DH, Mo, and Co have had “two buckets disease” all day today. Thankfully, I’ve been immune, but I think my sense of humor is at the bottom of one of those buckets.
One thing that I have come to appreciate at Mo’s school is the ease of drop off and pick up. You just roll up to the front door and lovely teacher comes out, opens your door, unbuckles your kid and plucks them out. At the end of the day, you roll up, another teacher comes out with your child in hand, opens the door, and deposits them in the car. It’s a great system, but like most systems, there is a flaw.
By the time I pick Mo up from school, the pick-up line is pretty short, no more than two or three cars deep. On some days, and you never know which ones that will be, the cars snake out of driveway and into the street requiring some degree of careful maneuvering on the part of others trying to navigate the roads. On days like that, parents are instructed to form a second line to the left of the original line. The original line, upon seeing the formation of the second line, is to allow the cars of the second line to merge in as space becomes available.
The school was kind enough to even include a diagram of this process in the student handbook.
Of course, if parents actually read the student handbook, we wouldn’t have kerfuffles like we had on Friday.
It turned out Friday was one of those days when everyone arrived at pick-up at the same time. A second line had already formed and all cars were jockeying for position. There was enough space for me to be the tail of the far right line, so that’s where I hung out waiting, waiting, waiting for some progress. Another car pulled up behind me and we continued to wait. Co was in the backseat, being placated with some Nilla Wafers, but they were dwindling with an alarming rapidity and believe me, Co can go from pleasant to down right medieval when there is a lack of snacks. We needed to get Mo and get gone.
Things started moving up ahead on the left hand side, but not the right. I know I hate having the tail of my car protrude into the street, so I did what I thought was a neighborly thing to do, and merged to the left to allow the car behind me to pull fully into the school driveway. There was an Outback ahead of me and a Taurus to my right. The Outback was trying — unsuccessfully — to merge in front of the Lexus that was just ahead of the Taurus.
The Outback had been thwarted not only by the Lexus, but by an Odyssey just ahead of that. Clearly frustrated, the Outback stayed in the left lane, but shot ahead so that it was parallel to the first car in the pick up line. The driver got out and began waving her arms at the teacher who was bringing the children out to the cars. Some kind of exchange occurred with lots of gesturing and finger pointing at the various cars in the right hand line. When it was all said and done, the driver threw her hands in the air and leaned back against her car waiting for her child.
Now, I’m still in the left hand lane, waiting for a break in the right lane so that I could merge in to pick up Mo. But, every time I let my foot off of the brake to ease ahead, the Taurus to my right gunned their engine and pulled even with me. On the third time I eased forward and slightly turned the car towards the right, the Taurus gunned their engine and leaned on their horn as if I’m careening wildly into their path.
Um, don’t you read the handbook? I’m trying to follow the diagram and merge here! I tried one more time and again, the Taurus shot ahead, barely missing the bumper of the Lexus. That just tore it for me. It’s not like this is my first experience with parents refusing reluctant to let me or another driver move ahead of them in line. But Friday, I wasn’t having it. So, I pulled ahead, just behind the Outback, got out and waited. The driver of the Outback was still waiting for her child. She turned to me and started talking as though we’d been having a conversation from the minute we’d pulled into the driveway.
“And another thing I don’t understand is why zey can let only zome people go ahead and not others, you know what I’m zaying? I was here first and zis car (pointing to the Lexus), she will not allow me to move into ze line!” (her accent was Belgian or French or some derivative that made even this diatribe pleasing to the ear). We spied the teacher bringing out the little girl belonging to the Outback driver, who then begins to repeat VERBATIM the exact same speech she just gave me. And she kept repeating herself. Twice at least, steadily raising her voice over the protestations and explanations of the teacher. When she started in a third go round, the teacher said, “That Lexus let in two cars before you! You were not here first! Listen to what I’m trying to tell you!”
