Life down here on earth

The week-after-spring-break slog continues

Sam cried this morning when I woke him up for school.  He does that fairly often, actually.  He's not much of a morning person, but I think I've said that before. Also, he probably really ought to go to bed before Jack and get an extra hour of sleep, but the logistics of that just never work out.

He pulled the covers over his head and began to cry, "I don't like school. It takes up your WHOLE DAY!"  And that right there needs to go on one of those smart-alecky t-shirts they sell at Target.

On Monday he cried that he hates "morning work," which is that work they have waiting for you at your desk when you first get to school. Can you imagine? They expect you to get started just like that as soon as you walk in the door without so much as a cup of coffee or a donut or anything. Sam's right. School is hard. He whined that math was hard (which is just silly because he does math problems in his head that are way past first grade) and the worst thing ever at school is ABC order! Oh no, anything but that!

This morning we were standing at the front door saying our goodbyes when I noticed the little girl across the street being primped by her mother who usually never shows her face before the bus comes. Aaah! It came to me- today is picture day! It was rescheduled from one of our no snow- snow days.  Ack.

The whole spring school picture thing is a big scam. They take school pictures in the fall. They put those pictures in the yearbook and try to sell you a $40 package of prints. Then, they decide to take the class pictures in the spring. And while they're taking class pictures, they take individual pictures again and try to sell you another $40 package of prints.

Also, it's not like this is the 40's when the pictures my Dad had taken at school were some of the only pictures of him that existed.  My kids are well documented. (See previous post re: eleventy- million spring break pictures) I know, I know... if I don't want the pictures I don't have to buy them, but someone might want them so quit complaining.  Which is fine, except the pictures are BAD. They push those kids through the picture line like they're working cattle and then give you digital prints worse than ones you can print at home. Seriously, last year in kindergarten Sam was wearing an orange shirt in his picture. When I got the print the color was so bad that his shirt was red. It's like they pressed the "I'm feeling lucky" button on the color correction and never looked back.  Plus, they didn't send home a reminder that today was picture day and that's just annoying.

Thankfully I have boys. I screeched, "Oh no, boys! It's picture day!" They didn't even flinch.

Sam said, "Is my shirt okay?" He was wearing a t-shirt that said "Varsity Chess Club" on the front, but he hadn't wiped his face on it at breakfast, so I said yes and he walked out the door, his hair sticking up a bit in the back. Jack let me try to tame his hair with a squirt bottle and a comb. It was hopeless really, that boy's hair has a mind of its own and he's two weeks past needing a haircut. I scrutinized his Quiksilver t-shirt, determined it was passable and let him go.

At least they're tall enough to be on the back row.

Go teams.

I am trying to get a  handle on huge pile of pictures I took over our Spring Break trip to Texas. When we got home Greg moved them from his computer (which went to Texas) to mine (which did not) because I'm the one who fiddles with the pictures. He said something like, "I just moved eleventy-million and eighty pictures to your hard drive." 

When I inquired how many of those pictures needed to be deleted (because I knew a bunch could be culled) he said, "eleventy-million."

Everyone's a critic.

So while I'm working on that the kids have the day off school.  Because clearly those two days back after spring break were so unbelievably exhausting they need another day off. That, or the school knows I'm dealing with kids who are still adjusting to daylight savings time and have just come off a week that included a vacation, St. Patrick's day and Easter and they're just toying with me.

And then, THEN! I thought it was a good time to let Sam have his friends over for a playdate. Twin friends. I'm a glutton for punishment.

So I was giving the kids a snack and I was wearing an old sweatshirt from Miami of Ohio.  That was when the twins started to drill me with questions.

"Did you go to Miami?"

"No."

"Where did you go to college?"

"I went to the University of Texas."

"Where did you go to graduate school?"

Wha?

They said this like they were asking what I had for lunch. It was just something that they thought everyone did. Great. Now I was insecure about my education in front of a couple of 7 year olds who still talk with lisps and probably can't even spell university.  I confessed to them that I did not attend graduate school and they rattled off an impressive list of colleges and graduate schools that their parents had attended.

Then they asked about "Sam's Dad."  Aha! I could save face because, yes, Greg did have an advanced degree and when I gave them the names of two well respected California institutions that they had probably never heard of they said,

"So, no school with teams?"

Gah.

"Well," one of them allowed, "Texas has good basketball at least," and they ran off to jump on the pogo stick.

I was left standing alone in the kitchen thinking maybe I should go to graduate school. And if so, it should definitely have teams.

