Join Me in Snarkville

Do not read this if you are easily grossed out.  You have been warned.

There’s been an effort for a few years to celebrate love on Thursdays in the blog world.  It is such a nice thought since love is rarely the funny things that happen in our lives and blogs are far better when written about the angst and stupidity of normal life.  In fact, we can tend to turn our backs on the blogs where the life described is too perfect or too delightful.  But one day, a single day isn’t too much to remember that really the best parts of life are the love parts.

I don’t tend to write the weekly missive on love.  Mostly because I’ve become horrible at writing daily; but also because it is so easy to bog yourself down with the problems of daily life and wonder where the happy went.  So, when something truly amazing happens, I feel it must be shared.

Last Saturday, Prince and I were on a plane returning home from our vacation.  I settled into my seat to watch many, many movies.  I was as comfortable as I could get and dozed a little.  When I was served lunch, the flight attendant spilled my glass of white wine on me.  Fortunately, I had a blanket on me and that had most of the spill.

Later in the flight, I woke up for a doze with a headache.  Oh my the pain.  I thought it was the beginnings of a migraine, but wasn’t sure (it is called denial).  I got up and washed my face.  A quick look in the mirror and I was a new level of pale (the lack of lips was a bit scary).  I wandered back to my seat and looked at the time, 3 hours left in the flight.  Ok, I can make it, I think.  Quickly, I figured out that I felt better if I was leaning forward in my seat with pressure on my eyeballs.  Oh, yes, did I mention that my eyeballs felt like they were trying to escape?

Prince thought I might be hungry.  I thought I was lacking caffine, since I had not had my normal coffee that morning.  I sat and waited and hoped my head would not explode before we landed.  I wanted to cry with the pain, but seriously the very thought of a sniffle made me weak with pain.

The flight crew was amazing, they offered me some Tylenol.  About 45 minutes before the flight ended, I got the coldest cloth I’ve ever felt and boy did that help.  At that point I knew I had a migraine, I also knew that I had the stomach upset too.  In a moment of rare clarity, I grabbed the air sick bag from the back of the seat in front me and made it easier to grab.

We start to descend.  I hope that I can hold it together until the plane is on the ground.  I’m the type of person who hates to throw up.  I will lay still for days in an effort to keep it at bay.  I got to thinking about the last time I was sick.  I could not remember it.

We descended more, I grabbed the bag and proceeded to throw up.  When the retching slowed, Prince asked me quietly, “you ok?” “No. I need another bag.” He grabbed his air sick bag and took my full one while I continued.

By the time we were on the ground, I was done.  I was also in great need of getting rid of two bags of barf (remember I warned you).  At that point, I looked at my husband.  He sat there, a wee bit green around the gills, holding a bag of my puke.  He didn’t shutter or try to hand it back to me (it’s yours; YOU hold it).  He pushed the call button, tried to keep me calm, and told me it would all be ok.

That’s when I stopped.  I stopped and looked at him and realized that love is lots of pretty poems and beautiful flowers.  It can be love songs and dancing in the park.  It can be trips around the world and so much more.  But that kind of love is easy.  That’s the sunny day kind of love.  The love that is simple because it is easy to be happy when the world around you is happy.

Then there’s the hard side of love.  The side of love that is when you are bone tired, dreaming of being home in your own bed.  The part of love where you do the unthinkable — you spend 45 minutes holding the puke of your spouse without complaint.

Thanks Prince.  I love you too — next time I’ll try to say it with flowers, ok?

Yes, I mean it.  I am proposing that all time zones be instantly abolished right now.  Yes, I realize that this means that the work day will be in the dark for half of the Earth, but seriously, haven’t we advanced enough to allow those people (because of course, I’d keep the US — the center of the known universe — on its current daylight/nighttime schedule) to have lightbulbs and blackout shades.

The sole reason for doing this of course would be so that I might return from the OTHER.SIDE.OF.THE.EARTH. without spending 4+ days waking up in the middle of night and drooling from lack of decent sleep.  Oh yes, it is all about me, why do you even ask at this point?

