Welcome to My Morning

I was sitting the piano, helping with Rachel helping her practice trombone this morning before school. She just started band a few weeks ago. It is not going well. There have been tears, frustrations, and threats of quitting. Fortunately, we just became the proud owners of this new-to-us piano, and so I was able to at least offer the assistance of, "C sounds like this," since I have no clue how to play the trombone. I played that low C so many times, it might be stuck in my head now. I've never had a single note stuck in my head before.

I was thumping out "C C C C," followed by "D rest rest rest," when I heard, "Tonia, you're going to have to go by City this morning."

"That's funny," I thought, "I didn't hear the phone ring." I, of course, had jumped to the conclusion that one of JD's teachers had called, and now I was going to have to go to the principal's office. (I might have to work on understanding exactly who is in trouble when one of my children's school calls with bad new.) However, the school had not called, JD had just forgotten to take his medication. It was still sitting on the kitchen table. I tell you, it is hard to get an ADD kid to take his meds. There are a lot of distractions between hand and mouth.

"I don't know honey," I replied. "This will be the third time in two weeks that we've pulled him out of class to give him meds. They are going to get annoyed with us soon."

"I think they might be more annoyed with us if he doesn't get the meds."

So, I stuck them in my pocket. I had to go by the school anyway to pick up pie fundraiser orders. Maybe I'd feel out the situation and decide what to do then.

Off I went to take the girls and Ryan (our little carpool friend) to school. Oh wait, back this story up. Back during trombone practice, Rachel mentioned that she needs rice milk for a school project, today if possible. So, on the way to school I discuss with her how to do her science project, which turns out to be out the different spoiling rates of different kinds of milk. (Disgusting! Who says girls are sweet and clean?!) We resolve a few issues she has with the project and agree that I will come in with her to see if she'll really need me to go to the store and then back to school today.

Should I take time to talk about the missing lunch and calling Ryan's dad, only to find out the lunch is actually in the van, or should I just get on with the story?

That's what I thought too. I was off the hook with the rice milk, so I arrived at City and was buzzed in the front door. As I was coming in I saw swarms of what could have been 8th or 9th graders heading in all directions. I went to the office, grabbed the pie sale info and headed to the counter. When I asked the secretary what she thought I should do about the meds, she agreed with Russ and thought it would be better if he had them. I hadn't even told her what they were. Interesting. Anyway, she calls down to his class.

"Oh!" I heard her say in surprise. Her eyes widened and her eyebrows raised some. "Ok, then. I guess I'll send Mom down."

"Now what!?" I didn't say that out loud.

"The teacher said he left for pictures, it's group picture day, forty-five minutes ago and hasn't been seen since. You should go down to the multi-purpose room and look."

I went down, looked around, looked for a kid I knew, no luck. Of course the two teachers I bumped into are the two teachers that have most often had to call me. Turns out though that it was not JD's fault at all that he was not in class. He was right where he was supposed to be, front row, center and laying down in his sexiest man-boy pose.

I had him in my sights now. I waited for the photographer to finish and I zoomed in on my target. It was a ten step walk, but by the time I got to where he had been, he was gone. G-O-N-E. Nowhere to be seen, nowhere in the crowd. Oh, for pete's sake.

Back to the office now and the secretary sends me down to the classroom. After a few missteps, I hear him before I actually see him. I hear him because he is standing in the doorway of the class. He has his back to me, so I don't realize what's going on right away. A teacher that I don't recognize is there also, so I say, "I'll be needing this kid for just a minute."

"Are you the mom?" he asks. I nod. "Then I'll just let you take care of this," he says as he turns JD towards me and hands me a pair of scissors.

There was JD with his shirt caught on the space maintainer that he just had put in yesterday. He had been using his sleeve (of course his sleeve! What would anyone have used?!) to dry the appliance so he could put a little silicone on it. I took him out into the hall and started trying to cut the shirt out. It was quite a large bit of shirt wedged in there, so it took a minute to get it out. In the meantime a bit of a crowd gathered. I guess it's not every day that they see a lady with scissors in a kid's mouth.

After I cut the shirt out, and as I was saying to JD, "Here. Now take these.," one of the girls standing there turned and gave me a big hug. She announced the rest of the kids, "This lady remembers me from pre-school! I didn't remember her, but she remembered me! She's cool." Then she hugged me again.

Then JD put his arm around me and said, "Everyone, this is my Mom."

"You're JD's mom?" another kid said. "Hi JD's mom." A bit of a ruckus broke out then as more people started saying, "Hi," and at that point the teacher stuck his head out the door to see what the fuss was.

I decided that was my cue to get out of there. Before I got myself into Real Trouble.

Crabby is as Crabby does

I had Wednesday off this week to get a few things done around the house, get caught up on grad work and and get caught up on school work. I was humming along on those projects so well that I decided I deserved a nap. When I was woke up by the phone a short time later I decided I might as well pick up the main floor of our house. That turned out to be a bad decision.

I had been in a pretty good mood all day, but the more things I picked up, the more I realized I that almost everything I was picking up belonged to someone else. I live with a 45 year old, a 13 year old, and 11 year old and an 8 year old. All of those people are perfectly capable of cleaning up and picking up after themselves. I picked up cleats, socks, shin guards, books, notebooks, dirty clothes, water bottles, backpacks, lunch boxes, papers, markers, flip-flops, magic wands, hair ties, snack dishes, laundry, trash and recycling. In my frustration I took anything that wasn't mine and dumped it in the owner's bedroom. Unceremoniously.

I actually thought that bit might make me feel better. At least I wasn't taking care of it for them; I was just putting it where I didn't have to see it anymore. Unfortunately I didn't feel any better, so I tried a new tactic. I thought I'd go for giving myself a good talking to. I had been wishing, as I stomped around the house, that I lived alone. If I did, not only would my ipod be where I left it when I came back for it, but somebody else's ipod wouldn't be sitting on my counter when I wanted to prepare a meal on that counter. My new tactic for trying to shake off my bitter mood was to imagine what it would REALLY be like if I had to live alone.

Wouldn't I just feel awful if I suddenly had no family. Let's say (to avoid gross morbidity) that they were all whisked off to Mars tomorrow. Wouldn't I pine away after them wishing, to do anything, give up whatever, to have them back? Of course I would. If I was suddenly without them tomorrow, I would think that picking up their crap was a small price to pay for actually having my family with me.

That didn't work though. It never does. No matter how many close calls I might have with my family, or someone near us, and I have to try to remember what's really important, when they are on my last nerve, non of that Hallmark, forwarded email, post of the day crap does a bit of good. I'm still mad. No matter how much I love my family, I do not love being the maid. I do not love being invisible. And I do not love junk laying all over my house 20 minutes after I just picked it up.

Maybe this makes me a bad person (did you read my last post?!) but it's true. No amount of sweet thought is going to shake me out of feeling crabby about what I'm doing. Not even the guilt I felt for not shaking off the crabbiness when I remembered how much I love my family and would do anything if only the Martians would just give them back.

It's sad, but I'll tell you what would shake me out that mood. A hug and a kiss and a "Here, let me put that away for you."

Hmmmm, thank God for making them cute and snuggly.