So not a morning person

If there's just been the biggest snow of the year (3 inches, yay!) and you don't feel like sledding with your brother, you must feel pretty bad. Saturday morning, we set off for sledding at what the kids used to call "Death Mountain."  It's recently been graded into something more suitable for building houses on, so now we're calling it "Somewhat Threatening Slope."  Next year it will be somebody's yard and there won't be any sledding on it at all.  Not for us, anyway.

Nothing was working for Sam that morning, though. He woke up feeling bad and things got worse. We knew he ought to go to the doctor to have his throat looked at, but when it snows here you have to make hay while the sun shines, so to speak, because it'll all be gone by 11:00am, noon if you're lucky. My sled doesn't work in the front yard! I can't walk all the way to Death Mountain! Jack hit me in the face with a snowball!  And he decided to go inside.

So Greg and Jack went sledding and Sam and I went to the doctor for his first case of strep throat. I'm still not really sure he actually had strep, but he's done with his antibiotics already so it's gone either way. The bad news is he's back on the Nasonex every day for allergy season which in Tennessee, I think, is ALL YEAR LONG.*  Seriously, it's all pollen, all the time.  That's the flip side of all the green.

The worst part about this incredibly riveting story is that on Monday morning, Sam cried that he didn't feel good, his throat hurt, he was tired.  I knew there'd be some difficulty getting up because of the time change, but he seemed to feel really bad. So I let him stay home from school.  Turns out either he's a really good actor or I'm a big sucker. It's both, actually, because by 9:30, he was fine and driving me crazy with his incessant chatter and trying to get me to answer him on the walkie-talkie when he called me from upstairs.  By 10:30 I was begging him to go away and play Webkinz.

I swear I saw him snicker and twirl his imaginary evil moustache as he booted up the computer.

The best part about this incredibly riveting story is that last night after his first day back at school, Sam whined that he hates to miss school because his class did something super cool the day he was gone and you always miss cool stuff when you stay home and "remember last time I was sick I missed that cool thing with the eggs!?"  And I just smiled and twirled my own imaginary evil moustache because I really enjoyed seeing him learn that lesson.

 

(*The doctor actually used the word "turbinates" and I was all proud of myself because I learned that one last year from my brother.)

You're right there in everything I do

Two weekends ago we were in Austin for my brother's wedding and not only was the weather perfect, but I got to see all sorts of friends and family that I hadn't seen in a long time. I think I would have really liked the kind of life where you stay in the same place and surround yourself with friends and family, becoming that village that raises your children and loves and supports (and nags and argues with) each other.  You could have never convinced me of that, though, way back when I was making the decisions that sent me in another direction entirely.

I love going back to Texas. You just want to take a big deep breath and go, "Ahhhhh." It struck me as soon as we hit the freeway out of the airport. "Look how big the sky is!" I said to Greg. The sky in Tennessee is all blocked up with hills and trees and stuff.  When I came here from Texas for the first time it felt really claustrophobic, like it was hard to breathe. When I came here for the second time I was coming from a valley in California bordered by mountains. After that, Tennessee didn't seem so closed in.  Greg, who's had to live with me and my gushing for years, is never really sure that Texas lives up to its hype. He was unimpressed by the big sky, and said, "Isn't that just because it's flat?" Buzzkill.

The bad part about going back to Texas is that it reminds us of how sadly lacking our current town is on Mexican restaurants. Also on this trip I realized that, probably due to having spent their younger formative years in southern California, my kids don't like barbeque. WHO DOESN'T LIKE BARBEQUE? No one, that's who. These kids eat shrimp, hummus and edamame, but wouldn't touch the barbeque. I have failed them.

I compensated by drilling them with Texas history facts for a whole week and then quizzing them on March 2, "On this day in history, from what country did Texas declare its independence?" Jack looked up from the computer and dutifully muttered, "Mexico." and then went back to work.  I think he was trying not to roll his eyes at me. He was, however, moderately interested when I told him I had seen the grave of an ancestor who was killed by Comanches. 

Later, my iPod decided to feed my homesickness and spit out a song I hadn't heard in forever, "Carrying your Love with Me" by George Strait which is quite possibly the most perfect country song ever written.  (Just now, when getting that youtube link, I had to listen to the whole song again. Twice.)

We were in the car and Jack, needing to put another knife in my heart after the barbeque debacle, whined, "Noooo....I hate country music!"  Really. I failed them. A child should be exposed to George Strait and barbeque from early on.

So now I'm thinking that what these kids need is a strict country-music-and-barbeque diet until they learn to appreciate their heritage or until I get over missing Texas, whichever comes first.