Mondays

The purpose of this post is to remind my future self what a typical day off, Monday, is like in my world these days.

6 am - Wake up, turn on tv, check the weather, see that it's raining.  Damn.  Worry that my children will get cold and wet on their travels to school.
6:20 am - Start to wake up the troops.  Get dressed and (cough) beautify (cough).
6:30 am - Head downstairs to work on breakfasts and lunches.  Hot lunch is a "disgusting" hot dog, so cold lunches all the way around.
6:35 am - Answer the phone.  It's Bob, sweetly checking in on how we're doing and making some grocery list suggestions.  In my kindest voice, I remind him that now is not a good time to chat, as, in my angry, mom voice, I yell at the kids to stop from harassing each other.  End the phone call shortly thereafter.
7:10 am - Walk the 2 oldest to the bus stop at the corner in the pouring rain.  Take the doggie along, who is none too happy to be in the rain.
7:20 am - after a brief chitchat with other bus stop moms, head back in to get Three ready for school.  Hold my breath, hoping for an easy transition.
7:30 am - drive Three to school, reminding him that he will go home after school with a friend.  Smile when he happily sees a friend from his class deboarding his bus.  Give him a hug and kiss and watch him bound into the school after his friend.
7:35 am - return home to grab my grocery list, overdue library books, mail to be mailed and items to be returned.
8 am to 9:30 am - listen to Pearl Jam on the Ipod as I leisurely grocery shop at Woodmans.  Smile at the regular shoppers and workers.  Feel accomplished that I have several meals in my cart.
9:30 am to 11 am - run errands.  Return unwanted clothing, socks, video games and shoes.  In turn, buy new clothing, plates, christmas gifts.
11 am - get home to put away groceries.  Greet Bob, who stopped home to pick something up.  Feel grateful that he pitches in to help put groceries away.
11:30 am - Chat briefly with my long-lost BFF T on her way to a meeting.  Make tentative plans to talk with her later, if her meeting runs short.  Then, clean bathrooms, clean out the car, do laundry.
12 pm - T calls again!  Talk for 25 lovely minutes, which is not long enough but will have to do for now.
12:25 pm - run over to One's school to pick him up for therapy appt.
1 pm to 2 pm - Participate in therapy with One.  Feel comfortable and supported by this therapist - so glad to have him.
2:10 pm - pick up Two and Three at a dear friend's house who agreed to watch them after school.  Take her middle child home with me to continue the playdate fun.
2:30 pm to 3:30 pm - make dinner.  Hand out snacks to hungry children.  Make some phone calls to family members in need.
3:30 pm  to 7:40 pm - Go to work and feel like I earned my paycheck today.  Challenging!
7:40 pm - return home to eat supper, greet my oldest boy, who happily informed me he is listening to Monday Night Football on the radio with his younger brother while Dad and Three are asleep upstairs.  Catch up on blogs, email, facebook.
9:00 pm - Sign off here and head up to bed.

Tuesday

Short report today.

I had, seriously, one of the worst days of my life.

OK.

I said, "seriously", so that means "I'm not exaggerating" 

but I am

and I suppose it could have been a lot worse.

But still it was pretty damn sucky.

My Three proved his "I hate school" point today in full, technocolor detail

when he balked and refused to enter school

and then kicked his teacher and ran away.

Around the corner.

Down the sidewalk.  

Across the street, and down the block.

A teacher ran with me, and eventually the principal joined us.

He continued kicking and screaming while we dragged him back to school.

He screamed "NO NO NO!" as we forced him to go into the school.

We dragged him up to her office

and he Tore It Up.

Threw down the chairs.

Pushed the table around.

Banged the chair repeatedly into the door

and

chipped the paint.

I 

was

mortified.

The principal asked if he was like that at home.

I saw the look in her eyes.

"Is he Emotionally Disturbed?" it said.

I replied, "no, he's just very stubborn and very mad."

The principal, while sweet enough, seemed a little flustered.

She threatened to call the police if he ran across the street again.

My boy was scared and sad by that

but he didn't back down.

He refused to cry.

"Go ahead," he said.  "Call the police.

I don't care!"

I left when the social worker came in and took over.

I said I had to go to work,

which was true,

but I also had to get out of there before I started crying.

It's a hell of a thing, watching your child have a complete meltdown like that.

I got to work, 

muttered something like, "sorry I'm late, no I'm not ok, have to go now"

and I ran down the hall to my office.

Shut the door.

Called my husband.

And burst into tears.

The social worker and my husband both responded great.

Three settled down after I left, 

played a game of Uno with the social worker, 

and joined his class, where he had a great day.

We have a plan in place for tomorrow.

Three has promised me he will not do that again.

I have a sinus headache from a cold.

I am emotionally wiped out.

I am heading to bed 

and I am thankful this day is over.

obligatory first day of school post

19 days after school started, here I am.

Here is Three, heading off to Kindergarten:

As the picture indicates, he was excited

and nervous.

19 days in he has lost some excitement

but not the nerves.  

We've had some "I quit school" moments.

And when he really means it, he'll say,

"I quit and I quit again!"

The double-quit.  That's when you know you're serious.

