faaaaabulous! Because I need to be shelling out more of the piddly amount of money we get every month.

Mac has a book fair at school this week. I tell him I will help him choose one book. He tells me I am supposed to send money to school with him in a zip-lock baggie. He’ll be the only one in class with a $5 bill. But in his backpack there is an invitation to parents to help their kindergarteners choose books on Wednesday and so I will. That way how much money I can spend will only be an issue between the two of us. We also discuss books that would be appropriate for him to buy. Without prompting he comes up with Star Wars, Geronimo Stilton series, Magic Treehouse series, anything Rescue Heroes, and then Corduroy. “There’s a first book we don’t have you know, Mom.”

Sailor wants me to play with him. He gives me a three-inch tall plastic “Hermenny,” the girl in Harry Potter. “She is trapped and Ron has to save her,” he tells me. I drop Hermione down the V of my sweater. She is trapped. Ron will save her. He does and Sailor reiterates that “I am Ron and Mac you are Harry Potter, right and Mom is Hermenny.” Ron takes Hermione to safety and I am still lying comfortably on my couch. It’s not that hard to play with kids if you are creative. Now Hermione is running around as Batman tries to save her. I need chocolate.

I love listening to the things my kids say when they play. Or just when they think they are being serious. Yesterday at breakfast Sailor was distressed over having gotten some grits on his hands.
“It’s not getting off,” he said.
“Why don’t you lick it off?” I suggest. Grits are hard to wipe off.
“That’s ‘sgusting! Then I’ll get lick on my hands and have to wash it off!” he says, clearly stressed and agitated. Neat freak!

At which point Mac reminds me he doesn’t feel well. “Mom, I’m disinfected with something.”

Mac accidentally sits in and brakes part of the farmyard that I got Sailor for Christmas. I can see why the set cost a mere $10. It’s barely been a month and already the bird has lost his tail and the outhouse has lost a wall. And now the wall of the gate is off. I overhear Mac apologizing and explaining the nature of the accident. Sailor says maybe GrandDad can fix it. “Because he is the fixer guy,” I hear him say. A tribute to my father, for certain. After all, the man spent the better part of the 1970s decorating with contact paper and making all manner of household repairs with various colors of duct tape. The Fixer Guy. A well-earned title.

I am putting the boys to bed. They are, of course, hungry. Between them they consume yogurt with crunchies (wheat germ), macker cheese, a chicken leg, hash browns, milk and more macker cheese. It’s almost 8:30 when I tuck them in, each in his own room. Sailor asks me, “Next time when I wake up I haf’ go preschool?” His way of indicating his understanding of the concept of “tomorrow.”
“Yes,” I tell him.
“I am happy ‘bout this?” he asks, truly uncertain.
“Yes,” I tell him.
“Hurray!” He does a little happy dance. Crazy kid!


By the time I pick Mac up from school on Tuesday afternoon he has suffered both a mild head trauma and a bloody nose. The head trauma came at the hand of a boy in his class, whom I will call Dashiel because that is kind of what it sounds like when he says his name. While waiting in line to enter school, Dashiel pushes the one standing in front of him. In domino fashion, the next boy, not knowing what happened, stumbles forward knocking my precious one to his knees. His head hits the big, concrete banister just moments before Miss H opens the door to let the children enter. My poor baby. I started to yell at Dashiel but realized his mom is just over my left shoulder calling out his name. I taper my anger and say merely, “Be gentle with my boy!” I expect a big welt on Mac’s head at 3:15 but find none. Instead, “Mom, I had a bloody nose today.” Aw, jeez!

The father of my boys stops by this evening. 6:00 to 8:00. A play date. That’s what they want from him, play time. So he comes. We chat. They play. He leaves. I put them to bed. It is 8:30. Mac is asleep and Sailor is in the kitchen because he is “very, very hungry.” Well, that is what happens when you don’t eat dinner at dinner time. My boys are very lucky that I am not the kind of mom who gives out a “too bad, next time you’ll eat.” I was hungry as a kid thru no fault of my own parents, who fed me well. And my boys are little, which equals a state of moderate helplessness. If I don’t feed them they will be hungry and miserable. My only stipulation to late night eating is that I get to choose the foods, no arguments. Which means Sailor is getting the vegetable-filled tomato sauce on his pasta, which he refused at dinner. No arguments.

Outside, there is a truck making an irritating sound. I believe the movie company plans to shoot their film over night. Vince Vaughn will be in my neighborhood (or so I have heard). Woo hoo… Not my favorite actor, toput it mildly. And now I have to listen to truck sounds all night. How fun! And the compensation for the neighborhood that is being inconvenienced? Nada. Zero. Zip. Zilch.

