Get OUT Of The Car

So far the one true benefit I have observed from private school is the drop-off/pick-up function. The idea is brilliant. School employees manned with walkie-talkies stand by the front doors of the school. There is a sign that attaches to the dashboard displaying your child's name so when you pull up an announcement is transmitted to the employees inside, "Johnny Walker is now entering the building. Johnny Walker is entering the building." When you arrive in the afternoon, it is the same concept. You simply pull up to the drive-through window, err, I mean front door, and place your order. "One blonde kindergartener with a red backpack! Hold the pickles!"

The first week of school, I walked Ethan into the classroom during the morning and then waited for him outside the class in the afternoon because I knew he would not go for this drive-through idea. But at Back-to-School night the teacher encouraged the parents to do the drop-off/pick-up line to "facilitate independence." Alright - teacher-mandated parental laziness! I love it. Now I don't have to fuss with make-up or clothing choices or talking to anyone before 9 a.m. I simply pull on some yoga pants and slap on the giant black "I am so mysterious and glamorous with half of my face covered" sunglasses and out the door we head. If I wanted to, I could even drop him off while not wearing any pants at all! Not that I would – that would be weird – but it is nice to have that option in a pinch.

Ethan has been all bright and eager to do it himsel (!) and has taken pride in exiting the car alone and then reemerging, alone, at the end of each day to find me waiting. He scans the horizon each afternoon while he tries to pick out which granite-colored SUV is mine (truly, they all look identical) and when he sees me, his face relaxes into a combination of relief ("Whew! She came AGAIN today."), delight ("Yay! Mommy will have snacks and a juice box!") and a touch of smug superiority ("It is so nice to have my own private car service on demand.")

Ethan has gotten accustomed to an earlier bedtime and has been dare-I-say – cheerful? - during recent mornings. After he has been safely deposited at school in the morning, I return home and shower and dress without my captive audience barging into the bathroom with important questions about "my balloons" (use your imagination on this one) or my favorite, "What happened to my penis to make it look so funny?" (My mom said to tell him, "A boating accident.")

So I thought we were getting the new routine down. Until this morning, that is, when Ethan woke up on the wrong side of bed. By wrong side of the bed, I mean the possessed-by-the-devil, whining, everything-you-do-MOM-is-wrong side of the bed. Without boring you with too many details, by the time we got out to the parking lot, he had removed his pants twice ("NO PANTS! You promised … SHORTS!"), flung a bag of Cheerios under a couch cushion ("I wanted LIFE cereal…") and thrown himself onto the bathroom tile because his hairbrush was "too scratchy!" Super fun morning for all involved. Do not ask me why his head was spinning around and he was about to projectile vomit green pea soup this particular morning because all week he has been Little Mary Sunshine with beams of light coming out of his ass. There is no rhyme or reason. I only have a B.S. in psychology so I will not even attempt to speculate.

Eventually Ethan has been secured in the vehicle and we are hurtling toward his 8:25 a.m.-3:25 p.m. destination, as I am counting down the minutes until I can mainline a Venti Pumpkin Spice Latte. YES, whipped! We pull up in front of the school and he will not get out of the car. Here's how it works: You pull up in queue. A teacher opens the car door, unloads the child from the back, helps them adjust their backpack, and leads them on their merry way into the school. But Ethan would not get out. He was holding onto the interior of the car for dear life, SCREAMING. When we had a cat and needed to load him into the carrier to go the vet, the cat suddenly developed fourteen arms and tentacles and it took two of us to smush him into the carrier while he made sounds so ungodly that they haunt my nightmares to this day. It was just like that.

At this point, cars are lining up behind me, some moms are honking, and no doubt wondering what I have done to induce such hysterics. Finally I wrench his little tentacles off the car seat and give him a (gentle) push while the teacher delivers the rest of the dead-weight out of the backseat. Somehow he manages to sit down on the ground in front of my car and is now sobbing with such theatrical vigor that he is going to be a shoo-in for the Oscar category "Best Impersonation of a Prisoner of War – Ages 6 and Under."

I hope he thanks me before his agent in his acceptance speech.

