School Days, part two

August 31, 2009 at 12:00 pm (SLICE OF LIFE)
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My girls had their first-day back-to-school outfits laid out well in advance. The spanking new jeans, faux tartan top, motorcycle jacket, and FEDORA were enlisted to dazzle the masses like so much sparkling vampire flesh. The Pixie’s choice of Cinderella dress and silver slippers looked downright dull in comparison. But, given the fact that it was still very much summer at the time, my young fashionista went off to school the first day wearing an emo looking vest with cheerful skulls over a t-shirt with shorts and bright blue high top sneakers, to which I said: Whatever. We’ve already established I’m fashion challenged.

She loved her outfit, loved her school, her new teacher, her friends. She left excited. She came home disgusted. The fourth grade teacher read The Little Engine That Could to the class. To be fair she’d been a kindergarten teacher up until that day. She’s since overcome her first-day faux pas by being “the nicest teacher in the whole world” and my daughter continues to go off to school eagerly every morning in adorably bizarre outfits with hair styles culled from teen magazines.

Her brother? I have no idea where he goes each morning or what he does there all day. He’s a closed book. His sister had been the intermediary but now they’re at different schools. I have him mostly to myself at the crack of dawn and have been trying new conversational tactics. Direct questioning rarely works. Instead I shock him into talking with references to health class or by teasingly poking his armpits and asking if he remembered deodorant. Deodorant has become a big issue here. My ever-helpful husband picked some up for the kids. Did he buy some for himself so I could have mine all to myself? No. But the boy and girl got theirs. Adidas – very sporty – for her and Axe for him. Yes, Axe. I had to sneak out to the store for something prettier smelling for the girl and something just plain less smelling for the boy. I glanced over my shoulders, surreptitiously sniffing deodorants like someone deranged. For the record, Teen Spirit is my favorite. Axe? No. Not so much.

The Pixie needs no prompting. She comes off the school bus talking, although it’s usually about someone else.

“I have something really, really, really, really bad to tell you.” Dramatic pause wherein I imagine she’s been expelled already. “Two boys had to go to the office today.”

Whew. “Why?”

“How should I know?”

“You are polite to your teacher, aren’t you?”

“Yesss. But guess what. One girl in class cries like a baby. All day.”

“That’s awful. Do you try to cheer her up?”

“No. She wants her mommy. She’s not the only one either.”

“Do you miss me at school?”

“No. Silly. What’s for dinner?”

The first day of kindergarten I was dutifully snapping pictures while she waited for the bus. There are several shots of her hand blocking the lens. It made me feel old. Unnecessary. The bus came and she got on. No hesitation, no glances back. I remembered my cousin’s daughter on her first day of kindergarten eleven years ago. She climbed on the bus and turned back to wave to her mother. My Pixie walked straight to her seat, sat facing directly forward, and waited. I wondered if I should cry. And then I realized: She was on an adventure.

It occurred to me her teachers are on an adventure too, they just don’t know it yet. When she came back that afternoon she was full of guess-whats and guess-what-elses. But the first thing to come out of her mouth? “Kindergarten has a LOT of rules!” I wasn’t too surprised to find a note from the teacher in her backpack a moment later. Apparently one of the rules is that you must wear shoes. I immediately bought her shoes with laces, hoping to slow down the kicking off of shoes at every opportunity. The next day was spent showing off her shoe tying (and untying) expertise. Everything is an adventure when you’re five.

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School Days

August 30, 2009 at 12:00 pm (SLICE OF LIFE)
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Tomorrow the Pixie will go to school. She’s ready. All paperwork has been filed, immunizations given, pink butterfly book bag appropriated. Gymboree, Gap, and her sister’s dresser drawers have been picked clean. She knows the alphabet and can read and write a handful of words. Mostly our names – including MOM, proof of which is in black permanent marker on the kitchen counter. Yes, she wrote MOM in big, black letters and then grew wide-eyed when I asked her who did it. She looked from one sister to the other as if in horror they could even contemplate such defacement. What an actress! Luckily, I have a pretty good sense of humor and my husband is a cabinetmaker so, like the cobbler’s barefoot children, our kitchen is a serious candidate for Extreme Home Makeover. My faked signature adds character. Because, you know, we didn’t already have enough.