Back to reality and less about my sleepless dream world.  I have returned from the amazing trip.  There are few times I can say that this was a trip of a lifetime, but this in fact was.  In case you are not in the know, we were on the QE2 for her LAST trip around the British Isles.  We went to Ireland, England, Northern Ireland, and Scotland in that order.  At every port call there were thousands of people meeting the ship and even more to see her leave.  (There were about 60,000 in Greenock, the port town for Glasgow, alone.  Greenock is on the River Clyde where she was built and the QE2 was the LAST Scottish built ship.)  I quickly began to believe that the crowds were there to see me (I am the Queen of Snarkville afterall) and thus this trip has ruined me for all travels unless there will be grand welcomes, photographers, interviews, and well, fireworks.  I’m nothing if not realistic.

I have so much to share about the trip.  So many things about how I was the picture of poise and grace (hold on, I’m choking on something). So many photos that we took.  So many experiences that blow me away and the tears I cried as we departed.  We will get there, but lest this post take years to read, I’m forced to break it up a wee bit.

What I will tell you is that the QE2 is old, in ship years.  She was built at a time of multi-class travel.  There are stairs and lifts that don’t seem to go to the same places and she isn’t easy to get around.  She is, thankfully, smaller than the newer ships, so her odd stairs were easier to learn over time.  I want to say she has smaller cabins, but our cabin was rather large, though oddly laid out.  She did offer the last true single cabins on the seas — and those were, um….TINY.  She was unique in so many ways and they will never build a ship like her again (thankfully in some ways and sadly in others).  But I was there.  She has two more cruises left — one from NYC to Southampton and then from Southampton to Dubai where she will become a 5 star hotel.

Many onbaord spoke of visiting her again in Dubai, which is a lovely thought — I think.  But of all the places in the world I have on my list to go, Dubai isn’t all that high, so I’m glad I saw and sailed her in her natural habiat.

But today, I’m back to real life.  Real life that includes laundry and dishes and dinner and such.  Yet, I’ve begun to think about it.  My daily life isn’t so different than my life on a cruise ship.

Every night on board the ship, the cabin steward leaves a chocolate on my pillow.  Every night at home, a cat leaves a hair ball on the floor by my bed.

There’s no other way to explain the serious issue with vacuums we’ve had in this house YESTERDAY.

As most of you know, there is a trip upcoming and frankly, since I’m insane, I must have a clean home to return to.  Thus, I was running through my house like a mad woman doing something close 9 billion loads of laundry and scrubbing toliets.

(Sidenote:  I totally am a sucker for new, make my life easier, bathroom cleaners.  I drool over the self cleaning shower thingie, but don’t trust it enough to actually purchase it.  But when I saw this thing from the scrubbing bubbles that puts a ‘disk’ inside your toliet and keeps it clean for a week — I had to have it.  Just a note, that ‘disk’ isn’t a disk, it is a giant BLOB of goo.  A giant blob of GOO that you have to explain is POSION and should not be touched ever!!  And it SMELLS — faintly like flowers and cleanser — something my toliet probably ought not smell like.  Fair is fair, I’m happy that my toliet not smell like the stuff that goes IN the toliet — but seriously, I keep waiting for the odor to go away already.  Unless this blob keeps the pottys in this house extra clean and shiny (and maybe wipes down the floor around the potty, I’m doubting that we will be reflling our ‘disks’/giant blobs of goo.)

Duke loves to clean his room if the robot comes to vacuum, so he was set on a task.  He cleaned, puttting things away (or on his bed — whichever) and waited for the robot.  We grabbed the robot set him down on the floor and turned him on - he didn’t move.  A message to tech support later and I’ve had two e-mails from the iRobot people, but not ONE of them addresses the real question I asked in my e-mail.  The best part is that I’m questioning if the person responding can actually read.

