I’m not dyslexic. I’m crazy. I survived the first day of school, but boy did it slap me around a few times like I owed it some money. Today is Day Two and I’m still a little nervous, but I’m working on confidence boosting between my note-taking of molecular polarity. Translation: if it tries to slap me today, I may be able to get a slap or two back in there myself. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Call me a geek, but I LOVE back to school time. Of course, the fact that my birthday is at the beginning of September helps, too, but still, when the school supplies come out, it’s like the changing of the seasonal guard. It’s AWESOME.

This year is going to be a little different come that Tuesday after Labor Day. Not only will Mo be continuing learning the preschool ropes, Co-dizzle will be sticking her big toe into the preschool pool two days a week. Mo, in fact, started this week with her “orientation” (darn you, private schools with your uber-involvement) which includes several half days, special indoor-only soft shoes required by the school and a supply list long enough to keep Jon and Kate plus 8 in the black for three weeks. But I digress. We spent this week figuring out carpool schedules, nap routines and how to fold our everyday lives into this drop-off/pick-up on time mix.

Come Monday, it’s going to get really interesting. My first class is at 11am. Yes, gentle reader, I’m going back to school (Oh, my tummy is doing a serious Shawn Johnson impression right now).

As a freshman in college, I had aspirations of becoming a doctor, specifically, an OB/GYN. I got to college, enrolled in my first bio class and that’s when it fell apart. My professor was total douchebag; it was like he just picked a random page in the book to start with and went from there. I remember most if not all of the girls on my freshman dorm studying together in the common area for our first test. Stacks and stacks of index cards with terms on them, notebooks scribbled in from cover to cover. Girls were talking in their sleep about it. The test came and went, taking with it my desire to move forward. In short, I failed.

Yeah, I know, right? Unreal. I was beside myself. Here I was an honor roll student, who, to date, had received a C+ one time — in the fourth grade — and now my record is besmirched with an F (for what the fuck, evidently). So, I went to see this professor, who summarily dismissed me with a lot of fast talk about how I must not be ready for college seeing as I was only 17, that I must be homesick, that I must not be ready, that too bad, so sad, I can withdraw from the class leaving only a W on my transcript instead of an F. I opted for door number three and hightailed it out of there before that monkey bastard could see me cry. Which I did. For feeling like a complete and utter waste of brains (oooh, it burns me up now just to think about it).

(And as a side note, a friend of mine who also failed the same test and went to the Professor Monkey Bastard was told not to worry and that he would receive as much help as he needed in order to succeed. This I find out after I withdraw, but after my little convo with Prof. MB, I wanted to be as far a way from him as possible.

Fast forward to about a year or so ago. Throughout my pregnancy with Mo and definitely with Co, I often came out of my appointments thinking about “what if” with respect to pursuing the bio and in turn, a medical career. What if I had failed the first test, but decided to stick it out? What if I just ate the F and realized that you can still pass and still be employable in the long run? There were more and more “what if” scenarios that ran through my head as time passed. I started talking to the nurses in at the practice about how they got started in nursing. One related her story to me about how she had been 35, working in finance and raising her family when she decided to quit and go to school. Now, she’s late(r) 30’s and nursing. “Well hell,” I thought, “I’m not even 30 yet. I could do that!”

I sat on my info for a while until one night turned to DH and said, “I want to go back to school. For nursing.” And just like that, it was out of my mouth and in motion. I was going to open houses. I was talking with heads of departments. I was visiting campuses, submitting applications, requesting transcripts (what an exercise in frustration THAT is) and then, I was receiving my letter of acceptance. I’ve bought my back to school supplies, I’ve gotten a new backpack (no, I didn’t opt for the monogram, but I did consider it). I didn’t take it as far as the back to school outfit, but I may reconsider

Holy crap! I’m going back to school (here comes another stomach double back handspring followed by an triple salto). I’ve got three classes to take before I actually start the nursing program, which means, this time next year, that’s where I’ll be.

So, this coming Monday morning, I’ll take the girls to their respective schools before heading over to Anatomy and Physiology. Yeah, nothing like the various human systems right after breakfast.

I put my sunglasses down for one flippin’ minute and this is what happens. . . .

