A Back To School Tip From an Expert

With five kids in the house, back to school shopping is a gargantuan undertaking.  (Bet that's the sole reason the Duggar's homeschool: phooey on that conservative Christian ideology -- she just doesn't want to weigh the pros and cons of glue stick packs.)

But also with five kids in the house, I have some folks for whom this is not their first rodeo, and they are full of helpful hints.  I thought I'd share this critically important one with you, my dear readers, if in fact, I have any readers left.

My 10 year old took a look at her school's 6th grade supply list and immediately noticed something was missing:

"Mom.  You have to get me hand sanitizer.  It's always a good idea to have hand sanitizer in your desk.  That way, when the kid sitting next to you picks his nose and uses your pencil, you can use it on both your hands AND the pencil.

I learned that one the hard way."

OK, back-to-school shoppers around the land! Benefit from my child's lesson learned: put "hanitzer" on the list.

Share your back to school survival tips in the comments!

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Another Cautionary Tale, this one with a side of mortification

Mornings are my own personal experiment with chaos theory.  I don't enjoy them.  They are, each of them, little vignettes of failure and regret.

It's not the hour.  I enjoy quiet, peaceful early morning hours.

It's not that I have to go to work; I love my job.

It's that I live with all these other people, who need to arrive at various educational institutions with bright shiny faces, full warm bellies and lunch boxes loaded with nutritious and tasty goodness.  It's that they need to be wearing school uniforms.  Clean ones.  It's that on any given day, a few of them have soccer practice, and a few of them have early release days or late start days, or a change in the carpool, or forms to hand in, or projects to bring with them, or picture effing day.  This one needs hotdog money and that one is clamoring about free dress and that one yonder has a stuffy nose and this one I just tripped over needs her rat's nest of a hairdo transformed into a proper little Catholic schoolgirl coif.

This morning, all of that reduced me to tears and silence.  The tears are commonplace.  The silence, however, freaked out the kids.  I don't usually find myself at a loss for words when it comes to giving lectures.   Come to think of it, the silence freaked me at as well.

So I resolved that tonight, before my five offsprings' heads drifted down to, crashed into, or haphazardly landed upon a pillow, they would produce for me every article of clothing they each required for the next day: school clothes, soccer clothes, sweatshirts, socks, underwear, shoes...the whole nine.

This is where the cautionary bit begins.

Let me be a lesson to you.  Do not assume that basic messages are penetrating your children's skulls.  Do not -- ever! -- be afraid to repeat something you think for sure they must know.  Go ahead: be that broken record.  Annoy them.  Let them roll their eyes.  Let them say "I KNOW mom."

Should you choose not to heed my advice, you could be one of the players in this little morality play:

* * *

Mom:  "I am starting a load of laundry in a few minutes: bring me what you need for tomorrow.  If you don't have clean underwear in your drawer, bring me some to wash."

Daughter: "It's OK, mom.  I'm wearing underwear."

Mom: "Right.  I mean clean underwear for tomorrow."

Daughter: No words.  Just a quizzical look.

Mom: "Very funny.  Yes, dear, you do wear clean underwear everyday."

Daughter: "WHAT???  Are you KIDDING ME?? That is NUTS!  I wear them for a week!"

At this point, a sound sort of like being enveloped by a wind tunnel drowns out any other sound.  At least for the mom.  Howling through the tunnel are phrases like: What the--  and How the hell--  and You are effing kidding me!! and Have I taught her NOTHING??? and What kind of mother--

We're talking shades of Mr. Kurtz here.  When the howling scream subsides, the mom, unable to even look at her beautiful child, sternly sends the daughter to the laundry room to get clean underwear.

The daughter, meanwhile, and without the vortex of horror clogging up the mom's ears, can be heard completely melting down, and complaining to anyone who will listen, or anyone forced to listen by virtue of proximity, that her very, very mean and not nice mother is making her find clean underwear.

The mom lies on her bed, wallowing in abject failure, and wondering where it all went so horribly wrong.

Another gem wafts up from the living room: "Dad!  She wants me to find clean underwear!  She's CRAZY!"

There were other, even more embarrassing gems.  This is enough.  This is too much.  This is my sad little tale, and you should redeem my utter failure by telling your kids the obvious, every chance you get.

* * *

My kids are in for the following extensive lectures this week:

Eat food.
Do homework.
Brush teeth.  All of them.  Really.  Twice a day.  Really.
Pee when you need to.  Also?  The same for poop.  Every time.
Broken Glass?  No bare foot dancin'.

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There.  Now don't you feel better about your parenting?

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I Need Me

Well.

I am on day 6 of the flu from the 7th circle of Dante's inferno.

