Do you know how much I love you? So much that I’m staying up writing this, when I could be tackling something on the Horrible To-Do List, or maybe even sleeping, not that I sleep so well lately.
I’m not sure where to begin to fill you in on things here. My life is a complete scheduling wreck and all I can do is try to hang on for a few more months with reasonable diligence. Then the PTO job should wind down and some of Ruby’s stuff will be over, and maybe I will get a grip. I am in a rotten, depressed mood about the whole thing, but I think I just have to endure and try to sleep more in the mean time.
Some notes:
Ruby lost a molar this week. She’s read all of the Lemony Snicket books in the space of about three weeks. I can’t see how she can manage it that fast, but if you ask her a plot detail, she knows it. She spent much of the last two weeks at school taking “benchmark” tests, which are basically a dry run for the big standardized test at the end of this month. This whole deal just infuriates me, as it’s a huge, stressful waste of everyone’s time and neatly illustrates the horror of standardized testing gone wrong.
So maybe it’s no surprise that Ruby cried over her math homework every night this week, and didn’t finish it once, even though one night I told her to take off, as a gift. She still cried. She cried in class today, when her teacher told her she needed to do a “writing prompt” (short essay exercise) that apparently she didn’t want to/feel like/was daunted by and so she did a math problem instead. On the positive side, she and her tutor apparently found some magic key in her brain and she’s on track to get more spelling words right on her test tomorrow than she ever has before. The secret trick? She spells them in sign language. I have no idea why this is working for her, but let’s hope it isn’t a fluke.
Carl has decided he might finally get a haircut next month, because the weather is getting warmer, you know, but we’re not rushing into anything. He woke up in the middle of the night with a really gruesome bloody nose; I cleaned him up as well as I could in the dark, but I was still finding drips and spatters this afternoon. He is working on an invention for school, and he’s doing it so independently I’m not really sure what it is. Rod helped with some patent research, though.
To give you a few newsreel flashes, for Valentine’s Day I gave Rod a six pack and a balloon. I have no excuse at all for being so lame, really, except that life overwhelms me right now. He gave me this elaborate gear-heart thing he made on his 3-D printer, which is sort of symbolic of our relationship—he puts huge amounts of thought, time and effort into something that never would be on my wish list. Anyway, it was an unexpected treasure. We had a date the weekend before that was solidly good, if not completely stellar. Ruby’s class didn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day at all, poor dear (we think her teacher is a distant cousin of Scrooge). Carl’s class had a little party. He didn’t like the Valentine cards I got him to take to his friends (“too dorky!”) and so he made his own on the computer, using the draw function in Word and some spaceships he Googled up. And he carefully put names on each one, and then neglected to hand them out in class.
We had a workday at the kids’ school a couple of weekends ago. I cleaned out the Art Room, which is really the Mouldering Art Supplies and Debris Room, since the kids don’t actually have art instruction or art time anymore, thanks, State Legislature! Anyway, if I was any good at that sort of thing, my house would not look the way it does, and it was very hard work. Ruby was a big help that day in another part of the workday, laminating and cutting out classroom materials, and sharpening 400 pencils. She was excited to be allowed into the “No Students Allowed!” workroom for the day. Carl went to Lego Club instead, but you could have predicted that.
I had a birthday that was pretty darn good, or at least the blow of getting to be THIS old was softened somewhat. Rod bought and wrapped a present, made dinner reservations and booked a babysitter, all by himself, and it was awesome. Ruby did my hair in an up-do that stayed up, Carl gave me make up tips while was getting ready, and they both paid me meaningful compliments using their sincere voices. And my present is so embarrassingly cool I’m not even going to tell you what it is, because it’ll sound like bragging. (Oh heck, it’s an iPad, the super-fancy pants model. Completely unnecessary, but I love it to death…so does Carl, of course.)
Another cool thing that happened: Alice Waters came to the kids’ school, and I got to have lunch with her. Yes, Alice Freakin’ Waters, people. Yes, the legend in her own time, Chez Panisse, eat local, eat seasonal, Edible Schoolyard, that Alice Waters. All my foodie friends are insane with jealousy. My only regret is that I am far too camera shy to have properly inserted myself into the photos of the big day. I’m just a big lurking thing in the background. For the record, she says the trick with kids is to get them cooking the veggies without adults in the process and then serving them to each other.
Only a little less cool: Ruby went to a big-deal concert one weekend with her music teacher and some other students. The teacher said she could bring a parent, but Ruby wanted to go without us, which I thought was mature and I was so tired, my feelings were not hurt. Last weekend, she and I went to another event, a taiko drum performance, a plan that she had somehow latched onto when she saw a preview for the show on the Internet. I decided to say yes and spring for the rather pricey tickets because she rarely asks for something like that, and she takes a drumming class, so I thought it was fitting. It was a very good show, and I felt badly that we didn’t take Carl, because he might even have enjoyed it.
Last weekend was all about Frito pie. Rod and Ruby were busy all Saturday getting ready for the annual father-daughter Girl Scout dance. Their troop was hosting, so there was a lot of work. This year was a sock hop theme. Rod got industrial helium tanks, and made a cardboard jukebox prop, and the whole troop made felt poodle skirts (although Ruby’s was a cat skirt, not a poodle skirt). Several people contributed food for the chili and Frito pie menu, but Ruby was in charge of the vegetarian chili, so we made a huge vat. The next day, there was a fundraiser for the playground renovations we’re doing at the kids’ school, featuring live music and what else but Frito pie? So I made another couple of vats of vegetarian chili, some others made the meat kind, and I bought obscene quantities of Fritos. We raised over $1100 in a couple of hours, so it must have been edible.
This has been the week of a zillion meetings for me, and next week isn’t looking any better. If the meetings themselves aren’t bad enough, arranging rides and supervision for the kids while I am at them is enough to kill me (“Ok, if you can pick up Carl and take him to X’s house, X’s dad can watch him until Rod can get home from work, as long as he leaves a little early, and assuming the boys are getting along that day and D is well enough to have company by tomorrow. Teacher B said she could give Ruby a ride to Y, but she’ll have to arrive a little early, and then she’ll have to just miss activity C, because I can’t figure out how to get her there, and then J will pick her up and take her to Rod, unless I’m done by then and can collect her, or she decides to go to dinner with E….”)
This weekend, the middle school students at the kids’ school are having a huge yard sale to raise money for their field trip, so I’m helping in various thankless ways, and then naturally we also have to have a $#%^&&*! bake sale table at it, for the aforementioned playground renovation project, which is another thing to plan, promote, staff, and clean up after. There’s also a laser tag birthday party this weekend, an art exhibit Rod really super-please wants to see (it’s mechanical, if you couldn’t have guessed) and Carl wants to go see the Lorax, the first time he’s ever asked to go to a movie theater (the big screen and loud noise scares him, although he won’t admit it anymore). Then there’s spring break in another week, and then we come back and hello! It’s time for the school gala, which the PTO I am in charge of is hosting. And then I have an Easter trip planned, and another long weekend after that.
So, if you don’t hear from me, that’s what we’ll be doing.