Now That The Kids Are In School

What do I do with myself all day now that the kids are in school? Of course the obvious answer is I sit around, gorging myself on delicious and decadent treats. I have time to go to all of the health clubs and fitness centers I belong to because now that the kids are in school money is no object so I have joined them all. When I am finished with all of my clubs and centers, and my time with the personal fitness trainers and gurus has drawn to a close, I head out to a spa for a facial, a massage and then I join friends for a leisurely tea. After which I sweep in to the school parking lot to pick up my perfectly coiffed and cheerful children who regale me with tales related to the joy of learning.

Except none of this happens. I don't have that life. Yes, I have 4 kids in school but this has afforded me unbelievably less time for myself than I have had previously. This year I have 4 kids on two school campuses. This may sound, from an outsider's perspective, like a terrible scheduling snafu has occurred, when in fact this is the best I have ever had it.

This is the best schedule I have had in 10 years. In years past I have attempted to balance 3 different schools for 4 children. No matter how hard I tried I was always the parent who was present the least. I went on the fewest class trips, I volunteered for the fewest hours in each classroom.

Other parents would helpfully explain that the unwritten code of the school requires that parents put in their time if they want the best teachers and classroom experiences, the implication being that if I showed up every now and again my child would have it better, you know, like their kid. Somehow no one really got the 3 schools with various pick up times part of the equation. Yet somehow these same people are the ones that marvel at how I balance two campuses this year.

But back to the time issue. Now that I have kids in one district, in two campuses, I actually can participate in classrooms and volunteer on field trips. So I do and I am happy to do this because I finally can. I like being able to see what goes on, I like getting to know the kids and finding out about my children's classmates. Plus the field trips are fun and informative.

However there is very little time for anything once I get involved. This week I went on 2 field trips, baked California shaped cookies and volunteered for an in class project. I also did some further research for an upcoming IEP. I went to a meeting with the director of student services for our school district. I met with the principal and spoke with art and music and PE teachers to make sure I knew how everything was going at school this year. That was during the school hours. After school there was swimming, cross country, water polo and homework. Every day. Then I made dinner. Then I did laundry. Then I cleaned parts of the house, but not all of it. I did not even buy groceries. I saved that for today. I did not have time to buy groceries. We are out of milk. We are out of cat food. We have only had the fish tank for 3 weeks and already one of the fish had babies so we need to get fish baby accoutrements.

I went to bed exhausted every night. I still have further research to do before the IEP. I have volunteered to make cookies for a fundraiser for special ed. The weekend is booked with swimming and play dates and soccer. On Monday it will all start again.

On Monday someone is sure to ask me what I do with all of my spare time now that the kids are in school and I have the house to myself. It must be so quiet, they will remark. Their idea of my life sounds so idyllic, how do I get in there?

If You Scream You Get Veggie Burgers

This is what I love about holidays: I can bribe the kids. Christmas is by far the easiest because I get an entire month in which elves are reporting bad behavior and miscreant activities to the powers that be at the North Pole. However I can work other holidays to my advantage as well.

Easter, for example. Today started out like any other day. A scream, a shout, angry protests followed by thuds of toys hitting walls and children jumping off of bunk beds or perhaps dangling from ceiling fans. I have no idea what those noises indicate because I no longer check unless someone informs me that blood is involved. Even then I take my sweet time unless there is silence. There is nothing more eerie than silence. Today was not silent. There was loud chaos and rumblings which began at the usual ungodly hour of 5:30, which is a fantastic time for rumblings and chaos. All sorts of injustices were apparently occurring but I don't involve myself in these altercations. If I get involved whatever toy or activity is in question goes away and becomes mine.