Anyone know what a chicken blaster is? Mac seems to. He has been talking about his chicken blaster all day. It’s going to become one of those funny words.

A little less funny is that Mac hangs a belt on his closet bar and tries to hang from it. Not hang as in kill himself! Just hang as in swing. And the closet bar falls. “What happened?” “Nothing.” Innocent. One bracket is ripped out of the wall. Unfixable in a snap. It’s going to take a bit of time and measuring. Something Mac’s father doesn’t have this evening. He says he will come back on Thursday if I email him. I think Fix-it GrandDad may be up to the task tomorrow. Meanwhile Mac’s closet is a wreck and I can’t even go out to buy a new one because if I take my car out I will lose my precious parking spot around the corner and the movie company will force me to park in the next neighborhood over, making my life a living hell, especially if Sailor falls asleep in the car, which he is prone to do. Which explains why there are no groceries in our fridge. And why Sailor doesn’t have any organic sniffle medicine. And why I am more than a little put out that a movie company is filming in our neighborhood in the dead of winter, causing us to have to walk everywhere. Bet they have no idea. Hey, Vince, how ‘bout some groceries over here?!

I bake a batch of healthful chocolate chip muffins this evening. I had a craving to satisfy. Sailor runs to bed after finishing his pasta. He has eaten almost all of it. I go in to kiss him goodnight.
“This time when I wake up, I can eat a muffin?"
“Yes.”
“When I wake up alone and you are still sleeping?”
“Yes, I will leave one muffin on the table for you and one for Mac.” He smiles a sleepy smile at me.
“Who will eat the other muffins?”
“You, and Mac and Mommy.”
I get a big, satisfied smile for that one. So often we bake for others. This baking is for us. He is quite pleased. He gets lots of kisses goodnight. He is a sweet, sweet baby boy.

Wednesday the book fair at the big school begins. Afternoon kindergarten parents are invited to help their children shop. It would be nice if there were a place to ditch our coats, as we are bundled to the hilt against the chill outside. I let each of my boys choose one book, and then I feel like a heal when one of the moms I know tells me she spent $140 and another explains how she didn’t do the wrapping paper sale in September (neither did I) and she didn’t buy any holiday greenery (neither did I) so she makes this the one time she spends a little more at the school. Nice. But as it is I have to take money from the drawer to let the boys buy books. And as I hand Mac a $10 bill I forget to say, “Bring me the change,” and so he doesn’t and I don’t want to make a fuss in front of his whole class. He is trying to make me understand that it was his money and his book and so it’s his change. It is hard to argue with his practical reasoning. Nonetheless I am out five bucks. Sailor pays for his book, Santa is Stuck, which is a perfect choice for a child obsessed with wanting to know why Santa is fat. He puts his change in my pocket when I tell him to put it in his. Well if his brother is keeping $5 Sailor can keep 75 cents. We read the Santa book twice when we get home. Great book with a mediocre ending but Sailor loves it anyway.

On the way to get Mac after school Sailor asks me what his name will be when he is big. He says he will change his name. To Luke Skywalker. Because he will be big and have a light saver.

When we pick up Mac from school I am mid-conversation with the mom who is telling me about the extra money she spends at this event and I don’t see Mac come out of school. I look around. She doesn’t see him either so I go up and ask Miss H. She assumes he is still inside but I realize I think I know where he is. I look over the banister. “Get up here, RIGHT NOW!” He actually has the nerve to look surprised that he is in big trouble. Miss H asks if she can talk to him first, which is brilliant, “Please! He’s all yours!” I don’t know what she says to him but I know what I say to him. He apologizes. Twice.

I am feeling ill and nursing a can of ginger ale and have no energy to walk around with Sailor while Mac is at FTK. But we walk about anyway. I pick up more ginger ale and we get some food for dinner. Sailor chooses broccoli and grapes and I choose a loaf of sour dough bread and of course there are some cookies. He wants to ride the glass elevator all the way up. Which we do. We walk slowly back and he sleeps until we have picked up Mac and walked all the way home. It’s getting colder and it is snowing. It’s a beautiful night and Mac notices.

They are working hard to make our street look Christmas-y for the Vince Vaughn film when we get back. We have to walk down the middle of the street so as to avoid their equipment. Not a big deal, since they have the street actually blocked off to traffic. Lovely. I try to suppress my grumbling.

