Yesterday, we were having a service performed in our home. Do you remember what that means for our dog? Trauma. Utter and complete trauma. But for once, I strategized in advance and reserved him a spot at the local doggy day care. It was justified, because he would not be able to walk on the downstairs floors all day. Even if I were to explain this to him repeatedly, he would not understand why his world was being turned upside down, because his brain isn’t that big. And he’d also be barking his little doggy head off at the floor guy, so yeah – doggy day care seemed like a good plan for the day.

It worked beautifully. The floor guy was in and out for a few hours, and when he sealed the floors it was a little smelly on top of being off limits. Certainly not a dog friendly environment. The dog returned at 6pm and only had to be carried to the yard a few times by the Mr., but was happy to hang out upstairs with the rest of the family until he could walk on the floors again this morning.

But last night, we noticed a few imperfections in our newly coated floors, and I had to call the worker back to check the situation. After the first call, I was expecting a call back within an hour. Got that, and was then expecting a visit within an hour. That’s 2 hours of waiting before we even got anywhere.

OH! And did I mention that the kids are home from school today? Yup.

So after the call and before the visit, our daughter with the outrageously curly and currently long, long, long hair asked if I could straighten her tresses. Uh, sure. Why not? We’re stuck upstairs anyway. So we started, and got 3/4 through the lengthy blow drying process before the floor guy returned. His plan was to refinish part of the floor spanning the family room and kitchen. The good news, “it won’t take that long.” The bad news – dogs have no sense of time. And doggy day care was over.

I lugged out the old (slightly broken) baby gate to keep the dog upstairs and got back to blow drying. Then I was summoned downstairs to inspect the work, which was still not totally fixed. It took way longer than I (or the floor man) expected. The dog was not happy. The gate was too cumbersome for me, since I had to keep running back and forth as the floor checker, so we had to shut the dog in the playroom with the kids. This sounds fine, but he cannot stand to be apart from me, and I was BUSY. Sigh.

Since we were still trapped, I agreed to flat iron our daughter’s hair. Another lengthy process, with the soundtrack of whining dog. We finally finished, the floors were done (but still not able to be walked upon) and it was lunchtime. We closed the dog up in our office downstairs and had a little picnic outside. Then, we went out for frozen yogurt and left him in the office.

He got out.

He may have pranced all up and down the 8 plank wide strip of floor that was off limits. Who knows. We found him hiding upstairs in a frantic state. I carried him out to the yard, and he just sat at the back door crying. As I brought him back upstairs — CHIRP!!! A smoke detector with low battery. Shoot me! That noise freaks out the dog way more than the presence of a strange man in the house, so he kept jumping up onto my bed, which is NOT allowed. (For the dog OR the strange man.) Our daughter was watching the whole scene of -dog up, mom yells, dog down- cycle through several times trying not to laugh. She was not successful. Finally, I sent her to hunt down the chirping battery and luckily she found it quickly.

Order is restored.

I have still not had a shower and have been dressed to exercise since 8am, but haven’t fit in the workout yet. It’s beautiful outside, but kind of hot. This does not bode well for the curly hair that I spent hours straightening today. Sigh.

Walking across the soccer fields on the way to our son’s game this weekend, I watched a group of girls gathered around the back of a minivan eating donuts as an after game snack. The whole scene had a party atmosphere, but it was really just a regular game, only the second of the season. Maybe it was someone’s birthday, but I’m guessing not. I’m guessing that was just the snack provided by the parent assigned to bring snack for the week.

The Mr. is sitting out coaching this season, for the first time ever. But, when he coached the last few years, he did not do a snack schedule. Inevitably, a mom would question the lack of snackage, or offer to serve as “team mom,” to organize the schedule for him. The Mr. always politely declined, stating there was no need to have a team mom and also no need to have snacks, as games were usually right before lunch. He also discouraged anyone from bringing Gatorade or other drinks to share, since the kids are required to bring a water bottle, anyway.

This approach was often met with confusion and shock. However, to our knowledge, none of the kids on the Mr.’s sports teams has ever passed out from hunger or lack of sugary drink following a game or practice.

At the conclusion of our son’s not-coached-by-the-Mr. game this past Saturday, “snacks” were handed out. He reached his hand into the bag offered to him and came out with a giant, movie theater sized box of candy. CANDY. I mean, at least the pack of cookies our daughter was given after her game had some grain and dairy in there somewhere. But sugary candy? And the same family also delivered a cooler full of blue Gatorade to the boys at half-time and offered a “healthy” snack of fruit roll-up along with the candy. Unbelievable.

All that sugar makes me crazy. But honestly, what makes me crazier is that kids are led to believe that everything is a celebration. Yay! You played soccer! Have a treat! Yay! You got a math question right! Have a piece of candy! Yay! You kept your desk neat! Look at the candy inside of it now! It’s absurd.

