The whole tooth and nothing but the tooth

Sebastian lost his 6th tooth on Friday.  He still hadn't left the 5th one he lost months ago for the tooth fairy yet, deciding instead to keep one for himself.  Now he had 2 teeth in two of the little tooth necklaces that come from school when your mouth starts falling apart there.

And for the first time, he questioned the magic.  "Maybe the tooth fairy doesn't really exist." When pressed, he wasn't sure where the money might come from or where the teeth might go.  Santa Claus made more sense than tooth fairies and Easter bunnies, he decided.  (Even though he claimed to have caught a glimpse of said bunny last Sunday.)  So I told him about what happened when I was his age and thought the same thing.

I decided to wait up for the fairy.  My tooth was in a film canister under my pillow, under my head, and there was no way she (or whoever was masquerading as the tooth fairy) was going to get past me.  I struggled to stay vigilant, and in the dark I checked to be sure I could hear the rattle of my little tooth in the plastic.  But it was full of coins!  And so I was convinced, for a little while longer anyway.  Sebastian pointed out that I may have dozed off briefly, but seemed to reconsider.

He didn't want to (or forgot) to leave his teeth for the fairy on Friday night, but remembered to do it last night.  After discovering the dollar he received last time still folded neatly inside his tooth pouch, he took his little calcified treasures upstairs to rest on the pillow next to his head.

Cue anxious whispering by his parents:  

"Do you have $2?"

"No!  Do you?"

"I think I have $1 in my wallet.  What should we do?"

"We'll just have to 'borrow' some from their wallets, I guess."

But then we went back to playing Mario and totally forgot.

This morning, more anxious whispering by me at 7:45am to my sleeping husband:

"Did you remember to be the tooth fairy?!"

Shit.  Now what?  The kids are up.  Sebastian has by now discovered that the tooth fairy has neglected to visit.  All wallets are downstairs with the children.  Panic! Panic!

Piggy banks!  Those are upstairs.  Who says the tooth fairy only brings bills?  She certainly didn't when I was a kid.  

Whose stupid idea was it anyway to have the kids take their change to the CoinStar machine?!  (Mine.)  The total from the 2 banks was a whopping $1.76.  There was another 15 cents on our dresser.  Jeremy told me to check his underwear drawer, but that only yielded his neckties, an "I heart Styx" button and some marbles.  (It's better not to ask.)

Now I had to sneak downstairs to get his wallet with the lonely bill, quietly put the excess change back in the banks, exchange the money for teeth and somehow not get caught.  Success!

Being the impatient person I am, when I returned downstairs some 45 minutes later I asked if the tooth fairy had come.  "She didn't," Sebastian sadly replied.  "She forgot."  

"That's not possible.  I have heard of her having trouble in bad weather, but not forgetting entirely.  Are you sure she didn't come?"

"Yes.  I checked when I woke up and my teeth were still there and there was no money."

"Hmm.  That's odd.  I wonder if she came and saw there were 2 teeth and had to go back for more money.  She probably was only expecting one tooth.  I'm sure she'll come."

"That's a good idea, Mom.  I did hold onto that other tooth for a long time."

Lo and behold, when he checked a few minutes later, the money was there... but short one dime.  Argh!  Will this nightmare never end?  I told him to check his bed and retrace his steps from his room to where the tooth pouch was now on the dining table, scrambled into the kitchen to get a dime from my wallet to throw on the floor next to the table and vowed not to worry about it when Jeremy wondered how I would explain it when Sebastian finds the original dime later.

Who's busy?

It has been a whirlwind month around here. Jeremy took that second business trip of the year-- I survived. He was a little worse for wear, having lost not only the 3 hours from flying back from the west coast, but also the hour for springing forward.

Sebastian continues to maintain his perfect attendance record, despite going into school at 9:30 last Monday and then calling home sick at 1:30. Of course his teacher thought I was pushing him to get perfect attendance and neglectfully sending him into school sick, but it is all him. He wants that Friendly's gift card at the end of the year. And he didn't have a fever when I dropped him off. I can't control what happens when he's not with me. (I can barely control what happens when he is.)