So, I vacuum the old fashioned way without a nifty robot.

Then I go to use my handy-dandy Floormate ( you know the vacuum/scubber/wet stuff sucker-upper for hardwoods) in my bedroom.  I put the thing together, though I thought I’m missing a piece.  I try to use it and I made a puddle.  Yup, that’s it.  My FloorMate refuses to suck (not dry stuff or wet stuff).  We are HOPING it is because of this missing piece that Frankenhouse ate.

So, now I’m faced with the horrors of all horrors.  I must sweep, vacuum (with a normal vacuum cleaner) and MOP my floors.  Forgive me while I sit on the couch and eat a bonbon to steel myself up for the task.

This weekend, Duke was playing in his room.  He was building a full reproduction of the transcontinetal railroad with a small reproduction of the Los Angeles highway system.  It was INTENSE.

I’m sitting in my chair in another room trying to decide if I have enough energy to actually vacuum the whole floor or just stare at my naval (It had been a log weekend — we had a garage sale on Saturday and I’m not entirely sure I’m recovered yet).  Suddenly, Duke cries out from his room.

“FIRE. FIRE. FIRE.  Mama, FIRE.”

Prince and I drop everything and head back to his room.  I can’t imagine that there is actually fire, since I’m 90% sure I’ve not allowed him to have matches in his bedroom yet.  But you never know, so we ran.

Prince makes it there first and sees Duke backing away from the bin containing even more track and pointing, “Fire. Fire in there.”

Prince looks.  Nothing is burning. “Could you possibly mean, SPIDER?”

“oh, yes.”

I’m about to admit something that is highly embarrassing.  I’ve not only seen “You Got Mail,” I’ve quoted it.  Yes, I know — it was not a celluloid masterpiece…ok, it was just rather bad.  But there was a line that I was recently thinking about.  Meg Ryan was looking for advice and Tom Hanks quoted “The Godfather.”  The quote doesn’t matter, but what does is that Hanks says, “I think the answers to most questions can be found in ‘The Godfather’.”  He rattles off a few quotes and hilarity ensues.

Well, recently, I’ve been reading a bit more of C.S. Lewis.  (I know this will shock you, but I’d never read the Narnia Series and I’m trying to read it with Duke.)  In my reading I’ve been glancing a few other of his books.  Every so often I make it farther into Mere Christianity.  I’m finding I’m loving various quotes of C.S. Lewis and needless to say I was utterly shocked that even he had something to say about my current problem with turning 35, I mean 34 and 3/2.

“Thirty was so strange for me. I’ve really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.“

Wow, how true is that.  Maybe my biggest problem is that I’m forced with coming to terms that I’m an adult.  How truly funny.  We spend our first 18 years trying so hard to be an adult — to cease to be under the control and direction of our parents; to stand on our own two feet; to prove the metal we are made of.  Then we spend the next years ‘playing’ at adulthood.  Then we wake up one morning and realize, we aren’t able to play any more and then spend many, many years begging for someone to take all this horrible responsibility away from us.

I guess it is hitting me that I no longer can claim, “oh, I’m just young.” or worse, “If this fails I can always start over.”  Instead, I get to say, “that’s a young man’s game.”  I’m getting older and it has weight to it. And what a pain in the butt.

So, while I contemplate my naval and try to pull myself out of the funk that is the approaching 35.  I thought You’d enjoy some other answers to life’s problems, compliments of Mr. Lewis.

On Love: “This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.“

On Starting Over: “We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.“

On Death: “Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.”

On Life Enrichment: “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.“

On Friendship: “Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.“  (think about this one, folks — take this one to heart and you will have more love with your friends and more friendship in your love.  But this is a HUGE risk — but I think I’ve only recently realized that real friendship is more dangerous than love.)

On Writing/Speaking: “Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.“

On Life being fair: “The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.“

Finally, on faith: “A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.” “I gave in, and admitted that God was God.“

Yes, my birthday is less than a week away and for the first time in a long time, I’m not all giddy about it.  Frankly, (and I do hope this isn’t a sign of growing up) I’m sort of not all that interested this year.

