mothermayi

Goodnight Kindergarten

I just packed my last lunch for kindergarten.  Yesterday Lucy brought home her used up little pencils and crayons and over the weekend I washed her napping mat for the last time, marking the end of mandatory napping time forever!  Tomorrow is Lucy’s big Graduation Celebration.  Her class has been practicing for weeks.  I understand there will be singing, I am pretty sure I will be doing some crying. 

I have mocked kindergarten graduation ceremonies before, “what’s next an awards ceremony and ice cream social for breathing and walking upright?!”  It is true.  But now that Lucy, Kenneth and I made it through our first year of real school, I think we deserve a little hoopla.  The getting ready to go, lunch packed library book in tow, all by 7:45 in the morning…it took some adjusting on all of our parts.  Getting used to being part of a school community was tricky too.  We had to make new friends, which is always frightening.  I had to get over my lifelong nausea problem where school is concerned (if you show up on time and prepared, it turns out not to be as vomit inducing).  It was a big year for this little family. 

Today is also my last day of honest to goodness free time for writing until school starts again in September.  I am worried about this, but I think it will make me try harder.  I won’t have a whole five hours to ponder and piddle away.  I will have to sneak in writing between requests for help with art projects and refereeing arguments.  I think I will go now, to enjoy my last few hours of freedom before all the fun starts. 

Travel Bug

Over the weekend Kenneth and his crew held a grand opening for their new doughnut shop in Eugene.  We went along for the spectacle and goats.  There were hula hoopers, buskers, a fancy football player played the piano, and best of all…goats!  (Which I missed because Tennessee started melting from too much fun right before they arrived, damnit.)  Besides my bad goat timing, it was a pretty fun weekend.  It gave me hope for the future of traveling with the kids.  Tennessee is still pretty hard to get to sleep away from home, (notice the dark purple area below my eyes as an indicator of how well that went) but he wasn’t a complete killjoy.  He was more than just a little excited about the free apples in the lobby of the Eugene Hilton, and both kids always love a swimming pool.

I have probably complained of travel with children in this here blog before.  It remains a puzzle to Kenneth and me.   How to have some fun and see some sights without going totally nuts from the trials and tribulations of traveling with small children?  I think I know the answer.  Here it is…are you ready?  I think you just have to wait for the kids to be older than five.  The closer the Tennessee gets to five, or the further away he gets from infancy, the more foot loose and fancy free he gets. 

Lucy, the resident five year old, is a fine little traveler.  She is big enough to wait a little while to eat if we happen to be on a stretch of road that doesn’t have any eating establishments.  She is skilled enough in the area of bladder control to hold it together for more than two minutes.  She gets excited about staying in hotels.  She sleeps through the night (this is a big one), and she can walk more than five blocks without demanding we carry her.  I look forward to a future of travel that doesn’t leave me shell shocked and swearing never to leave home again.  Just two more years…

Lucky Lu

Today Lucy had her first job interview.  On the way home from school, Lu and I were talking about money, earning it, saving it, how banks work, the whole nine.  She had heard about “lowences” and wanted to know the skinny.  It hadn’t occurred to me to give her an allowance yet.  In my mind she is just a tiny thing.  It blows my mind that she can talk and walk, let alone has a need for some money of her own.  I told her that we would need to figure out the details with Dad, but that a “lowence” would be in her near future.

The three of us discussed her responsibilities, room tidying, table setting, the usual, and then Kenneth went into full job interview mode.  Her little face got very serious as she agreed to hold up her end of the bargain.  He had her shake hands to close the deal, then she ran off to make a piggy bank out of one of the shoe boxes she has been hording in her closet.  First an allowance, next thing I know she will be asking to drive the car.  Sniff, sniff, sob.

A Man on the Edge

Tennessee almost “died” in his very own bedroom.  It was terrible.  I needed to vacuum up two days worth of kid dander.  I informed Tennessee that I was going to be using the scary vacuum.  He decided to go hide in his room.  I reminded him that the vacuum is very loud, so if he needed anything, he would need to come and get me rather than sitting in his room yelling “MAMA!”  He said “no prollem mama” and set out to work on the LEGO farm of his dreams.  I vacuumed away; pondering how many Somali refugees could be fed off the food crumbs that my plump little children strew hither and thither. 

I was doing a little extra, getting the cobwebs near the stairs when I heard a cry through the mechanical whir of my old reliable vacuum.  I turned off the beast and headed toward the crying.  I imagined the worst (I have a gift for imagining the worst; I try not to waste it).  There was my poor little guy, all three years of life flashing before his eyes, dangling, six inches from the ground.  He had climbed up onto the middle of his toy shelf to look out the window.  When he tried to climb back down, he got scared, and then stuck.  It was so sad, there was a little puddle tears on the top shelf and his little hands were red from hanging to the top back edge of the shelf for dear life.  I coaxed him into reaching his foot down to touch the ground (literally less than six inches), which took some doing.  Tennessee was convinced he was a mile high and in serious peril. 

Poor guy, hanging there while his mother vacuumed away, ignoring his cries.  He was probably scared to death.  I am just glad that I was cleaning rather than looking at shoes (or worse) on the internet.  Maybe I will give up vacuuming, for safety reasons of course.