The noise level escalated, as it usually does, until it was time to serve the beasts breakfast. Different but equally jarring sounds of protest and cries of injustice issue forth from the breakfast table. The four beings were not quelled after being sated with sustenance so I threw them outside. If you play with the dog you get to chew gum. Go outside. Its a good bribe. We don't usually have gum. My kids will work for gum. For the time being, anyway.
OK, it didn't work. Well, getting them outside worked, but screaming and fighting and shoving and irritating one another wasn't quite what I'd had in mind. One decided someone else's toy didn't work well which resulted in a fit of tears because yes, it does work well! Someone else found bubbles and deliberately blew them in someone else's eye, just to be mean! Then someone stood right where someone else was scootering and someone looked at something and it was not OK and someone else did some other thing and it was all very horrible and unfair. So I told them to go inside.
Once inside I broke out the big guns. The big Easter guns. I started speaking slowly, carefully, softly but with a great deal of conviction.

"Did you know", I paused for affect and also to quickly concoct my tale, " the Easter bunny does not bring chocolate to boys and girls who fight and scream the day before Easter?" I stared at them solemnly. They stared back solemnly, this had not crossed their minds. Why had it not crossed my mind until now?
" The Easter bunny", I continued," will bring you a basket of veggie burgers. The ones from Costco". Oh how my children loathe those veggie burgers, which I found out after buying a case of them. " The Easter bunny will hop on down the bunny trail and take a quick turn to hop on over to Costco on his way here". Costco is everywhere these days.
One small child was caught up in the story of it all. Another had eyes filled with a combination of wonder and horror.
" But, I don't like those", she whispered, aghast.
" I know". I offered, sagely.

Silence.

Oh how I love silence.

A few minutes later some sort of injustice was almost discovered but a quick reminder of veggie burgers was all it took to silence the dissent. The afternoon was looking up.

This evening however hit a bit of a snag.

" Mommy? I'm scared of the Easter bunny. He has red scary eyes. Is he going to come into our house when I'm sleeping?"

" He just hops on in to leave you chocolate, or veggie burgers. Did you clean your room? I don't want him to trip".

" Will he hop in my room? And touch me? I'm scared of the Easter bunny. I don't want him to touch me."

Hmmmm, if you leave a mess in your room he will hop in there and trip and fall onto your bed. Picking up might be a good idea.

" Mommy? I want to sleep in your bed so he doesn't attack me".

Easter bunnies don't attack, but just in case we will leave out this piece of cabbage in the kitchen so he will get all distracted and stay in there.

"OK, but Mommy? I don't want him in here, what if he comes in my room and has red eyes?"

Easter bunnies are scared of air so you can take this empty spray bottle and if you see him hop into your room you can squirt him.

" OK, and Mommy? I get chocolate for breakfast?"

As long as you never scream again.

Sometimes Paper Plates Are The Best Option

We bought our dishwasher six months ago. We went all out. We got a Miele. Its really amazing. I never gave a whole lot of thought to dishwashers before because well, because they are not very interesting. Who wants to think about dishwashers? OK, this thing is great. The dishes sparkle. Seriously, its that good.
Or it was. Until it stopped working last week. The whole we need a new dishwasher, I can't handle washing dishes for 6 people, lunch box containers for 4 kids... that was a whole different saga that I never got around to blogging about. It was a long and drawn out and painful saga which involved tedium and misery and paper plates. I was not about to relive that saga.
OK, so I just have to make a phone call because the stupid thing is under warranty. Except the high end specialty dishwasher shoppe doesn't keep normal hours. And when I do get a hold of them they need time to access my info. What info? I bought a dishwasher from you. It doesn't work. Tada! There is my info.
Apparently there is more involved in this. I have to call the special Miele hotline first. My personal specialist gives me the hotline number and tells me it will all be quick and fantastic and solved in no time because Miele is headquartered in San Francisco. Fantastic, except the hotline operates on east coast hours. WTF?
Eventually I speak with a highly trained Miele specialist who instructs me to do things like turn it off and turn it back on. Yes, I thought of that. I'm calling you because it does not work. He instructs me to have to look under the sink, is there a valve? No.
No?
No.
There is no valve?
No.
Hmmmm. OK. Turn it off again. Is it draining now?
No.
Hmmmm , I do not understand this. It should drain.
Yes, I know. Its BROKEN. THAT IS WHY I AM CALLING YOU.
Hmmmmm
...
Hmmmmm
...
You will need to have a service call. The service center will call you to set that up.