Oh sure, I told myself that since I’m going away soon, I’m postponing my celebration.  (Oh, how I hope that is the case.) But as my brithday is fast approaching, I’m realizing how few times I’ve mentioned it.

(At exactly this point, Prince is kicking himself for even bothering to buy me a gift.  He’s thinking to himself, “I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t with this woman, someone shoot her and put her out of my misery.”  He also might be thinking I’m using too many parenthesis.)

I woke up Wednesday morning and realized that I’m going to be 35 in less than a week and I’m not ready.  No seriously, I’m not ready to be 35 yet.  There is so much more I have to do before I turn 35.  Since naturally, being in one’s mid-30’s means I should have finally pulled it all together and stop living like at 20 year old, right?  Of course, right.

The problem is I still do live like a 20 year old*.  For example, I make convenience foods. (There are days it is sheer force of will that I don’t live on Brown Sugar Pop-Tarts — ok, as I’ve aged, they give me heartburn, but that’s only a secondary reason for my not buying them.) (Oh, my word, I just talked about heartburn, I’m getting OLD people.)  I thought by the time someone was 35, they be eating real dinners nightly — like maybe I’d figure out how to shop for more than 1.34 meals at a time and make a dinner (consisting of meat, veggie, starch, and maybe a dessert) nightly.  (I’d also have more than one serving bowl — no need to gift me bowls people — remember I don’t cook nightly.)  Somehow, I also thought I’d be serving food family style by the time I was 35 too (thus the random bowl thoughts); but no, I dish everyone’s plate up from the stove — because why dirty another bowl just to serve pasta with butter and cheese?

By the time someone is 35, they ought to dress like a grown up.  Do grown ups wear jeans and tees every single day?  I look around at the mommies who drop their darling children off at school with me.  I see women who are pulled together with hair done and make-up at 8am; I see 20 somethings in their PJs pants (ala my college days); and I see the late 20’s-early 30’s in their tees and jeans.  I’m thinking I missed the memo that I’m supposed to be buying grown up clothing.  I mean a wardrobe that isn’t remarkably dressed up with a fleece jacket.  Apparently, I have clothing shopping to do.

A 35 year old would have a liquor cabinet.  Ok, so this one may seem odd.  But think about it, I think an adult should be able to mix some basic drinks for those fabulous people who come over from time to time.  Basically, one would like to be able to say, “Can I offer you some thing to drink?” and one of the items listed not be a juice box.  (Is this a growing up thing or a mommy thing?)

So in addition to a new 35 year old wardrobe, a menu plan (shopping/making/serving/cleaning…); I also will be scrubbing my house because a 35 year old probably ought to be able to have a clean house — or at least laundry done and beds made.

See I have too much to do before I turn 35.  Thus for the first time in my entire life, I’ve decided that I can not deal with turning 35 — since postponing my birthday will be far easier than becoming an actual grown up — in under a week.  Thus, (I’m also incapable of actually ignoring my birthday) I’m planning on not becoming 35 — I shall be 34 and 3/2.  It will be stated as “Thirty-four and three halves.”  Just like my five year old who wants to be six and thus counts his 5th year in months, “I’m 5 and a month.  I’ll be six soon.  Then I’ll be seven.”  (Perhaps teaching him to count wasn’t my smartest move.)

Oh and just so I can feel even better about my new age.  Duke declared that he has to be 43 to get a driver’s license, but that you can get a license at 33.  So Prince asked Duke (while I was driving mind you), “so how old do you think Mommy is?”  Thirty-three.  With new math, I’m technically, thirty-three and four halves.  I can work with this.

*in some ways — in other’s I’m about 92, give or take a decade.

As of this typing, I’m serious when I say I have no idea who will receive my highly valuable vote.

