Week 30 – Not Without Mac

Miss H got married on Saturday. She is now Mrs. K.

My dad turned 80 yesterday. The boys gave him his favorite gifts. Sailor got him the Sunday newspaper and hand-painted (aka finger painted) a picture that I framed. Mac gave him flowers and hand-made sock puppet. We had a bog party. One of the boys, Mac probably, said that GrandDad should have one more wrinkle now that he is a year older. He also said we won’t need candles for when GrandDad will be 100 cuz he’ll be dead then. Nice.

Monday we are all a little tired from the all-day party on Sunday. But it’s back to our routine as usual. At Talking Doctor Mac finds out that his TD is leaving at the end of June. He takes the news well. He is a stoic little boy.


After school Mac is supposed to start Judo. Except I don’t feel like taking him. It’s still kind of warm-ish out and I think it’s just too crazy to try to rush off to be somewhere by 3:45. I don’t know how we’d pay for it. And it’s just, well, I just don’t feel like it. Mac says he really wants to go. I hope this doesn’t make me a bad mom. I explained to him that the session already started a few weeks ago and that there would be a lot he wouldn’t understand. We discusse dit briefly on Sunday. And after school Monday he doesn’t seem to remember. I don’t bring it up, of course. And we play in the playground after school. We are a block from school when a true cold front blows thru. Nonetheless we have already discussed going for ice cream. So we do. Sailor doesn’t eat any of his. $2.50 down the drain, literally.

I have a meeting/party to go to. I eat pizza, have a drink, decide I am bored and come home early.

Tuesday Sailor has a great treat at school. His best pal Jack is back for a visit.
I take Mac home. He is tired and wants me to lie in his lumpy bed. I invite him to mine instead and when he resists I offer that we can watch Oprah. He is game and we lie in bed together for the hour. I realize later in the day that this is a perfectly acceptable way to spend time with my child. We don’t have to run off to errands or a museum or lunch. We don’t have to do work books or bake cookies. We can just rest together. Hopefully when Sailor is a bit more mature we can lie around watching movies together on Sunday afternoons sometimes.

The Oprah show actually calls me as Mac and I are heading out for early lunch. They have called before. They are very interested in the demise of my marriage. We head for lunch and I let Mac scooter. He is adorable! Helmet, jean jacket that is too small, jeans, Converse (knock offs). He is just so darn cute.

After lunch we fetch Sailor. He sits on the school steps waiting. He is adorable! He is wearing bright orange pants. His choice not mine. He has a cap on his head. He badly needs a hair cut. He has a bowl with dirt in it. There is a popsicle stick with a piece of construction paper on it. It says, “Grass.” He tells me how they planted the grass today. We take Mac to school. Then we head for the hair cut place. They can’t fit him in. they offer him a lolli, which I won’t allow, since not only is it terrible for him but he has not eaten lunch. Not that I haven’t offered. He just refuses. So he has a weird tantrum. I can’t pick him up. I have to lead (read drag) him to the car and when I go around to get in he actually tries to escape! He does not succeed, but I have to strap him into Mac’s car seat, as he won’t crawl across to his own.

We spend the rest of the afternoon in heated debate over whether or not he is going to try a class at FTK. He asked to go with Mac last week, so we set up a ctrial class for him this week., except it’s not with Mac so he doesn’t want to go he says he will be bored. He confesses he is scared. I give in and don’t make him go.

Sailor falls asleep in the stroller on the way to school. I sit around a bit after Mac gets out. I am talking to the Aussie mum. She invites us over. We play in the back yard and Sailor only wakes a bit before it’s time to leave. Again a cold front blows thru just as we leave. I walk home fast.

I leave for a date and am home by 9:00.

Wednesday morning Sailor has soccer. He won’t play without Mac. Literally. Even when Mac comes over to sit with me for a moment Sailor comes over and says he is lonely out there. This class is not for almost-6-year-olds. Mac towers above these little ones. He doesn’t mind. He has a great time. Sailor is the cutest thing out there in his soccer outfit. I mean, uniform, right? I’m not a sporty gal. I pay for half the remaining classes and agree to pay the rest in May. Sort of. I ask for a reminder and am told, “I probably won’t remember. Just pay sometime in May.” You know, I probably won’t remember either.