Tonight she’s sleeping with the pink butterfly book bag and matching lunch box. If she’s sleeping at all. Giddiness came free with the set and she skipped through the house all afternoon singing about the joys of owning a book bag – set to the tune of Polly Put the Kettle On. From the top bunk her sister is probably still trying to convince her not to humiliate her, not to ruin her life, not to wear the Cinderella dress and silver sparkle slippers on the first day of school. She’d like her to wear something grown-up and fashionable. A tunic. Not a shirt, a tunic. With leggings. This discussion’s been ongoing the past few days and has made a few people ask what a tunic is. The idiots. She rolls her eyes. I asked if the item in question weren’t more of a swing shirt rather than a tunic and got a glare so hot my skin peeled. My daughter is a fashionista. Do not mess with her.

The Fashionista is fun to shop with though, assuming you have enough money. She loves clothes. She loves to accessorize. She loves to love the clothes I hate. I’m told this is my fault. I have no fashion sense. Possibly true, since she’s not the first to say so. What’s fun about shopping with her is that she’s enthusiastic. She spots a black motorcycle jacket and gauzy red plaid tunic and has to have them. Has to. I hadn’t even noticed them, but now they look kinda cute together. “See? See? Mom! They’re adorable! I can wear this jacket with everything. I can wear the tunic by itself. I can wear them the first day of school. No, it’s not too hot. It’s never too hot to be stylish. And look! The zipper is asymmetrical! Asymmetrical, Mom! Can you believe it?” Before long I want a black motorcycle jacket with a diagonal, asymmetrically placed, unbelievably cool and hot zipper. What’s not fun is shopping with her with the rest of the clan in tow. And they must be towed. They are not willing participants. The Pixie gambols through shops like a young gazelle, leaping in the air and crashing down, clearing shelves with a delighted shriek. Or she drags herself behind us, sullen, sweeping her arms out idly now and then to clear the shelves. She’s unpredictable. It’s like carrying a lit fuse in your purse. She may seem like a perfect little lady at the moment, but you’d be wise to remember she has dismantled window displays and been caught dancing with mannequins. It’s only a matter of time. The Boy is completely predictable. He is not a shopper. We spent days searching for clothes and he liked one shirt. A wide striped one he wanted to buy in six colors so he wouldn’t have to shop anymore. I had visions of Charlie Brown, wearing the same shirt forever. This would suit my son just fine since variety is not the spice of his life.

The first day of school he wore an old t-shirt anyway. The Fashionista deemed this so cool it was uncool, as if he cared. The first day for them came a week ago and that made the Pixie wail. All summer long she’d been waiting and now she had to wait a little more. The day is almost here though and I’m excited for her. I hope I can sleep.

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The Sea

August 11, 2009 at 10:34 am (SLICE OF LIFE)
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THE SEA! the sea! the open sea!

The blue, the fresh, the ever free!

Without a mark, without a bound,

It runneth the earth’s wide regions round;

It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;

Or like a cradled creature lies…

 

We’re on a tiny strip of land caught between the sound and the sea.  It’s a magical place. Here my running acquaintance husband turns into a surfer and my children change back into the mermaids and mermen they really are. They’re splashing in the pool now, laughing like seals, happy. A magical sound.

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County Fair

August 2, 2009 at 12:00 pm (SLICE OF LIFE)
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After more than an hour of hunting for two matching shoes in a child’s size 8 (or 9 or 10, just make them match please!), I pushed four kids out the door. I locked it. Deep breaths were taken followed by a ninety second pedicure. I opened the door and blinked. The number of kids had doubled.