(Please note that I happen to vote in a swing state.  My vote can (and has) swung elections.  Now, as much as I feel that the thought that someone’s vote isn’t as valuable makes me sick to my stomach, I know that you blue dots in red states (and red dots in blue states) feel that way.  I’m just saying the state I vote in is neither a red or blue state.)

But (and my dad is going to be highly pleased by this) I have now watched both of parties conventions in a hope of forming some real opinion as to who can have my vote.  I’ve long since realized that I will not (as i feel I have never) be voting *FOR* someone as much as *AGAINST* someone.  So, since I have no love for either of our canidates, I feel I must find something to grasp to that will be the defining issue I will make my decision on.

Until I figure it out, I give you a few things that will not sway me to one side or the other:

1. I just have to get it out there, I will not vote for McCain because he has a woman as the vice-presidental  candidate.  I’m sorry, if I’m failing the cause of women everywhere, I’m not swayed to one side because one of the candidates gets to wear a skirt.
2. To that end, please stop sending me all the e-mails about how Obama isn’t a ‘natural citizen.’  I don’t care and firmly believe that the powers that be have vetted that part too.
3. Having a war record doesn’t make you powerful and not having one doesn’t mean you can’t lead.  But frankly, I’m at a point in my life that I don’t care what you did years ago, as much as I care who you are today.
4. Hardships growing up, rising above the cards you were dealt doesn’t move me to think you can lead me.  Let’s face it, no one gets to run a national campaign who doesn’t have more priviledges in life than I have.  You can talk all day long about being poor, struggling and whatever — you have to admit that you didn’t pull yourself by your own bootstraps.  You got there with help — you can admit it.  (And um, more than your grandmother, k?)
5. Your spouse, children, family, whoever, no matter how cute, will not sway me.  Though, as a mother, I have to wonder and feel sorry for all of those children under 18.  I may just be a wee judgmental (though I support any mom’s right to do what she needs to do) that there is a mama who has a YOUNG child, with Down’s, who is in essence leaving her family.  Try to tell me that the US needs her more than that child.  Try to tell me that Palin’s 17 year old pregnant daughter doesn’t need her mama more.  But, I assure you that I’m not voting against McCain because I think she needs to be home with her family either.
6. Your suit, lapel pin, bracelet, tattoo.  None of these matter to me.  Yes, I am willing to admit I want you to be clean cut, have a nice suit on, and look decent.  I do not think you need to match the flag. And in case you, like me thought that Palin and Cindy McCain were wearing the Israeli flag pin, after MUCH research, I found out that they are wearing the “Red Star Mother’s Flag” — for family members of active duty members during wartime.
7. Pat answers to hard, probably unsolveable problems.  I don’t believe that there are easy answers to the housing situation, taxes, failing schools, or even gas prices.  I firmly disagree that any of those issues (failing schools being the one that moves me today) are going to be easily solved.  I want my canidate to step up and say, these things will be HARD, it will take bending on both sides and here’s what I think can be accomplished in the short, middle, and long term.  But that’s not good politics, good politics seems to state that you promise people the impossible and then blame the other party when you won’t be able to deliver.
8. Pandering to a canidate who I happen to strongly dislike, doesn’t help.  Yes, I make no secret that I strongly dislike Hilary.  I can’t help it — as much as I don’t want 4 more years of a Bush presidency, I don’t want 4 more years of Clinton either.  While I get that there’s a need to unite, extolling her as the be all and end all of women in politics is an insult to politics and women.
9. Don’t promise me that you’ll bring our men and women home without any explaination of how you aren’t going to create a state that hates us more.  Someone with some idea, figure out how to stand up and say we should have never gone to war in Iraq, but now we need to fix a few of the problems we solved.  Someone find Charlie Wilson and give that man the $1 million for schools that could have perhaps prevented the rise of the Taliban in Afganistan.  Just saying.
10. A balloon drop or fireworks.