We eat and get ready for bed. Everyone is tired. But Sailor cries when I try to put him in bed for the 43rd time. It is too sad. He is asleep 5 minutes after I lay him in my bed. I watch Janice Dickinson’s Modeling Agency, my latest favorite show and try to catch a glimpse of Vince across the street. A group of people has gathered outside of my house. I want to tell the guy smoking on my steps to smoke elsewhere but I don’t. There is “quiet on the set” so I take out some garbage and close the door loudly when I come back in. The assembled group outside is not extras. They are neighbors. Nosy. I miss my photo opp and don’t get Vinny on the digicam. I go to sleep long before the shooting ends.

Thursday is pajama party day at preschool. Sailor doesn’t have to get dressed. But he does have to change becuz he has oatmeal on his pj’s. Because they will be watching videos at school today he is much less reluctant than usual.

Mac has an open house at school in the evening. I am signing my books at the book fair, so my parents come along to take the tour of the school, listen to the principal talk and hear the chorus sing. I think it must be odd for them, being the grandparents instead of the parents at the school they spent 12 parental years at in the 1970s and 1980s. I tell my mother to pretend she is 35 and Mac is me. She says she doesn’t remember much but what strikes her is that all the “wrong” people seem to be roaming the halls. “These weren’t the right people,” she explained, meaning she didn’t recognize anyone as the parents she knew back then.

I sell two measly books, for which I owe the school 10%. I meet a nice young lady who has cystic fibrosis (the topic of one of my books). I talk to a cute dad who wears no wedding ring and no hair. I snarf down a couple of cookies. See the tadpoles in Mac’s classroom. He shows me the life-cycle of a frog and when asked how long this will take he replies, “25 years!” I have a conversation with Miss H about how great it is to have her as Mac’s kindergarten teacher. She tells me how well Mac is doing with his French and how he recently told the new French girl she had forgotten her backpack: “Maxime, ton sac!” I beam with pride and am full of amazement at his ability!
We talk about how big of a deal it is to some of us that we are expected to just drop our children off because society tells us to, despite our own feelings or misgivings toward the activity. She tells me how much she understands the difficult position we are in as parents, having to trustingly leave our children with strangers called teachers. I knew there was a very good reason for liking this woman. Sailor already wants to be in her class and I ask her to please stay in kindergarten at least til then!

Then I embarrass myself. I bring two orchids from the book fair to Miss H for her classroom, and since I have already told her there is no pizza left en français she bids us farewell in French and then tells me she hopes the plants are still alive at the end of the year. I am not sure what she has said. I recognize her words but my brain has shut down and tho she speaks more slowly and repeats herself, I cannot make anymore out of the sentence than “Maybe your children will be less lively by the end of the weekend.” I have to laugh at the silliness of the sentence now, but as it is happening I am flushed with inability. What she said was, "Maybe the plants will still be alove at the end of the weekend."

Mac is almost asleep by the time we get home. Sailor, contrarily, has run all the way home. Stopping once, he finds some sort of “treasure.” It looks like a black plastic hook, perhaps the kind linked to socks before they are purchased. I am uncertain as I never quite get a good glimpse of the object. Mac stirs long enough to ask for it. “Give it to me.” He is demanding of his little brother. But Sailor won’t be had. “Finders, Keepers!” he declares. Finders, Keepers? Dear G-d, he is three! “Where did you learn that?” I am incredulous. “From Franks.” “Franks?” something about a video they watched at pajama party preschool this morning. I am definitely getting my money’s worth on his education. Jeez! I get them in bed, have cheese and crackers and cereal in my own bed and watch tv while I read. I pop in to check on them each and find Sailor with his nametag sticker from tonight’s festivities stuck to one finger, as if he is holding it out for me to take. So I do. He mumbles something. And I kiss him good night. I put name tag on his wall so he can see it when he wakes. In case he is unsure of his identity, I guess.

I fall to sleep thinking about the cute, ringless, hairless dad. I checked the school directory before retiring for the night. He is listed on his own line with his own address, phone number and email.

Friday is a day off. The teachers are preparing report cards for next Wednesday. I sleep in – til 8:30 – and then we putz around. The boys mop the kitchen floor (their choice) while I give the pantry a quick clean out. We do some workbook. Mac is really starting to read now and it is so exciting for me!

