Hey, you guys! What’s up? Cold enough for you?
What? Too soon?
As I write this, it is -11°, which is actually two degrees warmer than when I took the dog out today. And though that dog is losing his damn mind, he took about two steps out onto the sidewalk, shat, and ran back in the house, so I guess he isn’t that far gone.
:::
Chicago Public Schools is gearing up for a second day of no school, an unheard of thing, unless you count 2011, when we were off for three days.
Before then, I didn’t care.
I will tell you that I was not sorry when they called school off. I have been in Heaven this break. We didn’t travel, we didn’t even host anyone for Christmas. We’ve had no therapy, there have been no school council meetings or holiday parties or any other real obligations.
During the school year, most mornings I am the first one up. I press snooze as many times as I can while still having a shot at getting to school, and then I pry the children out of bed. I have to negotiate with Ryan for long minutes we don’t have—you can wear sundress but only if you put a turtleneck and tights under it. Because it’s cold. Because you’ll be too cold to play at recess. BECAUSE I SAID SO. I actually dress Kai while he’s still asleep. They get a bowl of dry Cheerios each as I frantically stuff lunchboxes and folders and library books and notes and whatever else into backpacks, before I frantically stuff limbs into coats and heads into hats and fists into mittens and chivvy everyone out the door.
But over break, we all just sleep until we naturally wake up. By the time I stumble downstairs for coffee, the kids have gone downstairs, busted open a box of Cheerios and are watching the iPad.
It’s bliss.
I don’t want anyone to get the idea that my kids are, like, good or anything. Kai got in trouble the other day for messing with the lampshades again. Monday he was bouncing off the walls. That is not a figure of speech. He was bouncing back and forth off the walls. He did this to a pair of jeans:
But compared to a normal week in Punchdrunk land, I’ve been doing a-okay. Better than okay, even, which is why I was surprised at so many of my Facebook friends’ reaction to school being closed. Dismay. Stunned disbelief. And panic. Cabin-fever-chew-your-arm-off-to-escape-style panic.
:::
I wondered if it was possible that I was the only one for whom it was easier to stay home and listen to the kids fight all day than to send them to school. And if that is the case, what does it mean? What does it say about my parenting skills? My life?
The week before Christmas was one of the craziest of my parenting career. I had a four hour (!) meeting on Monday, holiday parties in both classrooms, therapies and work and on top of all of that Christmas—gifts for all the therapists and teachers, trips to FedEx and UPS and Target and the grocery store and the liquor store and Target again and back to the grocery store. None if it was hard, none of it was high-stakes, none of it affected the rotation of the earth, none of it was different than any other household in the last week of the year. But it was enough that I was ready for a break, the vast nothingness that is a school holiday, a chance to regroup and decide how I can do things differently in the coming year.
Of course, the obvious answer is that I need to simplify things, get more organized. I found an intriguing Web site, iheartorganizing, and spent an hour sifting through it, simultaneously coveting this woman’s life and throwing up in my mouth. She dots her exclamation points with hearts. But she’s so damn organized.
Exhibit A: Lunch ingredients prepackaged and stashed in a handy-dandy caddy, with and adorable laminated label! I love you. I hate you go away.
I could/should also give up some things during my week, but what? School is required by law, therapy has to happen. The boy needs to learn to swim, Ryan likes gymnastics and she’s so cute in her teensy leotard, the school council thing is directly related to how the school operates. I work out and take guitar lessons because I need things in my life that have nothing to do with being a wife and mother so that I can be a better wife and mother. I could give up teaching yoga, but it puts enough money in the bank to keep the kids in Happy Meals, and that’s not nothing. Plus I like it. We go to bed way too late, the alarm rings way too early.
So. On Wednesday, I’ll get out of bed after three rounds of snoozing to wrestle the kids back to school. I’m the lunch parent that day, I’m subbing a yoga class. Thursday is our beloved teacher Monica’s birthday, also there’s a council meeting. Friday the upholstery cleaner guy is coming to finally clean the couch the stager put in our old place that Ryan puked on during an ugly incident of the stomach flu back in August. Friday night I’m double booked with a birthday party and Scott’s company’s holiday party. Saturday I’m double booked with a birthday party and ballet lessons.
And so it begins again.
In the meantime, I get one more day.
Well, half a day.
Kai has therapy this afternoon.
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