General Housekeeping
We came back from the beach with mosquito bites the size of oranges and a bit too much laundry. I’m not sure what they’re putting in soft-serve ice cream these days, but I think I may need to replace Lil C’s entire wardrobe.
We thought we’d come back to a framed house, but instead it’s still just a basement. The only development is that we now have the beginnings of a low rock wall on one side of our property. It’s pretty cool looking, so I’m happy about that, especially since it was a surprise development. I’m not, however, happy about my lumber sitting there. Wednesday will be two weeks without any house action so that’s a bit discouraging. It better start happening this week or else I’m going to start to worry about our settlement date.
We’re gearing up for the start of school, Big I’s and mine, with only one week until go time. I’m also in my mad planning and writing mode for my guest post at Secondhand Karl’s place. We’re also gearing up for fantasy football season. We have one drop-out so far and I’m anticipating a second drop-out, so there are two teams in the all blogger "Smacktalkers Anonymous" fantasy football league. If you’re interested in getting your heiney handed to you running a team, shoot me an email. Potential participants will be screened for football knowledge and violent tendencies.
Playing so far are: Papa Bradstein, Bush Mackel, Goonsquad Sarah, Ikigai, and everyone’s favorite commenter "Marcus Aurelius" or "Chris39." If you’re interested, I need to know soon because the draft is next weekend. Time is of the essence.
Hopefully, we’ll have some cool house pictures to show you this week. Our countertops are coming in next week, but we still don’t have walls. Weird.
Vacation, ER visits, and Super-glue
One would think that with moving, living with my parents for three months, and starting a new job, I’d have reached my stress quota. Not quite.
We arrived at our hotel for six days at the beach yesterday. We were only here about five minutes when I heard Big I say to Lil C, "let’s go jump on the beds." They were understandably excited. After driving through pouring rain, hail and high winds bad enough to make us pull off the road several times and drive about 20 mph on the turnpike, we had finally arrived. The ride was much longer than usual, and the girls were wound up after being released from the car.
After I heard Big I’s idea, I sternly told them both not to jump on the beds and to please calm down. I was busy unpacking the kitchen stuff when I heard a horrific cry. The girls had listened about the bed jumping, but they hadn’t quite grasped the whole calming down part.
You should know that Lil C can not walk and is only programmed to run everywhere she goes. The hotel suite was no different. While running in the room, she tripped as she was coming around the corner of the bed and flew face first right into the very sharp and pointy nightstand.
I picked her up and put her on the bed scanning her face for injures, as I so often have to do. It took only a few seconds before a streak of blood appeared down her face. She had sliced her face open directly beside her right eye. The tears were mixing with blood and making it seem even worse.
It wasn’t good though. As I dabbed at the cut, I realized that she had really sliced herself open. The skin was separated enough to make me nauseated. I’ve done fine with all their injuries up to this point, but this one was different.
We butterflied it shut with our first aid kid and went to the grocery store, with Mr. BBM insisting it was o.k. and not needing of a visit to the ER. While at the grocery store though, the blood was oozing out of the bandage and I was worried (the understatement of the year).
Within the hour we were arriving at the ER for what would be a long night. While we waited for the doctor, Lil C entertained the entire ER by singing her rendition of "Kung Fu Fighting." She looks like she was "kung fu fighting" so at least she had an appropriate theme song. We left the ER this morning around 12:45 a.m. after Lil C’s cut was literally super-glued shut (Thankfully the cut was straight and not long enough to require stitches).
She’s not allowed to swim or get it wet for at least 24 hours. We’ve obviously started our beach vacation off on the right foot. We may have gotten a year of reprieve, but it appears that the BBM family vacation ER curse has struck again.
My Pledge
I will be more "with it" this school year. I will be alert in the mornings so that I don’t forget to send things into school with Big I, like morning snacks for example. I will know the dates of all important things for the school year and will remember to dress her accordingly for school spirit days etc. Not only will I be alert, but I will be chipper (if that’s possible in the morning. . . no self doubt. . . I’ll make myself chipper). I will try my best to not be in my pajamas when I drop her off at school (and pick her up). . .
These are the types of things I’ve been reciting to myself all summer long. I may have forgotten to send a snack in with Big I twice all school year, but for those two instances I will be mentally beating myself up forever.
In the interest of starting off the school year at her new school on the right foot, I woke up more than 10 minutes before we had to leave to go register her today. I had all my documentation to register her for school: driver’s license, sales agreement proving she lives in the school district, a letter from my parents stating that we live with them in the school district, blood and hair samples. . . Ok, maybe not those, but it kind of felt like they might be required.