Why does every photo op turn into Zoolander with these two? If I see them having a walk off at the Old Osh-Kosh B’Gosh Factory, it’s all over!

You know, they say that payback’s a bitch and they ain’t never lied. As retributive justice for my poop pitching, Co-dizzle let forth a storm of shit to end all shits this evening.

I thought I had learned my lesson the last time she decided to clean her system. She and Mo were in the tub, everyone was getting washed up and then the water turned murky. Lovely. You go through these mental gymnastics over what to do first. Drain the tub? Get them out? Wash them up? Wash the tub? Scoop the poop? In that instances, I pulled them out, drained the tub, jumped in my shower with them, got them fresh, dressed and smelling like a million bucks before I attended to the crap-fest in my tub.

I told a girlfriend about that debacle and she said her husband has decided to bathe their babe with the pamper on as a result of having had one too many pairs of pants peed and pooped on en route to the tub. In one particular memorable incident, said babe peed on said dad while he had his retainer in his pocket. Nice.

So, the last few times I’ve bathed Mo and Co, I’ve left Co’s diaper on. Those Pampers are way absorbent. I put her in and all the water just got sucked up into the diaper. Today, same thing, but the diaper was hanging just a little too low. I unfasten on side of the diaper in order to wash her parts and to my astonishment, there was like five days worth of shit and a liter of Mr. Bubble Bath water in that diaper. Which proceed to gush and goosh down my arm as Co-dizzle began to dance a jig. Wonderful.

Yep, what goes around truly, truly, comes around.

So we (me) are dog sitting for my folks for a few days. Rather than trucking across town several times a day to walk, water, and feed Sage, Sage is shacking up with us. It’s been a while since I’ve co-habited with Sage, or any dog for that matter. DH believes that dogs should be kept outside, as in “Beasts of the field belong in the field”, but he’s making an exception seeing as my folks kept Mo and Co for us while we were gallivanting around NYC.

I got Sage when she was a few weeks old and I was about three weeks away from heading off to college. Not perfect timing, but the circumstances were extenuating. The home where Sage came from had a sign in the yard proclaiming “Free Puppies” and my mom has seen it in her travels to pick me up from a job training. On the way home, we decide to stop and I kid you not, this house was straight out of “Overboard“, complete with the kid who talked like Pee-Wee Herman. Evidently the family Beagle had been left outside overnight and the neighborhood German Shepherd had his womanizing ways with her. Presto! Changeo! Free Puppies! Poor Sage was the last of the litter, the smallest of the litter, cowering behind their couch. We couldn’t leave her there, so we scooped her up and headed up with no dog supplies nor lie to give to my dad about what we were doing with a dog.

Fast forward through college, my first apartment, marriage to DH and our first and second homes. Sage has lived with my folks ever since. Technically, she’s my dog, but she lives with my parents, so she’s kind of their dog. I mean, at this point, if I even tried to make a switch and take her on full time, I doubt she’d go. When my parents dropped her off today, she cried at the front door.

Anyway, Sage is a member of the family and one of Mo’s favorite folk. All I can think is, “Sage, don’t die, not on my watch!” I mean, she is 84 years old after all, 14 in dog years. She is super sweet and super gentle. The girls love her and she’s a watch dog through and through.

So, I let her out this afternoon to do her business. She’s alternating sniffing every blade of grass and whizzing on every other blade of grass. She had eaten not fifteen minutes before, so I expected a poop thrown into the mix and was not disappointed; not entirely. I’m thinking, as my mom so thoroughly briefed me, mega dog bricks or something out a science experiment gone wrong. Nope, just one, golf-ball sized poop (bear with me, this is important). Okay, I can deal with that, seeing as I have to scoop that shit up.

The girls are inside playing, Sage is watching me from the porch as I mosey on into the grass with my paper towel. I’m thinking, “I’ll just scoop this up and toss it into the woods.” I mean, why would I take a plastic bag for one poop nugget and then throw it in the recycling? I might as well bring it inside and flush it, right? So, I scoop the poop, arch my arm back to throw and release. The poop flies through the air and before I can say “Oh shit!” it lands with a soft slap.

On. My. Neighbors. Roof.
(not yours K and C, the other side)

I couldn’t have landed it there if I had been aiming for it.

Note to self: When scooping poop, throw it away. . .in the trash can.