Thursday we went to Boston to visit Jim, who was an awesome host as usual. I highly recommend his chicken cutlets. Yum! I got some cutie stuff for myself and for the kids for Easter and for someone else over in Berkeley who should look for a package at some point. (But not too soon-- it isn't in the mail yet.)

We got home Saturday night, Sunday I worked, and Monday my cousin Emily and her beau Michael came to visit until Wednesday. It was a nice visit, if rainy, and now I'm trying to get my life back in order.

So far today I have raked out all the flower beds and admired all the buds emerging from the ground, swept the sidewalk, and left all the leaves in piles around the yard waiting to be stuffed into those giant brown bags. (Cross your fingers that they don't blow around too much before I can finish the job after I pick up Sebastian from school.)

And I hope to finish my March Miss Lady sweater which is only a couple of rows from being finished in the body and a couple of rows each for the cap sleeves. I can't wait to be done with that. Then I've been asked to knit a gecko for the store, but when it is done, I think I'll take a little break from knitting. I am really lacking for inspiration and maybe a few weeks off is what I need to get back in the swing of things.

The New Normal

My friend Amanda and I have been talking about when we should stop waiting for things to "get back to normal" and just accept that we have an ever shifting, very busy, new normal. For example, things are "back to normal" this week because Jeremy just took both of the boys to school for the first time in 3 weeks. But, he leaves at 3:30am tomorrow for a business trip from which he will return Sunday just in time for me to go to work. Not normal, but approaching being the New Normal since this is the second trip in as many months.

But, as I'm sure you suspected, some things are as normal as ever around here. Like the knitting... Let me introduce you to my latest, slightly abusive, and generally unhealthy relationship:

My February Lady Sweater. Henceforth to be known as the "March Miss Lady Sweater". This pattern is extremely irritating. I'm sort of irritated that I'm even making it considering that every other female knitter on the planet seems to have also made one. But we all know that I hate to follow a pattern, so of course, mine will have short sleeves and 8 small buttons instead of 3 large ones. There was some serious frogging with this little lady. For some dumb reason, the lace part starts before you divide for the sleeves, so that when I would make it short sleeved, it would end up with one little strip of the lace. It looked stupid. So I ripped it back to where the lace started, did some more garter stitch instead, and voila! it is much improved. I also made the button band narrower since my buttons will not be so large.

You might ask why I would continue with something that caused me to use the "f" word way more than normal. And the answer would be that I really want a lacy, short sleeved sweater to wear over my sundresses in spring and summer if I get a little cool. And I looked for a different pattern and just didn't have much luck. So I'm sticking with this one. And as long as I don't eff up the lace pattern again, the rest should be smooth sailing.

In the meantime, when I've needed some stockinette to soothe my frayed nerves, I've been working on some socks for Jeremy, who is the only one left in this house with no "mommy socks."

I thought this was self-striping yarn when I bought it, but it's more like self-spiraling. That's okay. It fits him like a glove. For his foot.

I know I don't go to a lot of parties...

But I must say that the discovery of a fresh human shit on the floor is one way to really liven a birthday party up.

Hand washings all around!

Don't try to play any version of "Go to the Head of the Class" from the 60s

Not only did the one I got from the thrift store not have the booklet with the answers, it also didn't have enough questions-- but the questions it did have were too much.

Here is a sample card: (Remember that this game is for ages 8 and up)
JUNIOR: Give the Latin for the Zodiac sign "The Balance". Any 8 year old who knows this one has some hippy dippy parents or is so bored they read everything on the comics page, including the chess and bridge sections.
INTERMEDIATE: What large American city was once called Village of Shawmuu? You can just see the middle schoolers' faces when this topic came up in Social Studies. Or didn't. Did anyone learn this?
SENIOR: Name the first President of the Commonwealth of the Phillipines [sic]. Mama has less important things to know than this.