I’m pretty sure I heard the French equivalent of “Kiss my grits” as the driver turned to deposit her daughter into the Outback, while the teacher simply said, “Well, you have a nice day,” and turned around to ferry out the next child.
The Taurus had pulled up to the front of the door, all but certain that they’d saved themselves an extra minute or two off of their pick up time by boxing me out. Too bad for them that the teacher brought Mo out before their little person. The teacher handed Mo over to me with an apologetic smile and said, “That Lexus had let several other cars in before she got here. I’m not a traffic cop, you know.”
I wish I had told her I’m not someone who gives a rat’s patoot, but Co was out of Nilla Wafers and we had to boogie.
I actually enjoy the fatigue that comes from a good-ol‘-stem-to-stern housecleaning. These days, however, the house is lucky to get the dust buster poked in a few corners, let alone a good Swiffering. One neighbor of mine described her house as “neat, but dirty”. I think we officially joined that club when I was tempted to throw some Listerine in the towel bowl just to make sure I got all germs with the next flush.
Truly, I don’t have enough hands, hours, or motivation to hit all the baseboards, quarter-rounds, window panes, cracks and crevices that need attention. Which, would be all of them, in case you’re wondering. Of course, when Mo practiced her cursive writing in the dust coating her bookcase, I knew I had to do something.
The problem with housecleaning is that, like with so many other household tasks, they seem to multiply exponentially in a matter of moments. For instance, I may see a fingerprint (or five) on the window pane, so I go to get some Windex. En route through the kitchen for my supplies, I step through a minefield of shredded crayon wrappers, Cheerios, broken hair elastics, and assorted Barbie shoes. I make a notation to get the broom and the dust buster. In the kitchen, the sink looks like it threw up since no one ran the garbage disposal before turning on the dishwasher. I Clorox the sink, run some water and add some baking soda down the disposal. Then, just for kicks and because no one else is home, I dump the rest of the baking soda down the disposal, add a few drops of red food coloring and some vinegar. “Molten lava” erupts from the garbage disposal. I’m such a child, but the glee is short lived because now, I have to clean that up, too.
Kitchen sink finally de–gunked, I notice some flower petals that have jettisoned themselves off of the plant on the window sill. This has now formed a nice little party with crumbs from the toaster and assorted condensation rings from where we’ve left glasses and mugs. I wipe down the counter and then turn around to hit the other counters. Then I see the stovetop. I wipe that down, and notice fingerprints on the cabinet doors surrounding the stove. Fingerprints! I was supposed to get the Windex for the fingerprints in the other room. And I resume my course for the cleaning supplies in the laundry room.
I open the laundry room door and clearly see that the washer and dryer have caught the same bug as the sink — there is clothing vomitus everywhere. I drag the laundry buckets out into the living room and being rolling socks, folding underwear and undershirts, and sorting 2T pants from 4T pants. When I reach to the bottom of the bucket for the last piece, my eye catches a rogue raisin on the carpet next to the bucket. Just ahead of the raisin is another broken elastic hair tie and peanut. Time to get the vacuum.
Now, I have a strong aversion to vacuuming. I mean, I would rather write a thesis on William Faulkner than vacuum. Growing up, I would do just about anything to get out of vacuuming. Ugh, it was the bane of my pubescent existence! My dad was a regular Vacuum Gestapo, what with his reviewing my work to see that vacuum tracks were clear and present throughout all carpeted areas of the house. You know, vacuum tracks — the lines in the carpet that shows that it’s been freshly vacuumed? Yeah, you gotta have the tracks.
We had this Sears vacuum that was like a bloated footstool attached to a giraffe neck length of hose topped off by a phonebook sized head that sucked up all the detritus of daily life. And it had a retractable electrical cord, so when you were done, you could press a lever and the cord would get snapped back up into the main unit. Snapped is a key word — I gave myself all kind of lashings just trying to wrap up the vacuum and put it away. And don’t get me started on dragging the darn thing through several rooms and around corners! I would tug and tug on the hose and finally, the main unit would come hurtling from another room and crash into my ankles. From the calf down, my legs were varying shades of yellowish-green black and blue marks cross hatched with electric cord lacerations. I swore I when I grew up, I’d never vacuum again.