We live close enough to the fairgrounds to walk and so we do. We like to say it’s fun. When it’s 88 degrees Fahrenheit and 100 percent humidity and the tarred road is sticking to our shoes with every step we say nothing. Just keep walking. We kept walking. By the time we reached the next door neighbor’s drive the kids had tripled. Another fell in with us at the end of the street. They were like bees swarming toward the entrance, but once we paid they separated and went their own ways. My sister and I took the smallest ones to the kiddie rides. We stood watching while our children spun round and round in giant red apples. I was holding her baby – affectionately known as Mealworm – wondering why apples. It’s an Alice in Wonderland feel putting your child in a giant apple and watching that apple lurch and spin away. It made me dizzy. Sweat ran down my back and my hair clung to my face. Mealworm poked me in the eye. This is the moment my high school boyfriend chose to step forward and say hello. Lovely. The last time I ran into him I was enormously pregnant and wearing flip-flops in February. He asked politely what I’d been up to and I burst out laughing. So much for dignity.

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Summer of Our Discontent

July 30, 2009 at 12:00 pm (SLICE OF LIFE)
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 It’s true. I may never write here again. I was thinking this morning of what Virginia Woolf said. “A woman must have money (for babysitters, cooks, laundresses, maids…) and a room of her own (far from home, without a phone) if she is to create fiction (or anything else – like a complete thought).”

We have been to the beach. This is a sand-ridden, jellyfish stung, sunburnt self-torture for mothers. There is nothing relaxing in it. We have been to the playground. The one set in a desert of recycled rubber surfacing with no shade trees for miles and the twirling monkey bars where my son broke his arm. We have been to the county fair. Will summer never end?

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Tooth Fairy

July 10, 2009 at 12:00 pm (SLICE OF LIFE)
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The Tooth Fairy has been to visit. No doubt she’s reconsidering her career choice now. Don’t be surprised if the value of baby teeth drops sharply. The Pixie has lost her first tooth.

That makes it sound as if it happened naturally. As if the tooth simply fell out. Hardly. She had a loose tooth for all of a few days. Then she said to me “I guess I’ll go outside and bash myself in the face with a soccer ball.” Apparently her sister thought this helpful advice. I applied reason, but the Pixie thought a hard smack to the mouth perfectly reasonable. In the end I let her go because, well, for one thing I knew where the soccer ball was, but also because Who would hit themselves in the face on purpose?

She was back a minute later bloody mouthed and bawling, tooth in hand. “That HURT!” Somehow she managed to sound both accusing and triumphant.

I wanted the tiny trophy to go in the pocket of my purse till bedtime – for safekeeping – but I was not to be trusted. I thought of all the things that have gone missing from my purse and been found in hers. I gave her the tooth.

I gave her the tooth, but in a clear, plastic box (so she could see it) roughly two inches tall and three inches wide (so she wouldn’t lose it). For the first time in all her five years she asked to go to bed early. She was excited. I feared for the rest of her teeth. The Tooth Fairy brought a crisp one dollar bill, rather than the customary golden dollar coin. Possibly she was taken by surprise. With almost a full year between teeth at our house her stock of coins may have gotten low. Her mistake was in sliding the folded bill beneath the edge of the pillow before retrieving the tooth. I can imagine her flitting all about the Pixie’s head, slender hands feeling here and there, searching fruitlessly. The tooth was not to be had. My daughter, in her earnestness, had placed the entire box directly under her head and not moved an inch. Her sleeping head pressed the small box into the mattress and neither a tiny fairy nor a full grown adult could make it budge. If she decides to stay in business, the Tooth Fairy has her work cut out for her.

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Graduation

June 14, 2009 at 12:00 pm (SLICE OF LIFE)
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I told the kids come June they’d suffer for all those snow closings and delays this past winter. I also told them that when I was a kid we walked to school in snow. Piles and piles of it. Blizzards even. Barefoot. None of that was true. I did not walk in blizzards barefoot. There may have been slush, but not six foot drifts.