The only thing I can think is that since this was series 15, whoever was in charge was running out of things to ask about. Sort of like how the most recent editions of Trivial Pursuit have questions about who won the 3rd of the Women's Bowling Playoff pregames in 1983.

It was all worth it for a few hilarious answers from Dorian including:
Who said "Shoot if you must this old grey head, but spare my country's flag", she said? D: A goat.
What country launched the first satellite into orbit? D: Space.

It's official!

I literally have yarn coming out of my ears. I was cleaning my ears after a shower and a scrap of sock yarn was embedded in my earwax.

Awesome.

A quick recap

Thanksgiving weekend was very busy, with my mother in town Thursday lunchtime until Sunday morning and then work on Sunday.

Wednesday

• Took Dorian to Little Peoples and had a cafe date with Sebastian.
• Did the last shopping of the year at Walker Farm. (Sob.)
• Made an apple pie, a pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce.
• Watched Singin' in the Rain with the kids which they loved and I am so happy they loved. Dorian was crying he was laughing so hard during this scene.
• Went out with Christine, Steven and Rosemary for a little pre-holiday fortification.

Thursday

• Made a 13 pound turkey. As usual followed the directions and as usual had the turkey finish cooking an hour early.
• Had a lovely meal with the kids, the husband, the in-laws and my mother.
• Made several quarts of turkey stock to put in the freezer.
• Was very tired. Can't remember anything else.

Friday

• Had a lazy rainy morning and then went to see Fantastic Mr. Fox. It was fantastic. My favorite part was when one of the characters called something a "cluster cuss".
• Made a pot pie-ish thing out of leftovers with mashed potatoes on top. Starting to be really sick of turkey.
• Played dominoes. Lost every time.
• Somehow got sucked into a show about wedding dress shopping. Can't explain it. Clearly swept up in some holiday weekend vortex.

Saturday

• Took the kids ice skating. It was Dorian's first time and Sebastian's second. Sebastian's first time was when he was Dorian's age and he started screaming a quarter of the way around. Jeremy barely got him back to the door to get off the ice. Dorian's first time almost went the same way, but he relaxed at about the halfway point and ended up doing fine. I had not been on ice skates since 7th grade, so it was an exciting experience for me as well.
• Went to lunch in Greenfield and then to the Montague Bookmill-- "Books you don't need in a place you can't find."
• Had a popcorn dinner while watching Hard Day's Night. The kids also loved this one. We're riding a large wave of Beatlemania around here these days.
• Played more dominoes. Lost every game.
• Played Waterworks. Won the last game.

Sunday

• Got my mother on the road. Sent Jeremy out for donuts. Breakfast of champions.
• Went to work. Tried to work on my second mystery sock which is supposed to be finished by midnight tonight if I want to enter the contest.
• Had none other than John Hodgman sitting on the couch in the store while his wife shopped for yarn and his kids all took turns needing to use the restroom. I couldn't decide whether to say anything to him, so I opted not to. Later I realized I had missed an opportunity to punch him for all the times I couldn't sleep because Jeremy was laughing so hard next to me while reading his books.
• Played more dominoes. Lost every game.

Now I need to put my fingers to a different use and get these socks done. Only 14.5 hours to go. I don't even know what I could win, but I want to dammit!

What I learned at the swine flu clinic

• I made the right choice in not vaccinating my children. Sebastian would have lost his mind in that situation.
• Holding down a child who is not your own is somehow easier.
• Managing 160 children in grades K-6 who have just received vaccines is not easy, but it is possible. At least I didn't have them all at once.
• 4th-6th grade boys will choose a picture of a seahorse to color over all the other choices available, including monkeys and dinosaurs. Who knew?
• Out of 160 kids, only one had absolutely horrible behavior, but she did write me an apology so I'll forgive her.
• And out of 160 kids, only one needed to call her mother. She was a 5th grader.
• Older kids found this to be a fantastic opportunity for bragging, ie. punching themselves where they got the shot to prove it didn't hurt, and for picking on the ones who cried and/or limped off. (Why a shot in your arm would cause you to limp I do not know.)
• Kids whose parents were there were much more likely to cry, scream, and attempt to kick the Health Dept. workers in the head.
• Third graders think that if you get the shot you will die in 30 years.
• A parent thinks the next shot is administered in the lip.