When we got married, I think one of DH’s vows was “to love, honor and vacuum,” as he has been the sole master of our Dirt Devil. The other day, however, the rugs were looking like the entire sandbox from the pre-school has been liberally sprinkled over its dimensions. DH was outside sweeping up leaves and branches, so I thought I would surprise him by vacuuming the rugs. Such a sweet wifely thing to do, right? So I go get the vacuum, unwind the (non-retractable) cord, plug it in, step on the switch and. . .nothing.
Hmmm. We have electricity. I’ve got this thing properly plugged into the wall. I’m stepping on the lever. The handle release is working and yet, nothing. It can’t be broken; we (DH) just used it last week-end. I empty the filter, I examine the hose attachments. It’s not working. I don’t know what else to do and I don’t want to ask DH to come look at it, but I’ve already spent about 10 minutes fooling with this thing and . . .wait a minute. . . .What’s this lever right here?
Oh yes, that would be the “on” switch. When I’m done, I’m going to use my college degree to get the fingerprints off of the windowpanes.
One of the biggest myths about being a Stay-At-Home-Mom (SAHM) is that you actually get to stay at home. Seriously, I spend the better part of my day behind the wheel of my car, shuttling us between swimming lessons at the YMCA, playdates and lunch trips to the zoo, a grocery run at La Walla Marta, drop offs at the post office/dry cleaner/library, and a side trip to the Teeter
for the stuff I forgot to get at Wal-Mart because I left my shopping list in the front seat of the car.
It’s really a six in one hand, half dozen in the other type of situation.
So, we are in the Teeter. The wine aisle, appropriately, when the the battle begins. Mo and Co are in the carriage, with Mo in the front and Co in the back, precariously wedged between two cartons of milk, assorted produce and some free range eggs. I had started to place a few things in the front seat with Mo as the back was getting kind of crowded. Evidently, Mo needs her space, as she began to toss items over her head and onto her sister. Bag of salad? Toss. Stick of deodorant? Toss. Cake mix? Toss.
When I busted her mid toss, I told her flat out, that if she did it again, she was going to have to get out of the carriage. Fate worse than death, to be removed from the coveted front seat. Because Co can’t quite wrap her mouth around the phrase, “May I sit in the front of the carriage, please?” she ends up in the back. Hey, if you call shotgun, you get it, shopping carriages being no exception.
So, we’re tooling down the wine aisle in search of something light and crisp for dinner with friends, when out of the corner of my eye, I see a box of rice arc in the air and land in the back. Faster than she could say, “Sorry, Mommy,” I had Mo out of the carriage, on the ground, and Co up in the front with the buckle snapped. I know Mo was surprised because it took her a minute to get her bearings and whether or not if the situation warranted some tears. In her estimation, it certainly did.
Now, I don’t ever want to be that mom, tearing into a child’s behind and yelling to be heard over the histrionics of their overwrought toddler. Nor do I want to be the one who docilely implores the child to be rationale and calm, with promises of fruit snacks and TV shows in the car on the way home. I just want to have her stop crying, finish my shopping and go home.
I get down to her level, very close to her face so that she’ll have to look at me, and speaking very quietly, I tell her that she needs to stop crying. I tell her that I told her she would have to get out if she threw anything else in the back of the cart. To which she replied, “AAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!” and started sobbing and snuffling and snotting and huffing.
Suddenly, it was like the light bulb materialized over my head and clicked on. My mother’s voice filled my head, saying, “When they act the worst, they need the love the most.”
I grabbed her up in a big, big, hug. And she stopped crying.
Just like that.
Stopped crying, laid her head on my shoulder, wrapped her legs around my waist and just kind of deflated into my chest. I could hear my mom applauding me and I thought, “I am finally getting the hang of this mothering thing”.
And we got some cookies on the way out. Even me.