So, as I’m standing there filling out the paperwork and waiting for the woman to finish copying all of my documentation, I realize that my shirt feels like of funny. "Hmm, this neck feels really baggy," I thought as I moved my fingers along the collar. "Hmm, the back of the neck feels sort of low. Did I stretch it out? No that can’t be it. Oh my God!!! I’m wearing my t-shirt backwards!"
So much for being "with it" to start the school year. Trying seems pretty much futile. I’ve said it before and I’ll admit it once again. I’m just not one of those Mom’s.
Occupation Choice at Two???
After getting a thorough tour of the college campus where I’ll be teaching yesterday, I had to fly across town to meet Mr. BBM and the girls in order to pick out our bathroom lights for the new house. After an hour of sitting there, we made only one decision and it was regarding the ceiling fan in the family room, no bathrooms.
Despite the fact that the very nice woman put "The Polar Express" on for the girls, they were still wound up. I can’t blame them. Looking at lighting choices when you’re 2 and 7 can’t be much fun.
We left there, drove by our lot to see if there was any progress and saw that our lumber has been delivered! We were ecstatic. We stopped home for a quick snack (no time for dinner) and then headed out to pick our countertops for the new kitchen.
We were only there for about two minutes when Lil C started acting up. The girl doesn’t know how to walk. She runs everywhere, so she was running around just looking for a way to get into trouble. I picked her up. She then entangled herself in my necklace to the point that I thought she was going to break it. I handed her over to Mr. BBM.
We chose our countertops easily, but had many questions about installation and care of them. The girls were totally wound up so Mr. BBM took them outside and put them in the car with a movie running. (We were on private property in the woods, with a perfect view of the car, so no need to go call Child Services on us).
When we left there, the girls were hungry, tired and loud. We arrived at a restaurant and I was the unlucky one, meaning I was assigned to the booth side with Lil C. Getting that child to sit and not try to interact with the people in the booth behind us is next to impossible. She’s not poorly behaved in a restaurant; she just likes to make new friends.
A short time later, I was talking to Mr. BBM when both Big I and Mr. BBM cracked up laughing to the point that they could barely breathe. I quickly snapped my head in Lil C’s direction and was shocked to see that this child, on only two seconds time, had removed the halter part of her shirt from around her neck and was pulling it down to show the entire restaurant her belly.
I quickly pulled the halter back over her head and told her that she shouldn’t take her clothes off in a restaurant, but because the other side of the table was still snorting with laughter, she tried it a few more times. Sometimes it’s impossible to hold the laughter in, and while I thoroughly understand this, I would prefer my daughter to be raised to not strip in restaurants.
When Lil C finally decided to leave her clothes on, Mr. BBM pointed at Big I and said "our future artist." He then pointed at Lil C and said, "future stripper." I argued that she won’t have the genes for such an occupation, but still, it scared me nonetheless.
After dinner, we went to visit our marooned cats and were feeding them in my sister’s basement. I turned around to see Lil C swinging herself around one of the basement support beams in circle after circle after circle. Mr. BBM just pointed with a knowing look on his face.
If poles are in her future, I think I’d rather she become a firefighter or perhaps an arctic researcher.
Change is Good
I sold my house. I moved in with my parents on the other side of town. I’m anxiously anticipating my new home being finished so I can move in and return my parents back to the serene life they lived before my kids moved in. With all this change, it’s best to keep everything else normal, unchanging, the status quo.
No thanks.
Last week I accepted an adjunct instructor position at a local college. I’ll be teaching two courses of freshman "Composition and Research" two days a week. I am excited and terrified at the same time. I chose textbooks for my classes without having a chance to really read them thoroughly first. Thank goodness that I seem to have chosen well. I have less than three weeks to finish planning my course, create my lessons and print up my syllabus. To say that I am nervous would be the understatement of the year.
I remember my first day of teaching 9th grade many years ago. I arrived over two hours before my first students would arrive and paced in the classroom. I worried about everything. After my first day, I settled down and relaxed. It was a challenging year, but a good one. I worked hard and I had a ton of time to plan. I had no children then.
Things are a bit different now. Today, I wore the girls out on their bikes so that they would zone out and watch a movie so I could plan a bit. Tonight, I dropped Big I off at her art class and spent an hour sitting in my car planning my course. If you consider the fact that my books just arrived this week, and I am already well into planning October and November, you would have to agree that I’m plugging along just fine.
I know I’ll be fine once I’m back in the classroom and the class starts to get rolling. It’s always the anticipation and the unknowns that make things so scary. Tomorrow, a friend who teaches at the college is going to give me a tour of the campus. It should be fun and informative. I am hoping that it eases the nerves a bit, so I can get my class completely planned out by the end of the week. I want to be able to relax at the beach next week, checking all the stress at the hotel entrance so that I can finally enjoy the fact that we’ve sold our house, and are starting on a new path in our lives. I’ll be returning to the classroom in more ways than one this year.
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