One clinic down, one to go.

What do accountants get paid?

Whatever it is, it probably isn't enough and is certainly more than the $0 I made after spending 8 hours today dealing with the money from the raffle/Halloween event. My money counting muscles hurt, the numbers stopped making sense around 3:00 and my hands will probably never come clean.

Good times.

It's official

The weather this year has been insane. After a Summer that was only hot for approximately two weeks (not that I minded that), we have had a very cold Fall-- at least at night, with frost and temperatures in the 20s. I have already had the heat on for a week, where normally I would have tried to hold out until some arbitrary date like October 15th or Halloween or something.

And now it is snowing. That's right. Snowing. It's not sticking. It's not accumulating. But it's snowing.

I think I'll go knit.

An exciting day!

Today was a banner day at the Hott Pockets house. First we made oatmeal this morning and Sebastian ate it and liked it for the first time ever. Maybe it was because I let him spoon the brown sugar on himself... or maybe he finally realized how perfectly delicious oatmeal is. Either way, I foresee an autumn full of yummy hot cereal for breakfast. Maybe I can break their fried egg habit once and for all.

Then Jeremy and I finished the second coat of paint and the trim for Dorian's new room. All that's left is painting the floor, getting the window installed, and having Rob help me build a box to hide the exposed pipe. Minor details...

Then we took the kids to a park a little south of here that is still awesome enough to have seesaws. And it was there that history was made. On Saturday I decided that Sebastian really needed to try riding his bike again after a summer of refusing to ride and putting me off with a series of "maybe later"s. And boy was it ugly! Jeremy got all frustrated with Sebastian, Dorian was whining about his tricycle, they all came home and disappeared into the house while I searched for the pump to fill Sebastian's tires. Then I hollered something about being fed up with all of them and stormed outside. Jeremy threatened to call his mother to cancel her babysitting so we could have our date. It was not pretty. But then I took over with Sebastian and Jeremy dealt with Dorian, and things got much better, but his riding was still pretty awkward even with the training wheels. Sunday, his riding was better but he was still relying on the training wheels a lot.

In the big parking lot at the park today, though, we could hardly hear his training wheels at all. One of them was a little loose so I asked if I could take it off. And he was totally fine with just one, and didn't really need that one either. At this point, Jeremy had taken Dorian to the bathroom, so I convinced Sebastian that we should take the second one off too and really surprise Daddy when he returned. I almost cried when he took off across the parking lot on two wheels with no trouble. Much better the tears of pride than those frustrated ones two days ago. Now he just needs to learn to tie his shoes and he'll be all set.

While we were at the park and the kids were busy looking for trolls and Jeremy was busy cackling while reading a John Hodgman book, I finished these:

Dorian's new socks! Autumn here we come...

It's not a party without Lenny

Last night was the big night for my September date with Jeremy. We were invited by his boss to a party she was having at her house in the middle of nowhere. I knew that this would not be date enough for me so I insisted on being taken out to dinner first. This was a very wise choice on my part.

We went to a restaurant on the west side of town that I have never even considered going to, but my mother gave us these gift certificates to random places we've never been before that have totally expanded our horizons. The dinner was delicious (lots of butter) and the weather was lovely and other than a fly drowning itself in my salad dressing (I was finished with the salad when this happened), it was a wonderful meal.

Then we went to the liquor store to fulfill the BYOB part of the invitation to the party and headed down a series of winding dirt roads to the boss' house. And what a scene we arrived for! I haven't been to such a ridiculous party since the last party I attended.