The triplets come to play when we get home. Mac is in the tub getting a fast bath when they arrive. He doesn’t want them to see him. It’s sweet. I bring him his clothes and he joins them in the playroom while their mom and I get in some very decent gossip time.

After we lunch, Mac bites the triplet boy, whom he claims is his best friend. While he does not hurt the boy, I am appalled. But the boy’s mom is nonplussed. She is still happy to drive Mac to school.

Sailor and I go out later to get him a much-overdue haircut. He sits in the chair playing a Spiderman video game. He is still wearing his soccer uniform and he looks like a kid from the 1950s when his hair is done. Man, he is cute!

We drive around looking for a new raincoat for Mac. The largest one in our current stash seems to be about a size 4. He wore the froggy one to school today. I have to get him one that fits. But we don’t find this item for a reasonable price today.

Sailor is asleep in the car when we get to FTK. So I pop the blinkers on and run Mac to the door. When I return the car won’t start. For the 4th time today. This time it really won’t start. Sailor is asleep. It is raining. We are parked at a fire hydrant. I tell the car to please start just one more time and I promise it I’ll take it in to be fixed. It starts. I bring Sailor home and lay him on my parents’ couch. I call a mom from Mac’s kindergarten class whose husband owns a garage. She tells me I can bring the car in tomorrow morning. I beg her to let me bring it in now. I leave Sailor with my parents and bring in the car (which, by the way, starts right up!). I walk to Barnes & Noble and try to buy a book I saw at the other neighborhood B&N last night only to be told the book has not been released yet. I get a coffee and go back to get Mac. We are so tired walking home that he asks if I have $2 for the bus. It seems like such a waste of money to pay for a 4-block bus ride. But I am as tired as Mac is and so we stop and wait for the bus. My mom has fixed a dinner of my dad’s birthday party leftovers – a starchy meal.

As the kids are getting ready for bed, Sailor comes in and out of apparently no where (tho I have no idea what he might have been discussing with Mac just prior to this) he says, “I want to go to FTK after soccer next week.” Have I mentioned that he is driving me nuts lately?!

Thursday is a difficult day without the car. It rained last night and stroller is wet. Sailor is going to have to walk all the way to school himself. I hand out rubber boots and raincoats and out the door we go. We are late as usual. I apologize, citing Sailor’s first walk to school as the reason and then realize that there is no way I am going to be able to get him and get Mac to school. My head spins as I try to figure out these logistics. My friend Anna and her kids are supposed to meet us at the bookstore this afternoon, but I’ve had to cancel due to lack of car. She says she will come over after lunch. I tell her how much party food we have left over and she is coaxed to bring the girls over right away at 11:45, just in time for me to leave her with a counter full of leftovers, microwavable glass plates and Mac. I run off to get Sailor. But he is not in as good form as he was this morning with his brother and I end up carrying him halfway home. We arrive to find my friend’s two little girls, who are 3 ½ and 21 months, playing with Mac. Fine. But there in uneaten lunch on the table and all the rest of the food is still out. And Anna is lying on the sofa. I didn’t know that moms ever get to lie on sofas. Especially in the middle of the day with three little kids to keep an eye on. Sailor wants to come with me to take Mac to school and promises he can walk. Except that I just carried him home from school. I go for the quick fix and turn on the tv. Half an hour later, after dropping Mac off, I find all three little kids playing in Sailor’s room and Anna sleeping on the sofa. I quietly call my sister from the kitchen to see if she knows what is up. “She just said she was really tired,” my sis tells me. So I let her sleep and keep the girls and Sailor well fed with lots of scrambled eggs and other yummies. Sailor’s little friend likes to put on his pajamas, so when it’s time to go get Mac, Sailor is ready for bed. It’s still raining. When we walk out the door he is wearing footy pajamas, red rain boots, his winter coat and the Santa Claus hat with the beard attached. He jumps in, splashes in or runs thru every puddle we encounter, at my encouragement. Because he is just too heavy for me to carry for any distance and I am going to go insane if I have to listen to much more of his whining that his feet hurt.
Two of the moms in Mac’s class organized a wedding tea for Miss H and her new husband. Or I should say, for Mrs. K, as the kids are insisting on calling her by her new married last name. I ask Mac to describe the new husband, curious myself to know about this guy, whom no one knew existed before a few weeks ago. “It’s hard to describe him, really,” Mac says, so I ask specific questions. “Is he handsome?” “Yes,” Mac tells me, “very very handsome.” What does his hair look like? Is he tall? “Is he young?” I ask. “Yes, he’s very very young.” Miss H, er, Mrs. K gets a big kick out of this when I tell her about it a few days later.