The service center did not call. I called the service center. They had to access my information. Oh I see you have a work order, so we will be able to help you. Oh great, when?
Hmmmm.
We do have a technician that works in your area! That bit of information was relayed a little bit too enthusiastically for my jaded self.
Seriously? I'm supposed to be excited about this bit of news? Isn't it your job to get someone to service the machine that is under warranty?

Fast forward to today when I eagerly await the dishwasher repairman.

Is this guy for real? This man shows up and he is a travesty of himself. His hair is slicked back on the sides. He oozed in, stating he will be able to fix anything. It kind of went downhill from there.

He kept raising his eyebrows at me and clearing his throat and adjusting his collar and moaning and groaning as he tightened things with wrenches. I thought about asking him if he'd like to use the bathroom to masturbate, then I thought about how funny it would be if I actually said that, then I started laughing to myself. Then I think he mistook my inward smile as a sign that I thought he was hot. Then he just HAD to show me this one incredible thing he could do. He could magnetically hook up his computer to my dishwasher and obtain info on how many hours I'd cycled through.
" You will love this" he said with a wink.
Eeew, OMG yes, I am turned on by computer read outs of the hours I've logged on my dishwasher. ( Close to 1,000. Sexy, right? Imagine all those dirty dishes... cycling).

Then my daughter, who was at home sick, had to make the situation feel far creepier. She is fascinated by the fact that my underwear is different than boy underwear. She is transfixed by the notion that I can choose between wearing a bra vs wearing a camisole. She had on a pink tank top with a silk indian print shirt on top. So she started asking what I was wearing under my shirt.
A little shirt like hers? Or one of those other things?
OMG NOOOOO! NOT RIGHT NOW.

Creepy guy was here for over an hour, winking and raising his eyebrows, and learning about my undergarments of choice, but he finally left and I finally have a dishwasher.

If it malfunctions again I will use paper plates.

Getting Places

Is it just my kids? Is it like this for everyone?
This is what happens when we go swimming. Oldest child does not get lessons since he is already on the swim team and practices there. The other three get lessons. Prior to leaving the house the three about to have swim lessons children are instructed to put on bathing suits and then put their clothes back on, on top of the bathing suits. I have found this minimizes the risk of forgetting bathing suits for the swim lesson ( not handy).
Unfortunately this technique has the side effect of also allowing for greater potential to accidentally wear underwear under the bathing suit. This is often not discovered until after the swim lesson when some one or other begins bemoaning having wet underwear. I tend not to catch on, assuring them that they do not have wet underwear, they are wearing bathing suits. Only when they undress do I realize, once again, why the wet underwear complaint has been filed. Do not wear underwear under your bathing suit.
So anyway, my plan is I get all the kids ready before we leave the house. We drive to the pool. I get my ID ready before we charge out of the car. We stumble through the parking lot wearing flip flops, no matter what the weather , because if you can swim you can wear flip flops. We go into the family changing room and the three kids remove the outer layers of clothing. I hand them goggles, we go meet the swim teachers.
During the lessons I have oldest child with me and we walk away from the pool area. If I am in the vicinity of the pool then child number 2 can't swim. So I need to be out of sight. There are chairs near the gym, in case anyone wants to hang out and gawk. So we sit there as child #1 pretends to get some homework tackled. What actually happens is he fidgets and picks at imaginary threads, asks inane questions, realizes he does not have a pencil. The forgotten pencil is a familiar theme and he has not quite figured out that this technique does not in fact mean he has escaped his obligations. What he does have to do is march himself up to the reception desk at the gym and ask to borrow one. That takes a good 20 minutes. Then he has to get readjusted in his chair and examine a shoelace for a while. Right about then is when he has all sorts of burning questions about eucalyptus trainers. Yes, eucalyptus. Just like what I have at home. I work out using a eucalyptus.
Oh look, he answered one question on his homework sheet and its time to grab towels and get the other 3 from their lessons. 3 out of the pool and into the locker room. There they wander about in varying states of undress for a while since I've managed to teach my children pretty much nothing about privacy. Getting dressed apparently requires a great deal of wandering about and dropping underwear onto the wet floor and being unable to fit your head through an arm hole.
When the 3 swimmers are finally ready I somehow find myself behaving in a way that implies I think I can just walk on out the door at this point. Of course I can't. Child #1, who did not even swim is not ready. His coat sleeve is inside out and his shoes are mysteriously off.
Really? Does this happen with other people's kids?