Our kids’ school banned birthday treats from school this year. Up until now, you could bring in cupcakes or some other treat for the entire class to eat in the cafeteria on your child’s birthday. The school put a stop to this for a few reasons, including food allergies and as a way to address childhood obesity.

Our daughter has food allergies, and I have been through many scenarios on the birthday treat front:

• e-mailing back and forth with mothers I barely know trying to communicate how they can bake something “safe” for my child to eat (and trying to trust that they will do what they say)
• being asked to send a “treat box” to the classroom for our daughter to dip into whenever an “unsafe” treat is brought by another parent
• having parents go out of their way to bring a “safe” treat and then having our daughter told by school staff she is still not allowed to eat it
• telling our daughter to just say “no thank you” and realize that your day will go on just fine without a treat

And through all of those scenarios, I have always worried that somehow our daughter would end up eating something she shouldn’t, so other kids’ birthdays always stressed me out. Particularly when she was in Kindergarten and 1st grade and I wasn’t sure she would speak up and do the right thing in the various situations. (Thankfully, she always does and takes really good care of herself to this day.)

Needless to say, I am happy about the loss of birthday treats for the food allergy reason alone. I also think getting rid of treats for the general health of the kids is fine. However, there is so much hypocrisy in this that it makes my head spin. At least a birthday is something that is traditionally celebrated with sweets. A birthday cupcake is a food for celebration, not a food reward. This is why the candy-for-the-right answer is even worse to me than the birthday treats. I worry less about the food allergy implications there, because the teachers know to choose candy without allergens. But really, are we teaching future leaders or training circus animals? 

An occasional celebration with sweets is perfectly fine. The problem is that kids today encounter a celebration with sweets everywhere they go. If even our sports programs are loaded with sugary snacks, where are we headed?

Our son knew that he wouldn’t be allowed to eat that giant box of candy at 11:15am on a Saturday. He didn’t even ask, and it hasn’t been opened yet. We’ll save it to share at the movies or something. Our daughter saved her cookies for after lunch, but then ate them happily, since she has to decline many treats due to her allergies. The kids are old enough (and well trained, like circus animals ) to know what the answer will be without even asking about ripping into the treats while still on the field. But when they were younger, it drove me crazy — can we not just enjoy the moment of telling our kids they played a good game? Now it’s one more of those times when we have to say, “NO” and then hold our ground through whining and complaining? I guess that’s why so many parents just let their kids eat the treat and be done with it. Our poor kids got parents who hold their ground and refuse to give in to the “life is a party” culture. Aren’t they lucky?!?

We managed to skip getting our name on the snack schedule for the boys’ team this season. And for our daughter’s team, we only have to bring drinks to one game. One guess what the beverage will be……

Yesterday, I dropped the ball on a volunteer commitment. Not at school – don’t worry….I even showed up for a meeting there in the morning which presented me with absolutely no new information, but gave me a squeaky and uncomfortable cafeteria seat from which to check my email on my phone. No, I have not yet let down the school and suspect that any day now I will receive a check in the mail for all the time I have put in to getting their school year up and running. (Kidding. But kind of serious.)

No, it seems that yesterday was day one of the backpack delivery program for which I volunteer, getting food to needy kids for the weekend. It wasn’t really my fault, though, as the administrator of the program updated her email addresses and left a critical letter “t” out of mine. Oops. Thankfully, she called me and alerted me to the problem and I was able to make the delivery this morning. Whew!

While I was there, a guidance counselor encouraged an 8th grade girl to come outside and help me unload the backpacks. I mentioned how lucky she was to get to enjoy a little sunshine before heading back into class. There was a pause after that comment in which I thought she might roll her eyes at me for being so Pollyanna. But instead, she smirked and said, “It is so BORING in there.” She told me she’s a new student at the school, and she doesn’t like it. Huh, I hadn’t noticed. 

In addition to the useless morning meeting at our kids’ school yesterday, I also attended Back to School Night, along with the Mr. They make a big deal about it, putting up special displays in the school, getting the kids to write us notes in their classrooms, getting the teachers all gussied up and ready to make presentations…..and then we sit in the gym for a longer than necessary PTA meeting. When it’s over, we are allowed 15 minutes in 2 classrooms. So, if you have more than 2 kids, you need to figure out how to make that work, and if you have less than 2 kids you can listen to the mile-a-minute presentations in 1-2 classrooms before being hurried back out into the evening air. Not that I’m looking for a long drawn out affair, but why bother to go through all the hub bub and then not even allow the teachers enough time to say what they want to say? They always end up running out of time and looking so harried.  One of the teachers even kicked her shoes off the minute it ended and looked like she desperately wanted a cocktail. So did I, so I gathered a group of friends and went out to get one. Or two. But who’s counting?