Keeping the Face

One of our neighbors has three children. The middle child's name is Ava Faith. For as long as we have known this little girl, Ethan has referred to her as Ava Face.

"So then Ava Face got on her bike …"

"Ethan, her name is Ava Faith … THHH."

"That's what I just said! Ava FACE!"

My husband and I have adopted this moniker when speaking within the privacy of our house. Outside we call her by the correct name. Last night I came home and Ava Faith was playing in her yard. I asked Ethan if he would like to go out and say hello to Ava Face.

Ethan shot me a "Whatever am I going to DO with you?" look. He patted the empty space next to him on the couch with one hand. It is a sit-down-and -talk-to-me gesture that I use often. I sat.

Ethan placed one hand on my arm and said solemnly, "Mommy, her name is Ava Faith … THHH. It is not nice to call her by something other than her real name. How would you feel if I started calling you Mummy?"

The Lump

The weekend is here. Delicious.

This week was Ethan's first week of kindergarten. There is no bus service for his school, so I have been dropping off (8:25 a.m.) and picking up (3:25 p.m.) since my work schedule is the "flexible" one. Flexible means that when I am not sitting at my desk, my clients only call my cell once every thirteen minutes, as opposed to when I am in the office, and then they call my office phone every four.

The school has sent home approximately 7,000 documents this week, give or take a few hundred. 6,998 of them are about what happens if your child arrives "tardy" to school in the morning or the parent is "tardy" for pick-up in the afternoon. From what I can discern, the punishment is VERY severe, and may or may not include leeches and/or some form of Chinese water torture.

I am not good at being on time. I have never been good at being on time. I could generously be classified as "not a morning person." I think "mornings" should start sometime around 11:30 a.m. and involve brunch and two to three mimosas before requiring any heavy lifting on my part. If I ever become President, that will be my first piece of legislation. All of these factors conspire to make getting out of the house in the early morning exceptionally difficult for me. The other factor conspiring against promptness is the five-year-old involved in this process who is, incidentally, also not a morning person. Given his druthers, we would be in our pajamas, eating Cheerios from the box, watching cartoons until sundown. This, actually, sounds fabulous right about now.

My week in review:

At 6:30 a.m. I have looked at my alarm and thought, "Are you freaking kidding me?"

At 6:40 a.m. I have coffee'd up, showered, dressed, and slapped on a little make-up so as not to scare the other moms at drop-off with the depth and breadth of my undereye circles.

At 7:10 a.m. I have prepared a breakfast chock full 'o nutrients and the proper balance of complex carbohydrate and protein for sustained long-term academic performance (for Ethan, not me - typically I "eat" only coffee until about 2 p.m. This is not because I do not enjoy breakfast - I do! - but because I am always at least ten minutes behind schedule).

At 7:15 a.m. I have made efforts to rouse the troop (singular) with a cheery morning greeting. The Snoring Bed Lump ignores me completely.

At 7:20 a.m. after seeing no activity from The Snoring Bed Lump, I have repeated cheery morning greeting, this time with a firm edge to my voice.

At 7:25 a.m. I have started making empty threats to The Snoring Bed Lump about things that will be taken away if The Snoring Bed Lump does not get up RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND and I MEAN IT. "No bike riding after school! And that pony that someday you might get if we win the lottery? Not now, Mister. And you can FORGET about that drivers license when you turn sixteen … "

At 7:30 a.m. The Lump is now sitting at the table. He is upright and out of bed but for all intensive purposes, still asleep, although not now snoring. I have enthusiastically tried to coax him to take a bite of each item on his breakfast plate. "Try the mango! Look – it so ORANGE! And ORGANIC! And TROPICAL! You will like it! Just one bite! Half a bite! A quarter of a bite? Ok, just put it in your mouth, suck on it for five seconds, then spit it back out on your plate?" The Lump's response: "AHH! The mango is TOO cold! It tastes funny! It is SLIMY!"

At 7:37 a.m. I have given up, rinsed off the plate, slammed the last swill of my coffee from the mug and thrown a handful of Mini-Wheats (frosted, of course) in a plastic bag for The Lump to eat in the car. The Lump has now put his head down on the table and appears to be snoring, again.