Ok, so I know there is more, but the reality is that after two conventions and more speeches than I care about, I am still stumped.  I know that I need to figure out what will be my defining issue.  Here’s hoping a debate or four will shed light on my decision.

Proof #1:

If you happen to be standing in a line (let’s say a grocery line) that has a balloon tied to it and there may be something close to 5 children under 7 in line, the cashier from three lines over has NO right to seize the last balloon and not call for more to be made.  In addition, the lady in the line I was standing in only was able to check out TWO people in the time the guy next to her checked out 7 (yes, I counted) but we were only in that line because it held the promise of a balloon — a balloon that, as Duke sees it, was ripped out of his waiting hands by the cruel inhuman cashier.  Fortunately there was another cashier (not *MY* horribly slow, not very bright, and incapable of doing two things at once — like counting single dollar bills), saw a kid in his line and called for more.  The mom of that kid, who’d seen my child, who was kind enough only to ask LOUDLY, where that guy was taking the balloon, gave the nice cashier the heads up for the need of another balloon.  The fact that we had to wait for it is merely a secondary joy.

Now the balloon, that balloon that we had to have, floats ignored in my kitchen.

Proof #2:

Picture it, I’m walking down the LARGE center aisle of store, say Target — just for example.  I’m walking appropriately on the right, but sort of in the middle, because they are restocking and taking up the right side of things.  Out of nowhere, ok, truly from the aisle I’m about to pass, this woman (who frankly looked like she was overdue for her methadone treatment) comes barrelling out of her aisle and cuts me off.  I stop and give the appropriate “You aren’t authorized to drive that cart” look.  She looked right at me (or through me, who knows) and kept on going.  OK, strike one.  Then she pulled to the absolute center of the big aisle allowing no one to be able to pass her (on coming traffic really liked this move) and then pulls a HARD right directly in front of me again.  I repeated the LOOK.  She then says (as if she’s a ditz, but frankly isn’t pretty enough to pull it off) “Oh, I keep pulling out in front of you.”  I’m speechless, mostly because what I want to say isn’t fit for my Duke to hear.  However, Duke can always be counted on, “Mama, why does that man keep making you stop?”  “Buddy, I don’t think they know where they are going.”  “Oh, there’s a map, right?”

I do love that kid.

Oh, I have 1,000 things that stress me out right now.  No fewer than 900 things make me want to cry, curl up in a ball, or spend hours hiding under my bed.  But I set all of those things aside to share with you that my son is a Pick-Up Artist.

Today, it is 1 Billion degrees in Snarkville and as we all know Frankenhouse doesn’t have AC.  We were melting.  So moments after school let out today, I was rushing Duke off from one errand to another in an effort to find AC.  (To tell you how bad it was, we canceled a playdate because our house was an oven.)  So, we drove from store to store to store.  We wandered the aisles everywhere in order to stay slightly cooler.

Finally, I decided to get a library card.  It has been on my to do list for a long time, in fact I can’t remember when I had my last library card.  That admission is sad, but today, probably more because the library is a air-cooled space with free wi-fi, I got my library card.  Duke walked in and instantly spotted the children’s area.  Remember he’s never been to the library here before.  (I know I am a horrible mother.)

I got my card and then we checked out the kids library.  It was pretty cool.  They have a huge wall of books just for him — and so I told him to pick out a few books to read and we will bring them home.  (My amazing boy picked out some pretty cool books.)  Then he spotted that there were computers for the kids.

So, I logged him on (you have to have a library card) and got him his 60 minutes on the computer, while I surfed the collection on the computer next to him — which allowed me to request a few books of my own.  (I have the power of the card, now.)  We are chatting and playing and enjoying the lack of sweat.

All of a sudden this little girl walks right up to Duke and the following occurs:

Girl: Hi. (Sheepish smile.)

Duke: Hi, I’m playing on this computer.

Girl: My name is Isabella.

Duke:

Me: That’s a pretty name.  Duke, introduce yourself.

Duke: I’m Duke.  I’m wearing a green shirt.