But we're getting through it.

He's happy to hang out with same-aged kids.

He's making some new friends.

His teacher will be fine. 

Not spectacular, but good enough.

(which, by the way, is the working title of my auto biography - Good Enough).

Here is Two, heading off to 3rd grade.

New school.

Bus ride (instead of walking half-mile to and from).

He is my poster child for happy student.

He loves the bus stop.

He loves his teacher and new clasamates.

He is excited about doing his homework.

He doesn't have a lot to offer at the end of the day

but whatever it is, he is happy.

So relieved,

because when he was 3 years old and sent to pre-school, he had such anxiety

that I pulled him out. 

Poor kid - he would wake up in the middle of the night with worry and fright that he might have preschool that day.

I'm so glad I trusted my instincts and removed him.

Kept him home with me the rest of that school year.

Restarted when he was 4, and it went much better.

And now?  He loves the challenge of the new grade, the new school.

Here is One.

Mr. Fifth Grader.

He thinks he's too cool for the first day of school photo

so he refuses to give a big, bright smile.

Little does he know that he has 7 more years of these photos.

(and maybe more, if he goes to college nearby.

I'm not above greeting him at his dorm and taking the first day of school photo there.)

We have been extremely lucky with One's teachers, all the way throughout his schooling.

Every year, we think, "this is the best teacher ever."

And nothing against the previous years' teachers,

but we keep having that feeling.

This year included.

His teacher is lovely.

A wonderful fit.

I am so thankful for this placement.  

His group of buddies isn't in his class, but that's good.

He needs a push to make more friends, and here it is.

Push, my One.  Go and make new friends.

The two photos below may be contenders for my Christmas Card photo.

(but the mere fact I am posting them means they won't make the cut)

They are cute, campy photos of my crew, though.

Hope your starts of school have gone well also!

putting up

Home today with sick (?) kindergartner.

Very slight fever.

Achy bones.

If I wasn't working, this would be a no brainer.

"He's just in kindergarten - let him stay home!"

I would say.

Now, I'm all about, "how sick are you?  

Do you think you could go in in a couple of hours?

Tomorrow you will go to school."

Doesn't help that the reaction I got from my boss was,

well,

less than positive

when I called in saying I couldn't come in.

But that's all I'm going to say about that.

So, I'm going to be productive today and continue working on my tomatoes.

I am elbow deep in tomatoes, thanks to a bumper crop at our friend's garden.

Today's mission?

More chili sauce.

I canned 22 pints of chili sauce yesterday (after working earlier in the day).

We like chili and have plenty of tomatoes, so I'll put up more.

I'll end the suspense at what I did on my "day off" on Monday.

Ready for it?

I went to 2 grocery stores.

I folded 5 baskets of laundry.

I picked the kids up from school at 1 pm (typical Mon release time).

Then, I took 1 child to a dr's appointment (football injury)

and

I worked 4 hours.

Yup, that's right.

I sort of forgot to add that I agreed to work "late Mondays" every other week.

At 2 pm, I wished I didn't have to go in.

And then the chaos started and I decided work needed me extra badly

so I headed in a tad early.

Thank God.

It was air conditioned.

It was quiet.  

People smiled when they saw me

and no one asked for demanded a snack,

or water,

or to get their turn on the computer,

and no one, not one person, yelled at me. 

I didn't want to leave.

I'll end with some photos from my canning escapes over Labor Day weekend.

Actually, in the spirit of accurate reporting,

Bob did a bunch of the canning because I was nursing a sore back.

Here's my outfit for the day (love my apron!)

Here are the tomatoes, taking a little bath.

And here they are, peeled and reading for canning.

I realize it would make sense to have a picture of the final product

but why start making sense now?

We ended up canning about 20 quarts of whole tomatoes.

have a good day, my friends!

Door County vaca 2011

Hey!

Long time no blog!

We have been b-u-s-y.

Among other things, we took our week vacation to Door County.

I heart Door county.

Here are some of the 533 pictures I have from that trip:

Firstly, we stopped at Bay Beach park in Green Bay.

Have you heard of this place?

It is awesome -  a city run amusement park that charges 1 - 2 tickets per ride.

And?  the best part?  tickets are 25 cents each.

In between the roller coaster and the giant slide,

we had the kiddos pose for a picture.

My three are on the right.

The four on the left are my older brother's kids - 

the cousins that my children love so dearly.

We made it to our house late that evening.

We found my parents walking down the sidewalk, looking for us.

They had had their nightly cocktails and thought it was a good idea to search us out.

Fortunately, we came upon them only a couple of blocks from our house.

My parents do make me laugh (sometimes).

Anyway, here's our rental for the week:

Isn't she pretty?

Love this place.  Feels like home.

What do I love about this place?

For one, the front porch, which is where we spend a lot of time

reading, watching the world go by, and solving all sorts of problems.

And at night, there have been many a card game played/

puzzle put together/

other games played

and drinks drunk there.

This is the view from the porch of the bay (Green Bay, which feeds into Lake Michigan but is much warmer).  There is a sweet little public beach there and a boat harbor.