At 7:38 a.m. I have put toothpaste on the brush because The Lump claims the tube is "too hard to squeeze in the morning when I am soooo tired!" I have coaxed The Lump, unsuccessfully, to engage in a thorough tooth brushing. Response: "AHH! The toothpaste is TOO cold! It tastes funny! It is SLIMY!"

At 7:42 a.m. I have given up on efforts at oral hygiene and am making empty threats about rotten teeth and eventual root canals. "Fine, you only want to brush one tooth? When the other nineteen fall out, you are going to be the one to explain to Grandpa why your teeth are now missing." Grandpa is - by trade - a dentist, not just some weird guy interested in teeth. Although, as I type this I realize "some weird guy interested in teeth" is, by definition, what a dentist is …

At 7:43 a.m. I have attempted to sunscreen The Lump, while avoiding direct contact with his breath, since he has only brushed one tooth. Response: "AHH! The sunscreen is TOO cold! It smells funny! It is SLIMY!"

At 7:45 a.m. I have requested that The Lump get dressed, please? The Lump has collapsed on the floor, spent from resisting everything for the past thirty minutes and from lack of food since The Lump only consumed four calories at breakfast.

At 7:50 a.m. I have asked The Lump, "Why are you still in your underwear?! Please, please, please put your clothes on."

At 7:55 a.m. I have asked The Lump why he still does not have any clothes on and why he has now removed the underwear he had on five minutes ago.

At 8:00 a.m. I have walked out the door with his backpack, his lunchbox, my laptop bag, my purse and my sanity balanced precariously. The Lump has followed holding his pants in his hand, which he will then put on while standing on the front porch. I have smiled cheerfully at the neighbors, "Good morning! Have a good day!"

At 8:02 a.m. I have been stuck in traffic, gritting my teeth, and find myself questioning whether I, after all the oral demands made of the Lump, have brushed my own teeth yet this morning?

At 8:10 a.m. I have restrained myself from pounding the steering wheel with my fists – still in traffic! -- and started to break a sweat thinking about all those anti-tardy leeches.

At 8:20 a.m. I have been responsive DJ for all The Lump's requests. His favorite to groove along with: "Momma, Don't Ya Tickle My Ticklish Toes." [Chorus: Don't ya don't ya don't ya tickle my toes, my toes ... momma, don't ya tickle my toes, my toes ...] Door to door, we can play this nine and one-third times. This song also gets played on repeat all the way home. One week, two round-trip drives per day. You do the math.

At 8:25 a.m. I have peeled rubber pulling into the school lot and dragged The Lump, his backpack, his lunchbox, my purse, and my sanity out of the car and hauled some serious ass into the school lobby, smiling cheerfully at other parents, "Good morning! Have a good day!"

In between drop-off and pick-up, I have worked, ignored crazed cell phone calls from clients and opposing counsel, visited the doctor (always – does anyone else under the age of eighty-eight go to the doctor this much?), and procured more coffee along the way. Notice I do not mention "eating." This is because I have not eaten much of anything until dinnertime, with the exception of a few sad stale Altoids fuzzy from rattling around in the bottom of my purse since 2006. I believe the clinical diagnosis is insane schedule induced anorexia. At this rate, I will be smaller than my high school size by my class reunion in November!

At 3:15 p.m. I have returned to gather Ethan (magically, he transforms from The Lump into a smiley, happy kid sometime around morning snack – his teacher reports how "charming" he is), his lunchbox, his backpack, his homework and my sanity from the school lobby, smiling cheerfully at the other parents, "Good afternoon! How was your day?"

Beginning at 4:00 p.m. I have started supervising homework, lunch packing, ignored crazed cell phone calls from clients and opposing counsel, prepared dinner, run bath, read bedtime stories, tucked in, stalked some people on Facebook, and maybe indulged in a little chocolate and some wine.

At midnight … I have CRASHED.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Jeff noticed my frayed-around-the-edges look tonight and kindly suggested that maybe I wanted to sleep in tomorrow? Until noon?

And I was all ... tomorrow ... until noon? Right now, I want to sleep from tomorrow until June.