Back again after a long month… I missed you, did you miss me? Of course you did. It seems like time for a little update.
School is off and running and I believe we are enjoying our golden year of no homework. I hate homework, well, I don’t mind homework for myself because I actually enjoy doing it, but I HATE having to get my eldest to do his homework. It is the very worst. But we learned at curriculum night that Liam’s teacher doesn’t believe in homework and while that may come back to bite us next year when homework will likely return to our reality, for now, that fact makes this teacher my favorite person. And since kindergarteners don’t get homework, our evenings are quite blissful (outside of the fact we have two boys who are “spirited” and we are two parents who are “tired”). Hip, hip for the golden year! I shall remember you fondly for the rest of my days.
Jack’s teacher sort of bribed him into talking to the class about his hand, something he and I were both fine with, she knows his currency and offered him a fruit snack pack if he would field any questions about his hand the first day of class. He reported that he stood up and said, “This is my little hand. I was born this way; it’s just the way God made me.” And that was it. He did say one girl didn’t seem to be paying attention so she asked him about it multiple times after that – which appears to be a five-year-old quirk as I’ve had it reported to me that Jack is also relentless (and annoying) with his relentless question-asking.
The day after Jack came off the bus crying because a kid had been hitting him and insisting on calling him ‘Jackson,’ I got a call from his teacher to report that she had another parent report to her that Jack was hitting their daughter on the playground. Sigh. SIGH. Jack admitted that he had done that and he missed out on recess that day. His teacher was thankfully understanding and said that her own son is very much like Jack so she’s “got his number” – I wish she would share it with me.
So school is going… well.
Outside of school, Jack managed to be the first person in our family to get non-surgically related stitches. Right across the top of his forehead. Thanks to a fairly unspectacular fall that fairly spectacularly smacked his head right into the fiberglass on our neighbor’s boat, we got to make our first visit to the pediatric emergency room, which is very nice (the peds ER, that is, head wounds are not very nice). We were getting ready to go watch fireworks on the river when Jack fell and for a moment I thought maybe he would just have a bit of a bruise and then his head moved and I saw the smear of blood and knew that was likely not the case. (For the record, when you get blood on somebody’s boat, I think the proper follow up is to give them a gift card to one of your favorite restaurants. It’s only right. The note should read: “Thanks for cleaning our child’s blood off your boat – sorry about that. And also thanks for entertaining our older child while we went to the hospital. Please enjoy some good food.”) And while I don’t freak out at blood and the like, I have learned that I do exclaim, “Oh sh!t!” I can confirm this because just the week prior, when Jack fell face first onto the rocks on the river behind another neighbor’s house, I said the same thing. He probably could have gotten a stitch in his chin but we just bandaged him up that time. And while we’re confirming things, I can confirm that the Samsung Galaxy 5 can be fully submerged in the river and still work seconds later, so those ads/claims are 100% accurate. In other news, I feel like I have aged a couple years in the past month.
Liam is proving to be our less exciting child which can only mean there’s something up his sleeve. He just regularly scares the crap out of us by popping out of his room an hour or so after bedtime because he “wants a cuddle” or jumps up from his bed and exclaims, “Surprise” when we check in on him on our way to bed. I mean, really.
Work/life is going well for both Simon and I – the transition to “normal” schedules is coming along. As transitions go, it’s kind of as expected. There’s a learning curve on many levels and I think as long as we remain aware of it and diligent about working the kinks out, we’ll find the new normal. It’s an adjustment, which I realize sounds vague and meh, but it’s true. I’m so happy to be figuring it out and making new habits and traditions with our family… but change is always a little hard, even good change, because we are creatures of habit at our core, my husband especially, so when something rocks that comfort… well, it can feel uncomfortable. But still SO GOOD! Having a husband home in the evening. Being about to go to the grocery store after 8 p.m. BY MYSELF… swoon… I am living the life.
I am continually reminded how fast and fleeting life is… the whole ‘days are long but the years are short mentality.’ Some days feel like a freaking eternity, Lord knows, but my do the months fly right by. The good, the bad and the perplexing… like why do my children LOVE to dance around naked? Why are they offended by shirts with collars, pants with snaps/buttons and having to wear new shoes? Why does Liam run around and shout “banana” in the most annoying voice I have ever heard? And in the next minute run up to me and give me a hug, thanking me for being a good mom? How can Jack be both victim and assailant in the same day? Why does Simon (almost) never put his coffee cup in the dishwasher but instead takes the time to rinse it and set it next to the sink, three feet away from where it should go? And for Simon’s benefit… why do I remove my shoes wherever I happen to be and then leave them there, all over the house? And why does George insist on barking at stupid things like the ice coming out of the ice maker or the sump pump turning on?
So that’s where we are… I’m also starting to think about some business planning for both professional and personal endeavors… 2015 has some room in it for new things. Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. I should go cross stitch that on a pillow.
ememby 