I've had high fevers, major night sweats, chills, aches, pains, congestion and coughing.  For 6 days.  Fevers?  Don't respond to ibuprofen or acetaminophen.  Coughing?  Has left me with bruised ribs.  Attitude: Baaaaaaaad.

And now, on day 6, when this MF-er is going to make me miss my mom's birthday lunch tomorrow, I am seriously pissed off.  Enough to use the phrase "pissed off," which is a phrase I really hate.

And I've learned that there's really only one thing I need when I am sick: ME.  I need ME.  I need someone to do the things I do.

There really oughta be a law against this sort of thing, this mothers-getting-sick thing.

The lesson here, of course, is to listen to my body.  Last Friday, I could feel myself getting sick.  I completely ignored the signs, and kept up my usual break-neck speed of work, kids, volunteering, cooking, cleaning, etc. for the entire weekend.  Hit a brick wall.  Again, and again, and again, and again.


* * *

Let me be a warning to you: listen to your body, or your body will make you her bitch.


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A Cautionary Tale

If you let your 13 year old ride his bike to Target and pick out his own clothes, you might end up having a conversation you wished you hadn't when he excitedly comes home with this, enthusiastic as he is about the new bike grandma and poppa bought him for his birthday this year:

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Do Not Teach Children To Help Out Around the House. Bad Things Happen

Ever feel like you're the only one in your family who cleans up?  The only one who keeps things running smoothly?  The only one who replaces the toilet paper roll, puts folded towels in the linen closet, keeps things in their rightful places?

Is so, consider yourself lucky.

I fell into the trap of trying to teach my kids responsibility, of trying to instill in them a sense of cooperation, of trying to make them human.  Big mistake.  Here are two cautionary tales from my botched attempt to get some help around the house.

Tale #1: When Other People Clean, You Will Be Late

I recently re-instituted the simple idea of straightening up the common areas every evening.  We've been in this habit before, but have fallen woefully out of it, so I felt it was important to whip us back into shape.  The result?  We all went to bed in a clean house.  Mostly.  The other result?  The next morning, as we were trying to get out the door to school, I could not find my purse anywhere.  I looked high, and low, and in between.  I re-looked everywhere I could think of, in all of the places I've been known to put it.  I riffled through two laundry baskets twice, thinking it might have gotten tangled up with the clean underwear and towels.

Bordering on hyesteria, I sent the kids -- who were no help whatsoever -- out to the car to wait for me.  I searched in vain for another 5 or 10 minutes.  And then I remembered that we all cleaned up the night before.  I marched out to the car and said through clenched teeth: "Does anyone remember moving my white bag with the black flowers on it last night when we were cleaning up????"

Lady E: "OH!  YES!  I know where it is...but don't be mad!  I was cleaning, and I grabbed it off the dining room table, and I had a bunch of other stuff in my hands, and then I went up to my room and started doing something else, so I think it's on the doll crib in the corner!"

10 minutes late to school because I had the kids clean up the house the night before.

Tale #2: When Other People Help, Your Head Might Explode

Little T is finally catching on to the idea of helping.  So in the midst of the clean-up flurry the other night (same night as referenced above), she offered brightly: "Mommy, do you want me to bring in the towels from outside?"  Why yes, I thought!  That would be great, and I had forgotten that I had put them outside in the sun to dry earlier that morning.  Fantastic, sweetie: great idea.  Out she went, and back in she marched, arms full of sun-dried towels.  I told her to put them on the basket of clean laundry.

The next morning, I grabbed one of those towels for my shower.  I was taking a very late shower, one I wasn't even sure I had time for, and this was before I started looking for my purse.  I took my quick shower, jumped out, grabbed my towel, and started vigorously rubbing my hair and shoulders, aware that I had mere moments to get ready and still get the kids to school on time.  The towel was a little crunchy.  For a few seconds, this didn't bother me: sun dried towels usually are.

But then, I looked a little closer, and realized that in addition to the clean towels, Little T had also grabbed the towel someone put outside a month ago for cleaning off the chalkboards during the garden tour.  This towel was crunchy and chalk-dusty, and I had just rubbed it all over my head.  I now smelled chalky, felt gritty, and was in danger of having my head explode, all within 60 seconds of getting out of the shower.  With no time left to take another one.

These two tales illustrate why wise mothers say: "It's just easier to do it myself."

I don't care if my kids are lazy, entitled loafers who expect other people to do everything for them.  I'd rather arrive places clean and on time, thank you very much.