We are settling in with a snack and some stories after school when the garage calls to say my car is ready. Sailor is simply delighted with our bus ride to get there, and because the ride lasts no more than 10 minutes he protests strongly when we get to our stop. “I want to stay on!”

My car should need nothing more than regular oil changes and gas for the rest of its life. I breathe a huge sigh of relief. Over $1000 worth of maintenance plus the new battery and my car is running like a champ. And my pocketbook is none the worse for the ware, as I have found myself a very nice little trade – car care in exchange for a lifetime (practically!) of art classes for the owner’s daughter. We stop for groceries on the way home and get back at 6:15, in time for me to see an email from an old college boyfriend who wants me to meet him for a drink. Not tonight.

Friday’s highlights:

Sailor refuses to get in the car and Mommy shuts all the doors and turns on the engine, scaring the bejeezus out of both Sailor and protective older brother Mac. Sailor will never refuse to get in the car again.

Sailor goes on his very first drop-off play date. Who, you are asking, do I trust to watch my precious little newborn baby boy (ok, so he’s 3 ½ now)? I entrust him to Molly, the mom of his best preschool friend Jack. You know, the ones who moved to Michigan a month ago. They are in town for the week visiting her mom. And so I leave Sailor watching tv (again), which seems to calm him enough to let me leave, and chocolate milk. Mac has an eye doctor appointment.

Mac is given a prescription for glasses. Which we will fill just before he enters 1st grade in the fall. He is nearsighted. I am bummed. Having also gotten my first pair of glasses at 6, I am now so blind I would probably be considered legally so if I’d lived 100 years ago. Mac will look absolutely adorable in his glasses, I know. And he wants them. Nonetheless, they can wait until the end of summer.

Friday after school we spend no fewer than 4 hours cleaning up the house. My oldest friend and her 2 children are coming for breakfast tomorrow morning at 9:00. They live out of state and we haven’t seen them in a couple years.

My vacuum cleaner dies mid cleaning frenzy.

We are up early Saturday morning and finishing cleaning up. I realize what a fab job Mac has really done. I am truly proud at his efforts.

I instruct him how to make coffee and then send him down to my mother’s house for eggs while Sailor cracks our last two eggs and mixes pancake batter.

Our friends come at 9:00 with bloody mary fixings and bacon. And two hours later they are heading out. My friend has some art show to go to with her family, where she hopes to find the perfect piece for above her mantle at home. I mention how I have been traipsing around at Target and other cheap-o stores looking for something great to go above my mantle too!

I convince her to leave her kids with me for awhile. She reads them both a completely unnecessary riot act, threatening the almost-3-year-old boy with a time out before he has even had a reason to need one, and telling the 7-year-old girl that she has to help me with the little ones. She leaves and we go hand in hand in hand in hand in hand to the playground. For almost 2 hours. I marvel at any mom who has more than 2 kids. I don’t know how to take care off all four – I feel as if I am spinning. I have to keep an eye on the little boy, while I am helping the girl on one of the pieces of equipment she can’t quite reach on her own and meanwhile my boys want to be pushed on swings. I am truly exhausted when I bring them all home for lunch at 1:30. I imagine they are, too. Especially the two little ones. But they all want to go to the zoo. The children’s 17-year-old $5-an-hour babysitter (who has traveled with them) finds her way, painstakingly, from my friend’s father’s house 1 ½ blocks away to my house and as soon as my sister arrives we head to the Farm-in-the-Zoo. We see cows. We see a rabbit. We see pigs. We see a large puddle of mud. And the rest is history. While envious children, perplexed parents, and bemused non-parents look on, my children and their two friends (and the babysitter!) jump in, splash, fall into and throw the fabulous mud. They are, within 30 minutes of pure, unadulterated fun, completely covered in mud. From the soles of their feet to the tops of their heads. Nothing has been spared. My sister and I look on and share fits of hysterical laughter. Mac later tells me that I could not have had fun because I wasn’t playing. I told him I had a great time watching and thus he learns the lesson that one can have fun even if not participating.