Girl: I’m wearing a yellow shirt with pink flowers and purple butterflies.

Duke: (Smiling BIG) I really like butterflies.

The girl wanders off and draws at a table close by.  She comes back and hands David a slip of paper.  (It is all scribble.)

Duke to me: What is that? (Hands me the paper.)

Me: I think she wrote you a note.

Girl: HHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIII, Duke.

Duke: A note?  (turns to girl): I’m 5.

Girl: I’m 3, I just had a birthday.

I chat with the girl a bit and her sitter comes over to take her and her little sister home.  As they walk out of the library, Isabella says over her shoulder to Duke, “Call me.”

For Duke’s part, he’s not letting go of that note at all.  I think he’s smitten — but I fear he’s fallen for a girl who doesn’t know her phone number yet.

and there’s a reason — um, because there’s nothing special about it.

Well, this might explain why Duke could not understand why I wasn’t taking photos of him today.  As we walked out of the house this morning he says, “You forgot the camera, you gotta take pictures of me on my way to school.”  “I do? Why?”  “Because you gotta.”

I’m sorry, Duke, it appears you have missed the point we must get all excited about the first day of something and totally forget there are other days to follow.  All of those days are going to pale in comparison to the hype of the first day.  Seriously, when have you ever known there to be as much hype for the closing of the Olympics as the opening?  How many people plan weddings forgetting that after that single day there is a marriage to follow (watch a few episodes of Bridezillas, if you think I’m kidding)?  What joy is there in Opening Day for Baseball season — but who remembers game 12?

So, my dear son has just realized one of life’s little cruelities — we build up the first day, there is a party and by day 2, the fun is over and the work has begun.  There were no nametags today.  No parents even walking past the door to the classroom (thank goodness, because frankly there were FAR too many parents there yesterday — it gave me the hives). There were no special anythings — today, today the work of learning begins.

Therefore, in honor of Day 2, I bring you the short list of things I feel superior about (right this minute and freely admit that I may not be on the top of my game in oh and hour — just saying):

1. We have walked to school every day since Monday.  Yes, walked.  As in on my feet.  Yes, without being able to breathe oxygen through my nose.  I feel much superior to the mom I saw DRIVE her kid one of the two blocks to school and walk the rest of the way (I’m guessing she’s pretending that she walked the whole way).
2. I have gotten dressed in REAL clothing both of the drop off days this week.  I thought surely it would be at least a week before I saw mommies in PJ pants, nope, day two.
3. I found milk boxes.  They are just like juice boxes, but they contain milk — for those kids who prefer milk to juice.  I’m proud of this because I had to check FOUR separate spots in the store before finding them.  FWIW, they are in the juice box section.  (When we found them last night, Duke was so happy he jumped up and down and wanted to give me a high five for my accomplishment.)
4. I returned my homework to the teacher on time.  Yes, in the packet we got yesterday, I had homework from the teacher — I did it and returned it this morning.  One assignment down — a ton more to go.
5. My kindergarten teacher didn’t send home a note declaring that homework was OPTIONAL.  Ahem, have I mentioned that I really like my teacher.  (And yes, I heard the other pack of parents discussing this in the hall at pick-up.)
6. My kid didn’t suck up with flowers in a plastic cup for the teacher — though his mommy is trying to figure out if she’d like a hand knit.  I was also considering some of the 4 billion apples and peaches I have in the backyard.  Who says I can’t suck up?

Now, on a complete sidenote to everything, I just have to say that I wanted to smack a few dads yesterday who mocked (yes, I said mocked) the little boy who was crying when his mommy left him in school.  I was mortified for his mom and for him.  Frankly, those parents should be ashamed and have known better — but then again, I’m pretty sure they locked kids in lockers and gave out wedgies when they were in school.  Perhaps I should not be too harsh on them, since it is apparent that their lives peaked in high school football and they’ve been reliving that glory with a few too many beers since.  Ahem — that was harsh wasn’t it.