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The Top Ten List of Shame

This post is for you, Viv, because a comment you left today put me in shock. Here's what you said, in response to this post, in which I revealed that my homeschooling life has had some colossal-ly bad moments:

I was feeling all left out, the way you have seemingly mastered life since you started homeschooling. It seems like everyone (bloggy pals) pulled their sh*t together all at once, and I still personify calamity and disaster...effectively becoming the odd man out. It is nice to know that you still have days where calamity and disaster prevail...because really, change a few initials and I could have written that, though I would have thrown in a few extra pucks. I feel decidedly less alone, and like maybe there is still hope for me one day after all. ;)

Reading that response made me realize that I have strayed from a tried-and-true theme of this blog: giving people just enough of a glimpse into the wonderful whackness of AIRY5 to make them really, really grateful that they do not have my life.

Does it appear that I have mastered life? Pulled my sh*t together? Eschewed calamity and disaster? Grab a sippy cup full of wine, my dear -- oh, wait, you might be feeding your seventh little blessing, who is all of what, 7 days old by now? -- or whatever beverage is handy, even if it's a juice pouch (but if it is, don't grab it before taking a long drag on that little straw or you know what will happen), and let me fly my freak flag* for you.

Here is a glimpse into my real life, my very own Top Ten list. Here, I give you The Top Ten Reasons It's Clear That I Do Not Have My Sh*t Together.

10. I never close my bedroom door. I wish I could say that this is because I am wholly committed to being available to my children, that I'm so willing to listen to what they have to say that I have an Open Door policy with them. Actually, it's because I tried it once, and felt so ashamed of and rebuked by the dust bunnies, infant socks, paper clips, and children's art projects that are behind it that I vowed never to shut it again. Keep in mind, I have not had an infant for 3+ years.

9. Once or twice (or possible many more), in a mad dash home from the grocery store at 5:45, still needing to make dinner, I have tossed a bag of pre-washed sugar snap peas at the occupants of my car, and called that the green vegetable for dinner. Or for the day.

8. My washing machine needs to be repaired. But I can't call the repairman, because he's a family friend, and I'm too embarrassed by the condition of the garage to get him over here to take a look at it. I mean, I'm fine with twisting myself sideways through various boxes and piles, in order to make it to the washer and dryer, but to let someone else in? I've seen this guy's garage. No thank you. These are the things that make me clean: the threat of abject humiliation. Even still, there's no telling how long it will take me.

7. I found my dining room table today, after over a month of being unsure if it was still, in fact, in the dining room. We had our monthly meeting with our Charter School teacher today, so there you go: the motivation I needed for that particular cleaning job. I still haven't found my kitchen table surface, my bedroom desk surface, my dresser surface, or, apparently, the surface of my self-respect.

6. My 4 year old has made it to preschool on time fewer than 10 times since school started last August. Once or twice, she didn't make it at all, just because we couldn't locate the wherewithal to get her there. I'd tell you how close we live to the preschool, but that would just be embarrassing. Unlike the rest of this list.

5. In one of the most fiercely waged wars of my life, my laundry is currently (and usually) winning. Piles are advancing like disciplined troops intent on wrecking havoc and destruction. More than one clean basket has now been folded, ransacked, re-folded, and re-ransacked more times that I can count. Dirty baskets lie in wait, mocking me on soccer game days with the possibility that the jersey I so desperately need to find is balled up in a damp corner growing new forms of penicillin.

4. When people tell me how great my kids are, I fight the urge to make sure they aren't confusing us with some other family of seven. Really? These fighting, screaming, rude, messy, clueless, lazy, selfish, defiant, weepy whiners? If they're so flippin' great, why do I mostly want to hide in the closet and play single player scrabble on my iPhone? And if they really are that great, then isn't it just the pinnacle of unfairness that my husband and I are the only people they do not share their greatness with?

3. Every time I need to print something from my computer, I have to move three or four piles of crap just to reach the printer cable and attach it to my laptop. Then I have to move a bunch of other stuff to make room to sit down on the edge of a chair covered in laundry, so I can be there to catch the pages as they come out, since the tray got broken by the fierce tiny grip of a child testing the laws of physics. Then I have to wait a kajillion years for it to work, because apparently it's a very Marin, EST-type of printer, and it's all about the process, and letting the process take the time it needs, and giving the process room to unfold in an organic and holistic fashion, and making me want to hurl it out my second story front window. So basically, printing stuff brings out my rage.

2. Every night, I plan to get the kids up by 7 or 8am the next morning, so that we can have a decent breakfast, do all of the morning chores, address our school activities, and have free time in the afternoon. Every morning, I get up early, sneak downstairs to make coffee, and then crouch over my computer reading news, blogs, and facebook, sipping coffee and praying they sleep until 10. My heart sinks when I hear feet on the stairway. Then I stall for as long as possible. Drink more coffee. Throw some toast out there. Adjust expectations downward.

