the pieces of my life

I so rarely write anything political in this blog, but this was the best political push I’ve ever seen. Note, not really suitable for viewing at work.
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1808434&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1
The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

I believe in giving my kids thorough and honest answers to whatever questions they ask. I might have to reconsider. Today Pie announced, “Last week my water broke. And then my baby was born!”

I have a nemesis. This is quite exciting for me, because I haven’t had a nemesis since Adam was at HBS (ah, RS, where are you now?). But now, now I have one. And it is… our mail carrier! I’ve never loved our mail carrier–she shoves envelopes in magazines and flyers so they’re hard to find and occasionally get tossed and then retrieved from recycling. She often misdelivers mail. But last week was the kicker. Our mail stopped coming. I mean completely. I went to the main post office, dragging a sleepy Pie, and picked up my mail. “She’s deemed it unsafe to deliver to your house because of the construction,” I was told. “You can call her in the morning to figure something out.” Unsafe? I walk into that house everyday with my two children. Would I do that if it were unsafe? There’s no construction at all on the front porch.

I was so annoyed by this that I made Adam call, because I knew I wouldn’t be nice. “We have to move the mailbox to the light pole or the tree,” Adam told me. Adam went in the morning to try and move it to the light pole, but whatever he bought to do it, didn’t do the trick, so our contractor moved the mailbox to the outside of the porch, as you see here:

I came home that afternoon to no mail. “I saw your mail person,” my contractor said. “She said its still too dangerous.”

“That’s too dangerous?”

He shrugged. “The box has to be on the pole or the tree.”

“She said that?”

“Yep.”

“And she didn’t just give you the mail to place in the mailbox?”

“Nope.”

The next day we had mail delivery. I asked the contractor but I knew even before he answered that it was our weekend guy subbing in. He didn’t deem it too dangerous.

The box has since moved to our tree. But I’m bitter. And annoyed. And I have a nemesis. I am plotting my revenge….

I’ve undertaken the massive project of switching our wardrobes over from summer to fall/winter. This is only massive because all of those clothes were in storage, so it involved a trip to the storage unit, hauling out the boxes of clothing, driving them home, carrying them up the stairs, going through children’s drawers to see what is worth putting away till next summer and what no longer fits, putting all the summer clothes into the bins, and returning them to storage. Not a big deal, I know, but inconvenient and right now the apartment looks like it’s been ransacked with piles of clothes everywhere.

Last winter (and even spring), Pie insisted on sleeping in both her vest and her sweater. I pulled them both out of storage and was surprised at how bulky the vest pockets were. So I peeked inside. This is what I found:

My daughter is clearly living a much more exciting life than I am. A French franc. A shekel. Frogs. Dollars. A man’s watch. I don’t even want to think about the implications of what I’ve found. Let’s just say, I better investigate a little more thoroughly exactly what goes on at that preschool of hers!

Okay, I admit it. I almost hope the debates are canceled tonight, because I really, really, really want to watch the Grey’s Anatomy I Tivoed. Yes, I am a bad American. Deal with it.

The boy is inconsistent. Occasionally I beg and beg for a scrap of information, and nothing comes. Sometimes I blackmail and I get an odd tidbit or two. Then sometimes, out of nowhere, a spewing of information erupts from his body as if he just can’t contain it anymore.

I’m at the computer. Doodles comes running up.
Doodles: We heard a book about Johnny Appleseed today!
Me: Yea?
Doodles: Yea! He was a friend of the Indians! Just like the pilgrims!
Me: Oh!
Doodles: And he walked all the way from Massachusetts to India!
Me: India?
Doodles: Yes, India!
Me: Are you sure it was India?
Doodles: I’m sure! He walked all the way to India.
Me: Maybe it was Ohio?*
Doodles: Oh, right. That’s it. He walked to Ohio.

Of course, every now and I then I find the innocent questions actually yield quite a bit of insight into his day. Today Doodles went on his first field trip: apple picking (ah, now the Johnny Appleseed story makes sense, doesn’t it!).

Me: So did you like riding on the bus?
D: Yes.
M: Who did you sit next to?
D: On the way there or on the way back?
M: Both.
D: I don’t remember who I sat with on the way there.
M: Okay, who did you sit with on the way back?
D: I sat with O. and J.
M: Three in a seat?
D: Yep.
Me, frantically trying to figure out how to keep the conversation going: So… did you sit in the middle or the window or the aisle?
D: First I sat on the outside and then the middle.
Me: So on the way there you sat on the outside and on the way home you sat in the middle?
D: No, on the way home I sat on the outside and then I moved to the middle.
Me: In the middle of the bus ride?
D: Yea. A teacher made me switch because J. was sitting like this [he demonstrates] and O. was doing this [he demonstrates] and O. kept sitting on J.’s hand and J. got angry so we had to switch and I sat in the middle.
Me: Ah.
D: Can I go now?
Just goes to show you, there really isn’t ever a stupid question.

*The nice thing about this being my blog is I’m able to use a bit of revisionist history. Because anyone who actually heard the conversation, might have thought they heard me say, “Maybe it was Oregon?” because frankly I don’t remember the story at all, but a quick Google search shows me he only made it to Ohio, which means either he’s lazy or perhaps “Ohio” is what I really said in the first place.

At tonight’s Town Day festivities:

We’re eating hot dogs on the lawn, listening to Ben Rudnick. Doodles becomes agitated in an happy way.
Doodles: Mom, mom! Mom, look!
Me: What? What?
D: Mom, it’s E!
Me: A? Where?
D: No, not A. E! E!
Me: Who? Who is E?
D: Moooom! From my class [can you hear the duh in his voice there? because it’s there]
M: Oh. Do you want to go say, “Hi?”
D: No!
M: Because if you want, you can go by yourself and say, “Hi.”
D: No, Mom!
M: Did you want me to go with you to say, “Hi?”
D: No, thank you.
A few minutes later. Doodles is still staring at this kid.
Me: Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you to say, “Hi”?
Doodles: Mom! When I say “No, thank you,” I mean “No, thank you!”
Hmmm, where did he get that from.

Fast forward thirty minutes. Feeling guilty that I’m not going to let the kids stay up late enough to watch the fireworks, I buy them hideously overpriced, horrible for the environment plastic light sabers.

Wielding his red light saber, Doodles turns to me and says, “You know, I think I’ll go say hi to E. now.”

Long gone, buddy, long gone. But it’s nice to know that Boys with Their Toys starts at age 5.