woken at seven:
“someone maded a mess, mom.”
…dozens of spices.
J, 20 minutes later, bounding down the stairs and then stopping short of the kitchen: “why does the whole house smell like pizza?”
Related: hangover haiku // on the other hand, he provides different, world-changing, day-to-day perspectives?
You’ll never hear strings of expletives before 7:03am quite like the ones muttered from our kitchen counter as Dave & I race the many other parents enrolling their children in limited-capacity summer camp programs on the frigid February morning registration opens promptly at 7.
We entered at least one of our sons’ birthday wrong, accidentally dual-enrolled another, and may have to walk back a few key terms they collectively heard over their morning toast… but summer 2023, we are (partially – at least, on the weeks we’re not wait-listed) ready for you!
Related: 6am fail // last year’s summer camp – a resounding success.
Have you ever found out that you’ve been objectively wrong about something you thought you understood… long after the fact?
A number of years ago, I recorded and distributed a training to my team. In this training, I referred to a specific screenshot as “the money shot.” I was 1000% ignorant to the pornographic implications of this phrase until a teammate texted me “omg. did you say you sent this to the whole global team??”
I also spent a fair amount of time telling people I had gotten “shanked” in high school. Shanked, in fact, before 2nd hour Spanish class even began. As it turns out, most people hear “shanked” and think someone attacked me with some kind of homemade shiv, whereas what I meant was “pantsed” because I was wearing my swim team’s sweatpants for meet day that made me an easy target.
Suffice it to say, there have been enough of these types of revelations that it has made me humble to the fact that many of us walk around assuming we understand things, only to find out we genuinely do not.
5 more moments of revelation from this past year:
- Eggnog is traditionally an alcoholic beverage. I always heard those “so-and-so must’ve had too much eggnog at the holiday party!” comments and thought… ugh, yes; it’s such a rich drink.
- “Para bailar la Bamba.” For the many years singing this song’s timeless hook, I sang it as “baila baila baila bamba.”
- You can adjust your seat belt height. You should’ve seen my face when my (short in stature) cousin casually shifted her seat belt height.
- This symbol: ^. I long thought it was called a “carrot,” and in my head it was something related to the shape of a carrot emerging from the dirt (?). Turns out it’s a “caret.” For as long as I ever referred to this symbol verbally, no one would’ve known the difference.
- The “em dash” vs “en dash” vs “hyphen.” As a profligate user of the em dash, I’m glad I actually have an explanation for this writing tool I’ve otherwise evidently just stumbled into.
A lesson in humility. You never know when you don’t know what you think you know.
Dave was out of town for business travel much of this past week. I’d love to say I kept the train on the tracks despite some of the expected debris, but instead I will be honest:
There were FIVE bodily-function-related accidents of varying degrees of severity – all from ostensibly potty-trained children. I will spare the internet the graphic details, but rest assured, the details were… graphic.
C spiked a fever (for 3 days and counting), was kicked out of daycare, and became a sad, fussy, child-shaped barnacle attached to my body during all waking hours (and parts of the night).
I lost A in the grocery store. Good news: he has figured out the portion of Hide & Seek whereby one does not jump out and yell to reveal their location. Bad news: it went on long enough that staff got involved. Honest assessment: I’m surprised this has not happened sooner. Additional detail: after we found A, Steve the wine guy offered to “put J to work” so I’d only have to watch the remaining 3 as I finished my grocery run. J was very proud to show me all the rows of bottles he had feather-dusted by the time I was ready to hit up the cash register.
I texted my mom “I’m drowning over here; send good vibes” and didn’t even pretend to hesitate accepting help when she texted back “I’ll leave here asap and come over.”
But before we call the entire episode a failure, please remember: the boys were so charming at our post-playground Subway lunch stop on Saturday that the workers gave them all free cookies. So.
^In my defense losing 25% of my offspring, even the largest carts do not satisfactorily accommodate us.
I got my second speeding ticket of my life over the weekend. By way of explanation, there were two things happening at once, making it almost unavoidable that I would of course be speeding:
- On a relatively rural section of highway that expands into designated “passing lanes” periodically to break up traffic, I was hustling to pass a slow section of cars before the lanes narrowed back to one for the next many miles. There was a speed trap set up at the far end, likely catching my speed just as I would have maxed out at the front of the line.
- J, O, and I were loudly jamming out to Jack Hartmann’s Days of the Week Rap Back. I challenge anyone with kids in the car to not inadvertently add a few MPH while singing along with this banger.
This is my life now. A little bit of danger, and a lot of strongly formed opinions about kids’ tunes.
Related: speaking of mom-level danger… // Jack Hartmann and I have a storied history together.
A few weeks ago, J was “Star Student” of his kindergarten class. This coveted position involves showcasing treasured possessions from home, sharing pictures of friends and family, and having the teacher read your favorite book to the class. Friday culminates with classmates gifting the Star Student a book of adorably clunky kindergarten illustrations inspired by the Star Student him/herself.
Dave and I excitedly opened J’s book with him on Friday evening.
“Oh my gosh, how sweet is this?!” I said. “Look! There you are wearing blue, your favorite color. And you love Legos! And I see ice cream, and a pineapple, and a burger… this is such a nice drawing from so-and-so.”
“Ha!” Dave and I laughed at page 2. “McDonald’s burger and fry! So-and-so has your number.”
By the time we got to page 3, an illustration of literally nothing except McDonald’s fries, we got suspicious. “J, did you tell your class we eat a lot of McDonald’s or something?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Well, you can probably guess how the majority of the rest of the pages of his Star Student book looked.
J insists he did not tell his class he likes McDonald’s, nor that we eat a lot of McDonald’s, nor that he mentioned McDonald’s at all. I proceeded to ask his classmate at the bus stop the following Monday. She confirmed there was no mention of J having an unusually high inclination for fast food known to be almost entirely nutritionally void.
I am therefore equal parts mystified as to what the muse was behind this clear trend of McDonald’s, and expecting that our final parent-teacher conference this year will include a surprise discussion around the importance of healthy habits in child nutrition.
girl friends who lift you,
get you, and laugh with you when
you’re not at your best…
(origin story.)
While I still believe a case can be made for reusing Easter basket grass each year, I’ve recently learned that this is absolutely NOT true for reusing chocolate.
Imagine the volume of questions Dave must have been dying to ask when J opened his treat, and then looked up at us, immediately crestfallen by this powdery mass of chocolate dust that disintegrated upon being touched. Luckily for me, Dave has my 6 (“for better or worse” comes to mind) and quickly reminded all of us that the Easter Bunny takes care of a LOT of people and manages a LOT of varied preferences and is probably very busy at work lately and can sometimes make mistakes, too.