And they are not suffering. Not even close. Yes, school’s been extended into summer to make up for those days spent sledding. Mid-June, their days are spent in the classroom rather than in the backyard climbing trees. They don’t care. Friday I found out why. I’d been invited to an authors’ tea by the third grade. I had no idea what to expect. I asked if I should dress up, which got a laugh from my nine year old. Apparently not. I put my gloves back in the drawer. In the end there were no dainty tea cups or diminutive sandwiches anyway. The authors’ tea featured punch and cookies while the kids took turns reading books they’d written aloud. This is how we spent the morning. I stayed for lunch, which I ate surrounded by giggling girls doing one another’s hair. I saw the fifth grade teachers carrying out tubs of Italian ice for their class party. The rest of the school picnicked under trees with their parents. I passed out chocolate bars to the girls and we went to the playground. They are not suffering. This is one long party. I’m glad.

Flash back to Thursday night’s fifth grade graduation. Belatedly my fifth grader remembered there was a dress code. (Boys!) Everyone scrambled to change into something nicer or even just cleaner and I phoned a friend for advice. Two of her children had already been down this road and a third would give the official welcome that night. The welcomer answered with a “hey”. I asked what he was wearing, thinking to make a joke about it, but he surprised me with “a blazer”. A what? A sport coat? “Mom got me a flower to go on it.” A boutonniere??  I was seriously underdressed. My daughter, who knows everything about everyone, informed me then that a certain fifth grade girl (she of the sun-gold hair and pink sweaters – ah, poetic puberty) had gotten flowers and that all of the graduates were getting gifts. This is fifth grade! We didn’t have grand graduation ceremonies in fifth grade and we certainly didn’t get gifts. We got beat if we DIDN’T graduate to the sixth grade, that’s what we got! I considered telling my children this, then thought better of it. My humor is sometimes lost on them.

Instead I rummaged through my son’s room. He’s allergic to nice clothes, but I knew he had some. If you’ve ever broken an arm you know what I’m saying here: Everyone needs at least one button down shirt. This boy has broken his arm twice. I knew those shirts were in there. I came out waving a pale green dress shirt and matching tie triumphantly. He crossed his arms and set his jaw. Wrestling him to the floor and forcing him into the shirt was a momentary possibility, but I’d spent too much time doing my hair. We compromised. A short sleeve shirt – tucked in. Black trousers – with sneakers. I added a belt, he refused socks. It was a really nice belt though. Worth the loss of the socks. At the last second the phone rang. Could we bring an extra shirt with us? I guessed it was for some underdressed child and we’d never see it again. My son eyed the green shirt and tie. He’s generous.

And then we were sitting in the auditorium. There were speeches and award presentations. They went on forever. Yes, my friends’ children and even my own son gave speeches and were presented awards. You know what I mean though. It went on f o r e v e r.  At the end was a slide show the teachers had put together. A baby picture would appear on the screen, then a photo of a chubby toddler, a toothless grinning six year old, and finally a current picture along with the student’s name. The graduates loved it. As soon as they could guess, they shouted out the names to go with the faces. “Phil!” “Kimmie!” “Tommy!” I had tears welling up long before the image of my sweet little six month old boy in red overalls appeared. I was reminded that this whole production, which I’d thought overkill on a grand scale, was for them. They deserved it. And it would not go on forever. It would go on for a few moments of my life and then they’d be gone. The baby in red overalls became a toddler in nothing but a diaper and cowboy boots riding a stick horse, then a blonde boy rolled on the ground laughing with a big yellow dog and I couldn’t tell them apart by sight or smell. There were turtles and toads in buckets on my back step and pockets filled with marbles and rocks and BBs. He’s discovered where the lost teeth he put under his pillow went. He plays chess. He questions my logic. It won’t go on forever.

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Overcoming Doglessness

May 22, 2009 at 12:00 pm (SLICE OF LIFE, WANDERLUST)
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   puppy 2

 

On Wednesday my daughter invited a stranger to dinner. Not a complete stranger really, because in a place this small everyone’s heard of everyone else by the end of the day, but a man I’d never met. He built my father’s yawning fireplace with the millstone for a hearth. For years before he became a stone mason he had been a hunter and a trapper and his knowledge of wildlife is legendary. My daughter heard a story of how he raised a fox kit or a deer or a family of opossums or something and was intrigued. Enough to ask to interview him for a class project, because she fancies herself a journalist. She wrote out a list of questions to ask including full name, birth and death dates, age (“Is that rude, Mom?”), favorite place to be, fondest memory, and favorite color. There were other possibly more pertinent questions, but those were my favorites. I told her asking his age would not be rude, but asking his death date might.