This afternoon, I’m headed to (guess) the school for my group’s first environmental club meeting of the year. Me, one teacher, (hopefully) 3 other parent helpers, and 25 kids doing a school’s worth of recycling projects in 45 minutes. It will be a whirlwind, but it’s always a feel good kind of meeting. At least at this point in the year, when the kids are still eager, and their parents are still willing to help out. Speaking from experience, come May it will be me, maybe one teacher, and about 20 kids running wild all over the school, with a little recycling happening on the side. I’ll try to enjoy the good meetings while they last!

That’s all folks. Why don’t you go off and recycle something, huh? It’s what all the cool kids are doing these days.

Piano lessons start in 12 minutes, so let’s see what I can tell you in 10 minutes or less. That leaves 2 minutes to corral the dog, gather the kids and their music books, and speed across the street to the YMCA. Yeah, that doesn’t seem like the best plan in terms of timing, but it works most weeks.

Both kids ran for student government representatives for their class this year. Our daughter said she would, then said she wouldn’t, then wrote a speech under the darkness of night and gave it without even telling us about it. She didn’t win, and she was disappointed. She was also a bit frustrated, because one of the kids who won (they choose a rep and an alternate) copped to having a parent write her speech. The other kid’s speech also had a written-by-a-parent vibe, she says.  Oh well. I told her that most politicians don’t write their own speeches (ain’t that the truth), but that I was proud of her for doing it on her own and putting herself out there.

Today, after her brother’s class election, we were discussing who voted for whom. We’ve found that usually if there are more girls in the class, a girl wins….and vice versa. However, for the first time ever, our daughter’s class has more girls than boys, and a boy still won. 4 girls ran against 2 boys. We had a good chat about “splitting the vote,” especially since she and her best friend ran against each other.

(It’s now 3.5 hours later, so clearly this wasn’t a 10 minute blog. And now a kitchen timer is going off….be right back.)

OK, where was I? Oh, I was just going to tell you that our dear sweet daughter didn’t even vote for herself. She voted for her friend, because “voting for yourself just seems wrong and kind of self-centered.” I’m not sure she’s got the right constitution for politics, with a belief system like that. 

On the other hand, our son did in fact vote for himself — and he won the election in his class! You may remember when he ran last year on a platform of social issues (specifically, water on the playground and fresh vegetables in the cafeteria) but lost to a little girl who promised iPads and ice cream for everyone. (Oh, and by the way – she totally lied….no one ever got an iPad OR ice cream every Friday.) This year, he talked about his friendliness and how that would help him know what everyone would want him to say at meetings. He also said, “I will encourage more spirit days, because I enjoy them and think everyone else does, too.”

He moved the people, and the people responded in his favor. His reward is one meeting a month, on Tuesdays, which is currently wide open for the first time in years – so the timing was right. He’s excited, but was sensitive to his sister’s feelings and kept it within reason this afternoon. She’s a bit jealous, but handled it like a champ.

Had I chosen the right 10 minutes, this could have been a 10 minute blog. It is now 6 hours later and I’m finally done.

Death, divorce, drugs, and drama.

I have been reading through lists of “best young adult fiction,” and these are the most common topics in the books. Our soon to be 11 year old daughter loves to read, and she reads FAST. She and I have come to the realization that she has read pretty much all the books she’s interested in from the juvenile section in our public library. This has become more obvious over the last few weeks, as I have gone to the library to get her stacks of books and had to return half of what I’ve found because she’s already read them.

We have extremely similar taste in books, so she is very open to me choosing books for her. At this age, it’s a good thing she feels this way, because once you venture into the young adult section, clearly things get a little more depressing and sometimes a little bit sexy, too. Whoa – hold up there. Not yet. At her age, girls are at all different phases of maturity and interest in boys. She is very mature, but very uninterested in boys (thankfully)! I suppose it’s because she’s so mature that the 5th grade boys do not appeal to her.  

I have chosen a few books that involve girls having crushes, etc., and she reads some of them – but she seems to not love those story lines yet. Actually, maybe she never will. I am not into romance in my novels. Or sadomasochistic stuff, as I believe I am the only woman on my street who didn’t read “50 Shades of Grey,” and have no interest in doing so.

In order to help me keep track of our daughter’s books, I set up an account for her on Goodreads. I use a similar service (Shelfari) for myself, because I have a hard enough time remembering what I’ve read myself – let alone what she has read. I chose a different service to keep them separate and hopefully not confuse myself further.

I know many of you have daughters about the same age or older….any recommendations would be appreciated. Much like for me, the “Hunger Games” trilogy was outside the range of her normal reading — but she liked those books. She usually prefers books about self discovery or family relationships, and books that are realistic. Although, she did love the Harry Potter and Lightning Thief series and “Hugo” and well, she just loves books. As long as they’re not too science fictiony or fantastical.