• There was a man named "Lenny" dressed in a tuxedo and sneakers dancing on a rock while singing Frank Sinatra karaoke. (Even the hostess didn't know where this dude came from.)
• One of Jeremy's coworkers was so drunk that she tripped down the steps and rolled ass over teakettle all the way down the hill into the backyard.
• There was a dog fight.
• I looked over at one point to see a woman who Jeremy is in the process of interviewing for a job kneeling at her boyfriend's crotch level. (It looked like things were going to get much more inappropriate than they did.)
• Another drunk woman was "dancing" and fell against the furniture more than once before Jeremy's boss' boss decided it would be a good idea to spin her.
• Lenny came over to offer to sing "Moonlight in VT" to me and Jeremy so we could "kiss and cuddle... or fight about the kids."
• I met a man who holds 2 jobs: one as a firefighter, one at a pet crematorium.

That was enough "party" to last me a good, long time.

It's getting worse...

So apparently at breakfast this morning Dorian decided to say "boobs"-- apropos of nothing, of course. But the topper came at the lake today. There was a naked baby girl wandering around.

Me: Look at that chubby little baby!

Dorian: Oh, what a sweet pussy-puss!

Me: [trying not to sound alarmed] What was that, Dorian?

Dorian: What a sweet pussy-puss!

Me: Where did you get that word?

Dorian: I made it up for the sweet pussy-puss.

Argh.

About 3 minutes after arriving at the lake on Monday, a certain friend of mine announced to the entire world that she was "not a patient mama today!" And despite her announcement, she totally was, but sometimes you just have to let everybody know how things stand.

Well, you know what? I am not a patient mama today. I'm not. I have screamed at the children several times for being, variously: rude, whiny, obnoxious, holier-than-thou, tiresome... you know, all the things I have been accused of being my whole life.

So far today I have had to put up with

• being woken up by Dorian screaming about all the miseries of life.
• finding out that during his sleepover, Sebastian and a girl friend of his were kissing in bed. (But it's okay because they are "in love").
• listening to complaints about what kind of sandwiches I had to offer for lunch and how Sebastian would not suffer the indignity of eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich.
• taking the kids to the pool for an hour (even though I was already pissed about their behavior) because we had made plans to meet someone else there.
• allowing the kids to have ice cream mainly because they had been promised it as part of the whole pool excursion, only to have them end the experience by screaming at each other about whether or not a tagger should continue to tag after tagging someone.
• listening to Dorian shriek about how he needed to hold a CD case that he had just handed to me of his own volition.

I almost left them on the side of the road. It was only my slight fear of police intervention and my greater fear of the vicious gossip mills in this town that prevented me. And to think that when someone asked me if I was looking forward to the start of school I said "no".

I never should have disappointed Cortney in this way

She said she'd never have a friend who belonged to the PTA, and even though she promised me we'd still be friends even though I allowed myself to become treasurer of the organization, I know a little part of her love for me died that day. As well it should have, since I was clearly demonstrating that I was a person with no sense, totally blind to reason.

The two hour meeting the other night actually lasted 2 and a half hours and would have gone longer had I not announced that it must have been after 9 at that point and discussions were devolving into committee level detail. A vodka cranberry later, I was on the verge of quitting. However, I did make a commitment and I don't like to be a quitter, so the only solution that I could see was to air my grievances to the rest of the board.

This resulted in a shit storm of approximately 10 million emails back and forth-- some defensive, some productive, all tiresome (including mine). And now we get to have another meeting immediately before the meeting that we are scheduled, according to the bylaws, to have a meeting immediately after.

All of this just makes me realize that I should just be doing what I enjoy and actually impacts the students, like puppet shows about snowflakes, and not what makes me frustrated, like sitting through seemingly endless meetings about fundraising which was the part I thought we should be spending less time on, not more.

Why didn't I focus more on clinging to a friend 3000 miles away instead of my misguided do-goodery? Because I am a fool.

It's finally summer...

It is hot. So hot that even though I am feeling excessively lazy and a smidgen burnt out on sand these days, I got everything together to take the kids to the lake. Well, everything except Dorian's sandwich which I managed to leave on the counter instead of bringing for his lunch. You can imagine how disappointed he was that I was forced to buy him a hot dog.