I call my friend and let her know what our children are doing. Making she sure understands that any repercussions of their actions, should there be any, are completely my responsibility.

My sister calls our mother to ask if she’ll be in willing laundry duty when we get back.

No one can keep their eyes off our muddy five-some as we walk the blocks home. I can’t help but continue to laugh.

The girls go down to my parents' house to shower. I take the boys upstairs for a bath. The water they sit in together becomes almost as dark as the puddle they have just emerged from. Sailor doesn’t want me to wash his face. I show him a mirror. “I want go downstairs like this!” he says. I scrub and scrub: hair, eyes, ears, noses, toes, fingers, and everything in between. The girls shower themselves. My mother slaves over laundry. The tub is black when the water drains out. I dress all four children. Settle them back in the playroom with my sister and the sitter and leave for a fabulous 5 hours of shoe shopping, bra shopping, chatting, coffee and dinner with my best friend.

Sunday’s highlights.

Mac comes running in from his room. “MOMMY! I TIED MY OWN SHOE!” Indeed he has! He had it yesterday with my guidance, and I was going to count that as his first time, but then today when he does it while in an entirely different room, I know we have crossed a milestone. He ties them all day, every time he puts on his shoes.

The boys, my dad and I go out to brunch. But because no one will wait on us at our fave brunch buffet (a server needsto bring us plates) even tho at least 5 servers stand around chit-chatting, we leave and search out other options. We stop home for a light jacket for Sailor. And then for Mac. Who then has to go potty. Man style. Then Sailor has to go. Then my dad has to go. By the time we eat – Mac orders spaghetti for brunch and Sailor orders a “tall sandwich” -- it’s noon. Mac wants to go home with my dad and take a nap. Sailor wants to go to the playground. On the swings he more or less figures out how to pump. He has a blast with my attention all to himself and I discover that he is the cutest boy there.

Mac spends the afternoon at a Judo birthday party for one of the boys in his class with whom he has had quite a number of conflicts this year. But Mac has a philosophy: If I am invited, I go. And I am sharp enough to realize that censoring his birthday party invitations would make me just far too controlling. I stay at the party, of course, the only mom who does (one dad does) and talk with the mom and grandmother. They are a happy for the company, as this is a pretty hands-off party as far as they are concerned. I have to bring home the boy triplet and we go to the playground again. Sailor is asleep this time. Another of Mac’s classmates is there. As is an entire population of people who live nowhere near our neighborhood, including the woman who asked me this morning to use my cell phone to find out where her husband was. He’d dropped her and her children at the playground 90 minutes earlier and gone off to look for parking. Typical of our neighborhood.

We are a tired but happy bunch. It has been a very nice weekend. A relatively mellow week (by comparison from the previous two weeks) awaits us. The kids lie in my bed and watch a bit of family tv (7th Heaven has just 2 more episodes left) and then Sailor looks at me with a mouth full and a panic in his eyes. I run him to the bathroom where he throws up just a little bit. “That was my 2 times frowing up,” he reminds me. True, I think maybe he has only thrown up in the potty once before. Back in my room he tells Mac, quite proudly it almost seems, that he “frowed up.” Which, he says, he does not like to do.

Soon the boys are sleeping. And then before I can put my laptop off my lap, I watch Mac roll right off he bed and crash to the floor. I haul him up with great effort and lay him back down beside me. I love having them in here with me, but tonight I am seriously considering carrying them back to their own beds, just so I can get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.