I'm Left With The Aftermath

Yesterday I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. It didn't make that much of a difference. I can't keep up. As I busied myself with folding laundry and decluttering I suddenly smelled something toxic. A familiar smell. A toxic smell. A bad smell. An ominous smell.

What could it be? I thought all the kids were in the back, playing. As it turns out all but one was in the back playing. One small child had realized she'd been left to her own devices and was busily taking full advantage of this fact.

I followed the strong and ominous smell which led me to the bathroom. The room the lone indoor child had just left. Nail polish remover? No... nail polish. The floor sparkled. The floor did not sparkle because it was clean. The floor sparkled because it had been smeared with sparkly nail polish.

I went out and grabbed Laurel.

" What were you doing in the bathroom?"

" Nothing."

Her fingers and toes sparkled. Not just her fingernails and toenails, but her fingers and toes and feet all sparkled. She had gone to town. She had painted the town sparkly pink.

" Did you put on nail polish?" I asked the obvious.

" Yes" she managed to whisper before bursting into tears.

" Where is the nail polish now?"

Sob sob sob..

" Laurel! Tell me where it is!"

" I put it hic..sob sob..hic sob...away"

At least she put it away when she was done.

The Trap

Everyone now has bunk beds. I love bunk beds. The rooms are all larger. Toys can stay in the bedrooms, in theory anyway.

Laurel and Griffin's bunk beds arrived last week. They are awesome. They have stairs rather than a ladder and the height is lower than a standard bunk bed. They are perfect.

The arrival of the bunk beds was quite a production. They arrived on a single palate but there were many pieces. Assembly was not included but fortunately the delivery men were happy to put it together for some extra cash.

The men arrived with the palate of bed pieces and it took about 30 minutes for them to unload all the pieces into the house. I shut my bedroom door because I saw that Chloe and Walle were sleeping on my bed. Paddington usually hides in the darkest Peru, or the darkest Peru equivalent, which is usually under my bed. At the slightest hint that a new person has arrived at the house he is gone. I assumed Paddington was under the bed.

The front door was open and shut and open again as the men trudged back and forth with large bits of things and tools and boxes and headboards and steps.

Eventually the bed was assembled, the boxes dismantled and carted off , the men were paid, ( I even threw in some children's clothing because one of them mentioned he had six kids and I had just cleared out some outgrown clothes). The men left.

I then discovered the lower bunk was put in head first rather than foot first. The room is so tight I had to turn it on its end to reverse it. Fun.

I opened the door to let the cats out. Chloe and Walle came to inspect. Paddington did not.

I made the beds. I put away clothing etc in the attached drawers. I folded sheets and put them in the armoire.

No sign of Paddington.

He could not have gotten out. Not again. We can't have lost him again. That was all too traumatic.

I put out plates of tuna. Chloe and Walle ate it ravenously and appreciatively.

No sign of Paddington. I called him. Nothing. I looked in all his usual hiding spots. Under the beds, in closets, behind toy boxes, behind curtains. Nope, no sign of him. I looked outside, in bushes, under hedges. Nothing.