And then he didn’t come. I made a venison pie with mashed potatoes to soak up the gravy and baby peas and the pound cake with the real whipped cream and berries and I cleaned the house. I cleaned the house! This involves shoving things under sofa cushions and scanning for cobwebs, followed by a spritz of Lysol for that cleaned-my-house scent. Tedious work. And – after all that - he did not come. “He’s a little backward” (You think?) My daughter had to go to him. I told her to go ahead and ask him his death date. So she went and asked her questions. Some of them couldn’t be answered and I can not tell you why. Witness protection program, perhaps. I can tell you his favorite color is brown. And he gave my daughter a dog. A beagle of the nonhowling variety, I’m told. Is there any such thing?

I grew up down the road from – or rather there was down the road from me, because I was there first – a beagle club. A place where they keep beagles for hunting. Beagles howl. Let me say that again. They HOWL. And they bark. They bark and they bark and two beagles together spur one another on to bark twice as much and fifty (yes, fifty) beagles howl and bark all day and all night and the sound makes you want to break things. You grind your teeth until you think they’ll break and you squeeze whatever you’re holding till you think it will break. I believe my father offered to break a baseball bat over the beagle club owner’s head.

Actually, my first dog was a beagle. But that was long before the beagle club came to our road. There was a sign on the way into town that said “Beagles for Sale” except it looked like “Bagels 4 Sale” instead. Fresh bagels would have been fairly exotic around here back then and my mother couldn’t resist the temptation. We went in for bagels one day and came out with a dog. This may or may not be true but it’s the way I like to remember it. It’s a good story.  I don’t remember much about that dog. His name was Peanut, he had sharp little teeth, and yes – he surely did howl. My cousin that lives next door to me on this road grew up next door to me on the other road. Directly across from the beagle club. I was on the phone with her when my daughter came through the door with this dog, grinning. I said I thought I had a new puppy and my cousin asked what kind. You can imagine the response “beagle” elicited.

 This is how I’ve come to have a puppy snoring at my feet. I can go back to Hungary and ask “Beszél angolul?” “Do you speak English?” with my head held high. I may still be a stupid American but I’m no longer a dogless bitch.

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Update

April 19, 2009 at 6:31 am (ARTS, SLICE OF LIFE)
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This is the part where I update my blog. You were wondering when I’d get to it, weren’t you? Wondering if I won the Washington Post’s Peep Show contest, if the Pixie’s ingested any potentially hazardous substances lately, how I felt about Susan Boyle’s performance  on Britain’s Got Talent, if I’m enjoying reading Twilight, if I’ve gotten my stimulus check yet.

Questions one and two will be addressed together because she ate my contest entry. You read that right. She ate my diorama. The little marshmallow artist, Grant Wood, glasses and all. His backside was glued to a tiny hay bale. This did not deter her. He had a small paintbrush in his hand, which I’d made. Amazingly she did not eat that. Probably an oversight. I’m sure she meant to, because she ate everything else. The marshmallow bunnies posing for Mr Wood, also glued down? Eaten. The marshmallowy hay bales – covered in actual hay? Eaten.

Eventually we may have to consult professionals. I’m talking psychiatric help; everyone at the Poison Control hotline knows us already. Last week she bit a light bulb. Let me say that again. Last week. She bit. A light bulb. I was talking to her sister (because I do have other children, honest) and I glanced over to see the Pixie with an odd look on her face. Her cheeks were puffed. “What have you done?” is the question I warily ask several times a day before approaching her, for fear she’s stuck her finger in a socket or caught a venomous snake and is about to bring upon us destruction that I don’t want to touch. So I asked “What have you done?” and crooked my finger at her. She didn’t answer. She looked like Sylvester the cat with that “I tawt I taw a puddy tat” bird in his mouth. An uncomfortable half smile and she slowly held up what she had behind her back. The metal end of a light bulb, jagged and broken.

