walking away.

The last week of school. Today was the sprout's last day of preschool. For 18 months he has decided to wave to me through the front window of his school, or not, while I walk away, backwards, from the front door to my car. When he decides to wave, I weep when I can no longer sustain eye contact. I walk slowly backwards to the car, waving and blowing kisses, and when I get there I sometimes run back halfway and do it all over again, because I can see his smiling face, his waving hands, his blown kisses through the glass. But, eventually, it's time for him to start his day and for me to drive away but I'll tell you: he's never the first to brake contact. It's always me. Eventually, he will be the one in this two-some to be the first to walk away but for now, it's me. I have to walk away, and I'll have to do it in kindergarten, too. Today I walked away, broke contact, looked back to see that he had walked away as well. I had to pull my car down the road to turn around and while I was driving by his school, there he was, like he'd never left, waving with all his might through the window and I waved back and kept driving, weeping.

in need.

I picked the kids up at school today and took them to Whole Foods where I put a 2 dollar-per-child limit on any treat they wanted. Two of them chose bags of gummi candies and one chose a bar of Newman's milk chocolate. I also bought a gallon of local organic milk for $6.99, a pound of organic butter for north of $4, a basket of organic strawberries for $3.99 and a bag of brown rice chips for $2-something. I paid in cash. I went to the bank yesterday where I deposited a check from my husband's secondary income and withdrew $200 and the only thing I'd spent it on thus far was a latte from a coffee shop I like to go to so I had plenty of cash in my wallet. We loaded back into the car and headed for home, turning south on Main St. At the corner of Main there was a woman in her 30's holding a sign that said: "Family In Need". Her face was relaxed as she held her sign. She smiled at the cars in traffic, but only slightly. It was a self possessed smile, a relaxed smile. It wasn't drug-driven, it was simple and pleasant. She was cleanly dressed and her long, long dreadlocks were well tended. I considered the money in my purse, tucked in my wallet and at the moment decided the timing inconvenient for passing something through the window: traffic was moving. In my Volvo SUV, behind my Chanel sunglasses, listening to my children joke and giggle in the back seat, I drove by the woman on the corner, only to realize that I didn't recognize her because she wasn't wearing glasses. This woman has a son a year younger than my oldest child and had offered to babysit on many occasions. The last time I'd seen her she was working at the Whole Foods we'd just left, many years before. I'd forgotten about her. I knew her when I was pregnant with my second child and worked in a cafe where she sometimes came with her husband for lunch. But now I was half a block away from her and I could hardly do anything about it, could I? I haven't stopped thinking about her, her son, her husband, in need, without even her glasses.

et voila!

Well. It's been a while. I'm checking in because I was looking for a recipe I laid out on this format and...well, I made it and I butchered it. It was pretty sad. The flavors were surprisingly comforting, but like a big, heavy blanket that smells slightly of your Grandmother's neighbor who certainly didn't smell as nice as your Grandmother, if you get what I mean. It was fine and it was edible and it was satisfying in a way that you'd rather not discuss with your friends. Like cheap pizza or rough sex. You may discuss personal waxing with your friends, or even your husband's circumcision, but not the way cheap cheese pizza dipped in ranch dressing reaches into your lizard brain and accesses your pleasure points.
I'll hope to come here more often.
-Em

Can you actually die from boredom?

We've been experimenting in boredom this week. We have a 12-year-old boy cousin on the premises and the 9-year-old girl child is not here which equals negative girl plus one boy which equals three boys, 3, 7 and 12.

Which equals lots and lots of lego guns.

I neglected to schedule anything solid during this week because I figured an experiment in how boy children relate to each other would be edifying, to say the least, and also, seriously, how bored can three boy children get? So bored they think up something else to do? Exactly!

That was my hypothesis. Also, I am lazy.

We are on Day 3 of the experiment and I am happy to report that today is the first day my older boy child has fallen into a pit of despair regarding his boredom and how truly boring it is and how he hates me because I have FAILED to entertain him, drive him somewhere, let him play a video game, etc.

Even in normal life when the girl is home and we have no 12-year-old boy I am always torn about how the summer should be. I love the idea of spending entire days entertaining oneself by playing/beating on one's siblings, reading quietly to oneself, counting petals on flowers outside, tormenting small animals, etc. In reality, however, I am not very good at getting myself going toward a meaningful task and slothfulness turns to depression quickly. I will list the things I have done today to keep myself away from the internets:

1. Watered the garden. This did not take much time because the weather has been very mild and the soil is not drying out fully every day.
2. Refilled two bird feeders. This also did not take much time. Because there were two of them. And it was a fast chore.
3. Cleaned my car, including vacuuming. This took a surprisingly long time. It was filthy.
4. Read a book to the little boy. Tried to sneak a nap in there but he got wise to my attempts.
5. Feed the chickens. I guess I could have included this with the other bird feeders, but I chose to make a separate event out of it.
6. Pruned a bit. Not much.
7. Ate lunch.

What I have there is roughly 45 minutes of hard work. I have stretched it out over 7 hours.

Oh my god I am so bored.

We're totally going swimming tomorrow, I don't care if it's not hot.

baby teeth can bite my ass

Well, the Universe dealt me a solid today. A year ago, we spent something like 4 large on the big kids teeth because of negligent tooth brushing blah blah cavity blah baby tooth root canal fuck. Today, the kids came home with a One Hundred Per Cent Clean Bill Of Dental Health, so if I wanted to sell them tomorrow to pay for my Christmas bills, I'd have a pretty good chance of fetching a pretty penny for the lot.

Thank god, is all I can say because we have a holy ton of other shit to spend that 4 grand on now.

scraboonit!

Man! I blew it already! Missed a post last night.

Brief recap:

Last night was awesome. After freaking out all day and having three people tell me that I'm a big fat idiot and not to freak out, I stopped freaking out just in time to really, really enjoy the boy's Winter Garden. It was so beautiful and amazing and perfect. He did get a little squirreley a couple of times, but he was beautiful and amazing and perfect and himself, through and through.

jesus fucking christ and shit

today was an impossibly long fucker of a day and it isn't even over yet.

FUCK ME.

Soon, so soon. As soon as all the kids are asleep, then I can officially drink too much wine and spend too much time dicking around on the interwebs and then collapse into bed to sleep the blissful sleep of a person who will only have to get up and do it all again tomorrow.

FUCK ME.