We take a walk. It is the last “warm” day in a while, tho actually this whole week has been freezing. The temperatures are scheduled to dip fiercely over the weekend. So we load up months and months of stale bread products and head toward the lagoon. Mac spies his classmate John on the way and the two run to each other like long lost lovers. They meet on a slippery patch of ice and embrace as if it has been far longer than a mere 16 hours since their last meeting. The embrace steadies them both and neither falls. They chat as we walk and then we part ways. There are no ducks. Anywhere. The pond is “ice frozen” as Mac puts it. We find geese by the second lagoon over. We toss pretzels, bread, cereal, matzoh, cake, cookies, high in the air and geese flock, two by two to their geese feast. It’s noisy and the geese are happy. It’s a good way to spend a cold day. We walk back. The boys find sticks and run. They are so cute. Sailor in his Santa hat, which bobs around as he runs. Mac’s hat has four pom poms on it and he looks adorable. I think about how this is what we should do every day. It lifts our moods, if only for the moment. They find a low wall and drop over it. Again and again and again. Their jeans are dirty. Sailor’s scarf is trailing thru mud. I don’t care. They are being boys. They are happy.

We lunch with my dad and they feast on Thanksgiving plates. Now they are in the bathroom playing in the sink with a tiny frog Mac received from school yesterday. They are being naughty and giggling. But it’s a day off and I just can’t be bothered to care.


Sunday morning Mac wakes me at 8:00. He is starving and wants me to wake up and make breakfast right now. What happened to the days when he used to get his own early morning snack? He pesters while Sailor climbs back into bed with me. I grumble. I was out late last night on a rare ladies’ night out. In celebration of my birthday, which is on Wednesday. Only about 4 ½ or 5 hours have passed since I started to sleep semi-soundly. But I am ok to get up. Shuffle to the kitchen. Start two bowls of oatmeal. “I’m thirsty. What’s this?” Sailor wants to know what is in his sippy cup. “Milk.” Of course. “I want juice.” Didn’t we have this dead-end conversation yesterday morning? “We don’t get juice for breakfast.” He starts to cry and I firmly ask him to stop and remind him that he didn’t have juice yesterday morning either. He begins a fake cry, moaning whimper. And he won’t stop. I ask him to stop. I tell him to stop. I tell him I will give him a reason to cry if he really wants one. This stops him momentarily as he is unsure what I mean. I tell him he can go to his room and he cries harder. I start a mantra in my head and unload the dishwasher. Put a mug in the “mikermave” for tea and try to keep my cool. It is 8:15. I continue the mantra. I explain quietly that I am very tired and didn’t have much sleep. Still, Sailor persists. My tea is ready. The dishwasher is empty. Sailor hops off his seat. Do we even know why he is crying anymore? Certainly he no longer recalls. And still he won’t stop. And I blow up. It has been 20 minutes since Mac has dragged me from beneath my down comforter to make food. I have poured milk, sectioned a Clementine, dished out applesauce, decorated oatmeal with pure maple syrup, made tea, and emptied the dishwasher all while listening to Sailor’s incessant whining and before I even get to pee and brush my teeth. I sit Sailor back in his seat, show him the food in front of him and recommend he eat it, apologize to Mac for ruining his breakfast, and storm off to the shower. Before I can even finish peeing Mac has finished his oatmeal and knocks on the door. Sweetly, “Mommy?” Not so sweetly, “WHAT?” Can’t I just pee? “Is the dishwasher clean or dirty?” Did he not just finish watching me empty the whole thing??

I am showered. The boys are bathed. We are dressed and dried and ready to go. Where? I want to take the boys down the street to breakfast. It is 10:00 a.m. I offer up pancakes, sausage…. They don’t want to go. They have gotten it into their heads to watch tv today, which I have not agreed to. “You can make pancakes here at home,” Mac suggests. “I want French toast,” I sound like an insolent child. “You can make French toast here at home.” “I don’t want to make food at home.” No rest for the mother. It is a fact. So there they are in the living room. A room I insist on keeping tidy despite the fact that the only ones who ever get to use the room are the children. They are watching their favorite “Ruxo Huroes.” (No, I don’t let them watch Star Wars!) And here I am. Laundry to put away. Christmas photo cards to take down. Work to do…. No one cuts the Mommy a break. Ever. But I guess that is what I signed on for. So no complaints. But I really just want to go out for some French toast.

We do the brunch thing on Sunday morning. My dad comes along. The buffet is a great deal and the food is satisfying. I load up everyone’s plate and return to the table. I have a bite or two and Mac asks, “Can you please get me some more melon and strawberries?” I am happy to and start back to the buffet. “And make sure there’s eggs and another waffle and three pieces of bacon and another sausage.” Alrighty then.

We spend Sunday in front of the tv. My boys choose Tarzan, Beauty and the Beast (which Sailor calls simply “Beast”) and Grease. I read. We eat from a 54 oz. bag of M&Ms ("Nemnems," Sailor calls them). It is a pleasant afternoon. At night a TLC program about drastically obese people comes on. Remarkably and disgustingly, it makes us hungry.