My favorite boat was the one with the Jolly Roger.

There's more!

This place has cable.

As in tv.

Something the children below are normally deprived of.

Many a Sponge Bob episode was watched

(which reinforced why we don't have cable).

But we didn't only veg out in front of the tv.

We played perhaps the best game ever invented

(and the name is escaping me...  dang... oh!  got it!)

Cranium for kids

(or something like that).

We tried playing this game on a vacation probably 5 years ago

and it was a disaster then.

Kids too young.

Now?  

A total fun and riotous time was had by all.

Here is the aforementioned sidewalk.

No, these are not my parents.

That is my nephew (walking) and Three (riding his bike).

Our place is right in the heart of Fish Creek which means lots of nearby shops

and restaurants

and general hubbub.

I like hubbub.

One of the destinations we frequented on our bikes/feet was Sunset Park.

As you may imagine, there are glorious sunsets there

which conclude with applause.

No lie.

yes, this is a picture of me and Bob while I take a picture of Bob.  So artsy!

But the people and the tour bus leaves prematurely.

Because it is only after the sun has set that the best part comes.

 

We spent some time at the beach.

Actually a couple of beaches.

This one is Peninsula State Park.

Oh, did I mention my favorite Palestinians were with us?

Yes, my bro Mark and his wife Aisha gamely joined us for the week.

Mark was pictured above in one of the sunsetty pictures.

Here is Aisha, floating on my floaty on the beach

(don't ask).

Oh, here's Mark again.

Just thinking...

probably about how great of a sister he has...

 We're not good, as a group, at doing group photos.

But we captured this one below of my parents

and (almost) all of their 7 grandchildren.

Can you spot the missing grandchild?

That would be Three, who is temperamental about getting his picture taken.

We finally did get Three to participate in a group photo.

See how happy he is?

Did I mention we celebrated my parents' 46 wedding anniversary while together?

Theirs is a sweet love.

Here's a photo of the best dad and granddad ever.

All of the grandkids love him to bits, and they should,

Oh, here's a good story.

It's a lemonade out of lemons kind of tale.

The kids were owl-y, and it seemed the adults were too.

At least, I was.

I'll own it.

We decided to head out to one of our favorite Door Co hotspots.

(what? you didn't know Door Co had hotspots?

oh yeah, baby)

Turns out it was closed.

The mood in our car turned south.

There was yelling, tears, threats of big, bad punishment.

In my older brothers' car, they were probably all sitting perfectly,

solving mathematical equations,

or reading challenging chapter books

or even praying to baby Jesus in thanksgiving,

but not in my car.  

It was Ug-Ly.

We decided to stop at a small

and I mean small

city park nearby where we were.

We hopped out.

The kids swung on the swings

and see-sawed on the see saw.

Sigh of relief, things seemed better.

But only for a moment.

A brother was mean to another brother.

Someone fell off the see saw.

Tears, fighting - it was all coming back.

We adults quickly found some inspiration in having some old fashioned fun.

As in three legged races.

And the trusty wheel barrow race.

Modifications of the race track were made.

I even got some video of some of it.

Unfortunately, all I have here is one photo.

But what started out as a disaster 

turned into one of the more fun and unexpected moments of the week.

Love the fun and unexpected!

We eventually made it back (twice) to the hot spot:

PC Junction

where the kids could ride around a track on pedal cars

and play life-sized chess in the woods

and Bob and I could have a beer supervise them.

Time for another story.

This one briefer, which, you may have figured out,

is not my strong suit.

We went to Cave Point County Park one day.

I've been to Door County dozens of times,

my parents even more than that,

and none of us had ever been to this park.

It was magnificent.

Waves crashed on the shore.

Frogs were swimming in the little pools of water.

Butterflies floated.

A family enjoyed a picnic on a hidden beach.

The water (Lake Michigan) was c-c-c-cold.

50 degrees, a sign said.

Two loved it.

So did Three.

For that matter, so did One and the rest of the gang,

but I didn't get pictures of that.

Nor did I get pictures of a nice little walk in the woods we took afterwards

where we climbed to the top of "Old Baldy"

which is the largest sand dune in the state.

Who knew that Wisconsin had sand dunes?

Here is a gratuitous cute picture of my niece

who stayed the whole week with us,

along with her brother,

while their parents and older siblings returned home.

It's a sign of a good day if you can hang out in your swim suit all day long.

And here is my Two, showing off his new favorite skill

taught to him by aforementioned cute niece.

He now cartwheels everywhere he goes.

I could go on and on.

I do have 500+ more pictures afterall.

But I'll wrap it up with some photos that actually are from the last day of vacation

back here in Madison.

Mark and Aisha accompanied my wild bunch to the Memorial Union.

We ate and drank.

The boys swam one last time off the pier.

We ran into our cousin unexpectedly

which I've now done a few times this summer

which I love.  

So much more to tell you...

Last day of the Goodman Pool!

First day of school!

The start of football!

Canning tomatoes!

Labor Day weekend hike in the woods!

But not now.

I'm getting ready to enjoy my first day alone

tomorrow

no kids, no husband, no work

since May 27.

Any guesses what I'll be doing?