I even got in the water pretty much first thing instead of postponing because (not enough sun/too windy/needed a Dr. Pepper first/too lazy). But after each child had his respective breakdown (lost plastic man/slipped underwater), it was clearly time to return home.

Now I just get to stew until it's time to go to a fucking midsummer PTA meeting from 7-9pm. Why, oh why, did I get myself into this?

In a pickle

Yesterday I managed to throw yet another monkey wrench into my life by buying a big basket of pickling cucumbers at Walker Farm. It had become quite clear that my own cucumber vines were not planning on being productive enough for me to make pickles from my own garden and I had accepted that fact. So when I saw this half-price basket of cukes, I was tempted. And then Amanda gave me that last little bit of encouragement, and I was on my way home with more cucumbers than I thought and 3 bunches of dill. ($22) We stop at the grocery store for mustard seed, vinegar and quart jars. ($17.70)

When we got home, I put all the boys on cucumber cleaning duty and gathered the rest of the supplies.

Four hours and one emergency trip to the store for more garlic and mustard seed ($4.50) later, I was out of jars, but not out of cucumbers. There were still 7 large and 25 medium cukes mocking me from my colander and a large mixing bowl. So this morning, back I went to the store for another gallon of vinegar, another container of mustard seed, more salt, and more jars. ($19.06)

And now, I am the proud owner of

• 6 quarts of whole dill pickles
• 8 quarts of dill pickle spears
• 5 quarts of dill pickle chips
• 3 12oz jars of dill pickle chips
• 1 pint of dill pickle chips
• and 2 leftover cukes.

I also have a house that smells like a pickle and 3 very happy, pickle lovin' gentlemen who can't wait to crack one of those jars open. And it only cost me $63.26... And to think I could have had a massage for that price.

That extra t should be a capital one

I am considering officially changing my name to "HotT Mama" because I am that tired. However, that is so completely aesthetically offensive that I will not.

Four nights in a row of going to bed way too late, and each one later than the last, is making for one Mole-faced Mama. I'm asking myself why I even bothered going to sleep at all at 3:30 this morning, but I know the answer: because I'd be puking now if I hadn't.

Besides, when you go to sleep on time or (dare to dream!) early, you miss things like this:

Congratulations Rob and Quinn! I think when people simultaneously lift you up on chairs you are officially stuck with each other. Which is totally not the worst thing in the world.

Mystery solved!

Many months ago, my darling duo came to me with my camera in hand complaining that it "didn't work". That was probably because the lens, which extends when the camera is turned on, was at a 45 degree angle. Of course, neither of them did it, but Sebastian suspected Dorian.

Well, Jeremy decides to have it fixed as a present to me for my birthday (probably so he wouldn't have to hear me whine anymore about being forced to use the other camera). A month later, it was ready for pick-up. On Friday we retrieved it and, lo and behold, there were a few pictures on the card.

Pictures of what? you may ask. Oh, just pictures of Dorian. Pictures that could only have been taken by one short person I know. And yet somehow I have been convinced to bake that boy a cherry pie from scratch...

All that was missing was David Attenborough

Yesterday we headed up to Mme. Sherri Forest for a little hike before the daily downpour. What we saw when we got there was totally crazy. The frogs and toads were so loud, it sounded like an alarm was going off. Then, we approached the pond to discover that toad mating season was in full force. There were at least a hundred toads swimming on the surface, most riding piggyback.

And then there was this*:

I know I bandy the term "cluster f*ck" around concerning things like traffic and PTA meetings, but this was the first time I witnessed a real live, literal display. There are approximately 8 toads all tangled up in that weird ball there, and they were just swirling and rolling for lord knows how long. It was happening when we got there and it was still happening when we left.

*Try clicking on the picture to enlarge. I apologize for the crappy photo. I'm still waiting to get the better camera back from the repair man.