Both of our kids are good readers, and have been reading above grade level for a long time. It’s interesting – when a girl wants to read above grade level, you have to be careful about all these sexed up and depressing topics. With boys, though, the risk is more in the area of frightening them with gore or ghosts or such. I have yet to have him bring me a harder book he wants to read that I take issue with, but it happens all the time with the dreamy girly books. Go figure.

Last night, after cleaning up from a Labor Day barbecue and tucking the kids in for the night, I strolled into the kitchen to resume the nightly school year ritual of packing lunches. I had started planning the day before, because I had little packable lunch food left in the house, after a summer of avoiding grocery shopping whenever remotely possible. I decided that I would get up on Labor Day morning and drive to the bagel shop, where I could get breakfast for that day and lunch for the next. A brilliant move on my part. (In a lazy sort of way, since you’ll see that I avoided cooking breakfast AND going to the grocery store, in one fell swoop.)

So I got out the bagels and the desired spreads. I wrapped them in foil with notes written on each for the first day of school. (I rarely use foil – I prefer reusable stuff, but more on that later. The foil served the dual role of wrapping the sandwiches and serving as a writing surface.) Next, I opened the cabinet where I keep the lunch boxes. It’s a new cabinet, since our kitchen remodel. I never used to have a place to keep the lunch boxes, except on top of the fridge. That’s why I’m so certain that the lunch boxes should have been there.

They were not.

Hmmmm. Do I have a vague memory of taking them out and asking our daughter to put them somewhere out of the way? I do, but I am immediately convinced that it is a fabricated memory. Why would they be in the way, in their very own special cabinet place?

I began rummaging around the upper and lower cabinets in that spot. And then in all the other spots. And in the pantry, the laundry room, the coat closet, the kids’ closets, and even some truly nonsensical places like in the fridge. (You never know, maybe I had already made lunches that morning and blocked it out?) After a few rounds around the dark crevices of our house, the Mr. suggested that I ask our daughter, who knows where everything is at all times.

She remembered that the last time the lunch boxes were used was when the kids took an art class, for which they had to pack lunch. This was in early August, when I was on my took-the-train-to-get-there trip and my mom was in charge of the kids. Our daughter packed the lunches, and she said she was sure they had brought the lunch boxes home. However, she said this second part in a not-very-convincing voice. I called my mom, who remembered the chaos of leaving the art class with multiple wet canvases and children covered in paint. She didn’t remember seeing the lunch boxes. Had she seen them, she most certainly would have cleaned them in a manner far superior to what I would have done. And then she would have put them away….because that’s what she does. She puts things away. Always.

At this point, it was 8:30pm on Labor Day. And yet, amazingly, the art school was open for a private painting party that was just ending. The head-artist-on-duty agreed to wait for me to arrive, and she said she had our lime green and navy blue lunch boxes in her pile of abandoned lunch boxes. (You’ve got to figure this happens a lot, what with all the wet paint and messy kids and confusion and such.)

I made it there in time, and rescued the long lost lunch boxes. The Mr. had previously agreed to be the one to open them and disinfect whatever mess we might find in them upon their return home. They were surprisingly barren. Meaning that things were missing – reusable water bottles and nifty inserts for holding the actual food. Well, our son’s was missing, but our daughter’s was there. And not gross – so that’s a plus.

All is fine now. I bought new water bottles (which were 30% off up until yesterday, when our entire family stood in front of the display at REI and admired the good price, but didn’t get any because we didn’t know we needed them then).  I also ordered a new lunch box insert. It’s funny, because while I was on my trip (and my kids were simultaneously losing their lunch boxes), I was telling my friend about how great these inserts were for packing. She asked me to send her a link on where to get them when I got home. (We were shopping in a boutique of funky kitchen supplies in an up and coming neighborhood in D.C. when this extremely lame conversation took place. For real. So that makes it a little less lame, no?)

So when I went looking for the link, I discovered that the 2 mom operation from whom I had purchased the insert seemed to have gone out of business. You could get the inserts on Amazon, but I told my friend to hurry up, because it seemed like they weren’t making them anymore. I’d link them for you now, because they are awesome…..but I bought the very last one on Amazon today. Whew!

Tonight’s lunch packing went much more smoothly. I put the kids to work making their own sandwiches while I rinsed out the new water bottles. 

They had a great first day of school, and so did I. We were all visibly refreshed by our return to structure. There wasn’t a single fight around here after school and the kids did everything I asked of them, with no complaint. And I remembered to ask them to do more for themselves, since they weren’t busy rotting their brain cells all day.

I heart school.

Remind me of that when I start griping about homework, ok?