I tend to go cold and distant at moments like this. We seem to have a lot of them, so that’s probably best. Her sister took her cue from me and became my surgical assistant, wordlessly handing me wet paper towels with which I fished shards of glass from a bloody mouth. Finally I was satisfied she might not die and asked why on earth she would do such a thing. She is five. We should be beyond this. She shrugged. A mouthful of glass is no big deal to her. “I couldn’t get it to open.” She had been turning and turning the screw-in part and it wouldn’t open. So she bit it. To see what was inside. Again: She bit a light bulb. She sees this as an obvious solution to a problem.

Am I doing something wrong?

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Words

March 9, 2009 at 12:00 pm (ARCANA, SLICE OF LIFE)
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Words have been on our minds. Today is the spelling bee. For two weeks my daughter has had words to spell tossed at her from every quarter. Conversations usually go like this:

Me: Eat your lunch. Spell tortilla.

The Speller: Tortilla. T-O-R-T-I-L-L-A. Tortilla.

Son: These are peanut butter sandwiches, Mom. Not tacos. What’s your favorite dinosaur?

Me: Brontosaurus. Spell brontosaurus.

Speller: Brontosaurus. B-R-O-

Son: Mom! Brontosaurs didn’t exist! Spell apatosaurus.

Speller: Apatosaurus. A-P-P – wait. A-P-A-T-O-S-A-U-R-U-S. Apatosaurus.

Me: I know, but it’s my favorite because it proves scientists make mistakes, too. Mistake.

Speller: Mistake. M-I-S-T-A-K-E. Mistake.

Pixie Child: Do dinosaurs really eat only girls? Spell ‘girls rock’.

During lunch yesterday we had my iPod playing on the surround sound. The Speller asked to hear a certain song and I said sure, telling her it was popular when I was a teenager and treating them to a little dance. She laughed indulgently, then made her point.

Speller: This song is explicit. E-X-P-L-I-C-I-T. Explicit.

Me: No, it isn’t. It’s… Oh. Wow.

The boy’s eyebrows went up.

Pixie: I know what explicit means.

The Pixie’s favorite thing to tell strangers right now is “I know a bad word. I can’t say it, but it sounds like…” and then she sounds it out for them. Apparently slowly enunciating a word does not equal saying it. There’s always that laugh at the end. She gets to say the word with impunity because she’s not really saying it. Not technically. Then she tells her story. “We were in the car and Mom was singing and I don’t think she was paying attention because I think she forgot to turn because she stopped at a stop sign. I can spell stop. S-T-O-P. At the stop sign she said that word and I said I think you just said a bad word and she turned the car around and we turned onto the road that doesn’t go by Cracker Barrel. Do you want me to tell you the word again?”

So I don’t know who I thought I was kidding yesterday when I said “Yeah, we’ll have to take that song off your iPods.”

Son: It’s not like we’ve never heard the word, Mom.

Me (with horror): Where? Where have you heard that word?

Son: You. You say it all the time.

They’re all smirking at me at this point. I smirk back.

Me: Well. I’m not going to say it anymore. It’s a bad word and I have a better vocabulary.

Son: Give me a dollar every time you say it.

Me: A nickel.

Son: A quarter.

Me: A nickel. I have to wean myself.

Son: You’ll stop sooner if you give me a dollar every time.

Speller: If you give each of us a dollar.

Me: I don’t have that much money.

Speller: Then you won’t say it, will you?

Sometimes it sucks having smart kids. But don’t tell them I said that. They’re smug enough. I haven’t had to make any pay outs yet, thankfully. Nor have I had to flex my wider vocabulary under stress though. Maybe I should write some phrases down so I’ll be ready. In case I can’t bite my tongue.

I am perturbed.

This situation is odious.

Stop being so fractious. I love you and do not want to pay you a dollar.

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