And the #1 reason I know I don't have a damn thing together: Due to the sorry state of laundry in my home, someone in my family recently had to wear underwear intended for a gender not his or her own, because no clean ones in his or her own gender category were available. And no, I'm not saying who.

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*And the Freak Flag reference comes from the lovely Anna Quindlen, in this piece from momfilter. She said this:

I think having bright lines and boundaries really worked for us, that it made our kids strong and secure because they were clear on expectations and responsibilities. But I wish I had been better able to combine that with letting things go a little bit. Nobody really needs a bath every night. Nobody really needs a balanced meal for every meal. I should have let the freak flag fly a bit more. It’s hard to be a Type A mom. I wish I could have been a bit more B plus, for my sake and their own.

I hear you, Anna. But then, I think my own freak flag could probably stand a little vacation from my door post. And I'm not so much a Type A mom, as a Type A-Z mom who can't find clean underwear...for someone.

Bright lines and boundaries? I'm sure they're here somewhere. Maybe I'll find them in the garage on the same day I get the repair guy over here.

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Advice Every New Parent Really Needs to Hear

People usually need to make a few life adjustments when they become parents. We have to change our language, perhaps, maybe drink a little less, probably watch more tame television. Rick and I have done all of those to greater and lesser degrees. But a few things have slipped by. So, in the interest of sharing what I have learned from experience, I offer this little nugget to all of you new parents out there.

If you, in your pre-child life, referred to kiwi as camel nuts or gorilla testicles, it would be wise NOT to bring these phrases into your home filled with small ears. Otherwise, you'll be at a huge soccer tournament, with mobs of people you do not know, or do not know well, and your five year old will come up to you gnawing on a kiwi, and she will announce, loudly and with a big smile:

"Mmmmmm, I LOVE gorilla testicles!"

Heed my words, people. If you do not, you will want to die of shame.

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Curse You, Bruno

I stopped by a local Rubio's for lunch on Friday. Little did I know they were serving humble pie for lunch.

At a center table sat three little girls and a woman. One of the girls, looked around 5, was being really cute and funny, and dancing around in an adorable fashion. She would waltz over to the napkins, grab a few, turn back, take a crazy bow, and then waltz back to her seat. She did a little Vanna White thing with the salsa display. She did jazz hands at the drink counter. It was super cute.

I was thoroughly entertained, and she knew it. She totally hammed things up for my benefit, and I was duly charmed, as were a handful of other patrons. But then, she morphed into a Solid Gold dancer, and began dancing like she was on a catwalk instead of circus platform. It was bizarre. Clearly, I thought to myself, this girl watches too much TV. She dances a little too "old" for her age.

That was nothing, however, compared to her younger sister. The littlest girl of the bunch, upon seeing her older sister shake her groove thing, jumped into the fray. She hopped out of her seat and started gyrating around, moving her hands up and down the sides of her body. She even lifted her shirt and rubbed her own chest, swiveling her hips to and fro the entire time, with a sly little look on her face.

It was kind of horrifying. One wonders, when seeing something like this, what these young girls have been exposed to, what their too young eyes have seen. What would you think, upon seeing this?

Well, being as how I was the woman at the table, and the three little girls were with me (my two youngest, plus a friend of my 5 year old), I was thinking this would be a good time for the floor to open up and swallow me whole.

I went from being all blissed out, heart swelling with cuteness and love while watching Elizabeth entertain our closest tablemates with her antics, to feeling the hot blush of utter embarrassment while watching Lady E and Little T get down.

Had I seen some other mother's children behaving that way, I'm sure I would have had all kinds of self-righteous opinions about their parenting, or lack thereof. What kind of mother exposes their kids to anything that would teach them such sexy dance moves? This is what I get for allowing Dancing With the Stars into my home.

It is kind of an anomaly: we hardly let the kids watch anything at all, yet we dutifully tune in to (and record, for our kid who practices soccer late on Monday nights) DWTS. It has gotten a little raunchier over the past few seasons; there used to be far less sexual inuendo. But then, with Pamela Anderson on the show like this season ("Mom, she scares me." -- one of my sons), it was bound to go in that direction.

So class, the lesson for today is: Don't judge another parent if all you see is a snapshot of their life with their kids. You might think, had you been in Rubio's last Friday, that I am a pole dancer who brings my kids to work with me. You might think I encourage them to shake it, baby. You might think I am letting them grow up way too fast.

None of those things is true anymore. If it can happen to me (crushing embarrassment), it can happen to you too. Watch out. You never know when your kids are going to make you look like an idiot.

And if you are not already sucked into the oddly addictive, uniquely American cultural phenomena called Dancing With the Stars, stay away. For the sake of your children and any future embarrassment they might cause you, stay far, far away.

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