Oliver came home from school. I needed to go get Laurel and Griffin. Oliver and I got in the car and the gas light came on. So I hurried to the nearest gas station, which had no gas. I went to pick up Laurel and Griffin, figuring after I got them I'd head to a different gas station. So we did that. I pulled in to the next gas station and there was caution tape on all the tanks. They didn't have gas either. Um... is it 1972?
We went to pick up Holden then we drove to a third gas station which I was relieved to find actually had gas.

Although Holden's swim team practice was meant to start at 4 I decided to take him to the 4:30 session because I had to go pick up an animal trap to try and get Paddinton back. We've been through this before and I knew the system. Wait til dusk, bait with Kentucky Fried Chicken, listen for the snap of the metal doors. Hertz Equipment Rental closes at 4:30 so I needed to get this trap.

I left the kids in the car, ran in, picked up the paper work, drove to the pick up area and the man loaded the trap into the car for me.

Our house is on the way to the pool so I pulled over by our house and ran over to set the trap. I might as well set it early with a little tuna, and reset it at dusk with KFC. I carefully set it up while the kids watched from the car.
I ran back to the car to drive to swim practice and Holden said " Isn't that Paddington?"

Sure enough, there he was. He watched me set up the trap...from the window. He was inside, where he had been all along.

Laurel and Griffin were amazed that the trap worked so well. They are still talking about it.

What Would You Wish For?

I decided to take the twins out to run a few errands. Two out of four children are easy. So we went to the mall. My IPhone charging cord was broken and frayed again. I wanted to go to the Apple Store.
So I drove to the Apple Store after the other two were in their respective schools. The stores don't open until 10. So we went to Peets and they scored cookies and I had a coffee. I need a lot of coffee.

At 10 we walked over to the Apple Store. Employees were everywhere, ready to help. Immediately I was led to the wrong product. No, I want the charging cord thingy, like this broken one.
I found it myself.
Meanwhile Griffin was making a pile of all the IPhone cases he apparently needed, despite not owning or even having access to an IPhone. Laurel was then inspired to pick out a hot pink Paul Frank Julius monkey cover which she wanted for herself.
No, we are not getting the hot pink Paul Frank IPhone case. The employee who was not actually helping me but nevertheless had remained in my vicinity with a posture of helpfulness, was quick to point out that they did indeed have these hot pink cases in stock.
Yes, I know, but I don't want one. My daughter does.
"Well, here they are!" She pointed out brightly.
"Yes, I know. But my daughter is 4. She doesn't have an IPhone".
I paid for my cord as she helpfully pointed out that there were computer games for kids. So of course Laurel and Griffin wanted to play these games. But, they are four and don't know how to play computer games, don't need to play computer games, and at this point I want to leave and not hang out at the Apple store all day.
So they whined and screamed as I pulled them away from the games they didn't know how to play in the first place. Thanks helpful Apple people.

So then we tried to walk to another store but got waylaid by a fountain. Other children were throwing coins in. I don't have coins to throw into fountains. I was wondering just who it was that had been throwing quarters in there and whether or not anyone would notice were I to wade in and collect them when some random guy asked the twins if they'd like to make a wish. They clearly had no idea what he was talking about but said yes.
He gave each of them a penny. Griffin wished for a boot. Laurel wished for a cat. We thanked the man and left.
I thought we'd walk through Pottery Barn Kids. Thats a safe bet. Kid friendly. So we walked in and Griffin and Laurel fought and tussled over every object within reach. It was fun. We needed to get out of there. They didn't want to leave. They were having too much fun fighting. So I pointed out that there was another fountain and we could make another wish. Suddenly the whole lets throw our money into a puddle idea seemed like a good idea after all. They practically ran outside, very excited to try out this new wishing thing.
We got outside and Griffin looked around.
" Where is the wishing man?"
We don't need the wishing man. We can make our wishes without him.
" But we need the monies from the wishing man".
Griffin began to look very concerned.
His fears were allayed when I suddenly produced two pennies.
Laurel wished for a cat.
Griffin wished for a boot.