the pieces of my life

I so heart my podiatrist. I had my third visit with him today. My petroneus longus tendon has been giving me problems. Bad petroneus longus tendon! My podiatrist gave me a brace to wear and some exercises to do. It helped significantly. I can walk without pain. But the running is still an issue.

At the appointment today, I told him, “I know the no-brainer answer to my problem, but I don’t want to do it. My foot only hurts on long runs.”

He shrugs. “The no brainer being, ‘Don’t run long.’ How badly does it hurt?”

“I’m fine during the runs. But I’m totally hobbled after my runs.”

He nodded. “Well, I’ll give you a stronger brace to wear during your runs.”

I was elated. “You’re not going to tell me to not run?”

He asked, “Would you listen to me?”

Me: “Um, probably not.”

Doc: “So I’ll give you a stronger brace. But the minute that marathon is over, you’re coming back in for an MRI so we can see what kind of damage you did to yourself.”

He did assure me that because my foot is improving and that I’m fine on my non-long running days that my foot is recovering and I’m not exacerbating anything. So I’m probably not doing any permanent damage. Which is good enough for me right now, surprisingly so, as I’ve not really been into my runs and looking for excuses to get out of them. But I’ve hit that point where I’m far enough along in my training that there’s no point in backing out now. I did 16 mile last Saturday and I’ll do 18 this weekend, which is pretty much there, so why bother bailing now? It’s just two months till Chicago, which means just six weeks till tapering, which means I better get my plane ticket soon.

Another thing I like:

En garde!

When I signed the boy up for an intro to fencing class, I had to call and manually register him because he missed the cutoff of age seven and the web site rejected him. But he got in. When I took him to his first class, the teacher asked if anyone else wanted to fence. Not-even-five-year-old Pie jumped right in as did another little girl. The teacher immediately nicknamed the two of them Giggles One and Giggles Two. She loves it. They’re both so darn cute out there!

And now, for the things I don’t like:

G.E. My oven is still broken. Yes, people, we are on to six weeks now and the appliance company is getting tired of hearing from me, but not so tired that they’ll fix the damn oven! The part that was supposed to take 3 to 5 business days is now on its 11th business day of travel. If I can’t bake a cake in my own oven for my babies’ birthdays, G.E. is going to understand the meaning of a Mad Housewife.

Running. Yeah, I really don’t like it anymore. And yet… And yet. Ugh.

The fact that my Ivy League-educated husband is incapable of flipping a light switch off or closing a cabinet door/drawer. How hard is it to open the cabinet, remove your coffee mug, and then close the cabinet. Every time I walk into the kitchen, it’s like there was some mass rebellion by cabinetry. Today there were two doors open, the utensil drawer open to its fullest, the overhead light on, and the pantry light on. And then when I went upstairs, his sock drawer was lying wide open. Really that hard? Just a little nudge of the hip and it slides closed again! It’s a miracle! They open and close! What will science discover next?

How freakin’ much airlines now charge. We bought our tickets home for our yearly jaunt to Miami Beach, and we have never paid so much money for that trip. I’m pretty sure the tickets to Florida were on par to what we paid to fly to Israel. And according to Farecast, the flight prices are only going up, which I can verify because between when we priced tickets on Wednesday and bought them on Friday, they had already gone up $100 a ticket.

That I wanted to upload video of the armed punks (well, armed with plastic foils), but my videos are too big and I don’t have time to figure out how to shrink them. So instead of a cute note, we’ll end with a cranky note. Freakin’ oven, cabinets, plane tickets, running, video. Grumble grumble.

P.S. Adam just called. I said, “Oh, I was just trashing you in my blog!” He laughed and said, “Oh good! Another usual Monday!” I like that. So we’ll end there instead of with the grumble.

5:37 a.m.

Poke, poke, poke.

Me: What the hell are you people doing in my bed? Why the hell are you people waking me up! Leave me alone!

Little people noisily stomp off and slam the door shut and then proceed to make enough noise that I can’t fall back asleep

8:15 a.m.

The boy: How much longer till I go to camp?

Me: We leave at 8:45 so thirty minutes.

8:22 a.m.

The boy: How much longer till I go to camp?

Me: Look at the clock. You can read the time.

The boy: Yeah. [pause] So how much longer?

Me: [sigh] Twenty-three minutes.

8:30 a.m.

The boy: How much longer till I go to camp?

Me: What does the clock say?

The boy: 8:30.

Me: And what time are we leaving?

The boy: 8:45.

Me: So?

The boy: So? How much longer till we go to camp?

8:41 a.m.

The boy: How much longer till I go to camp?

Me: Sigh. Okay, go ahead. The keys are on the counter. Go get them and and get into the car.

The boy: I can get into the car!

Me: Yes. Grab the keys and get into the car.

The boy: Pie! We can get into the car! Let’s go!

8:47 a.m.

I grab my purse, close the door, and head outside. I open the car door.

Me: Where are the keys?

The boy: Huh?

Me: The keys. The car keys.

The boy: I dunno.

Me: What do you mean you don’t know? How did you get into the car?

The boy: The front door was open so I climbed through and opened the side door.

Me: So no keys?

The boy: Nuh-uh.

Me: So the keys are still inside the house.

The boy: I guess.

Me: And we’re outside the house.

The boy: Yeah.

Me: You realize this means we’re locked out.

The boy: Huh?

8:51 a.m.

Panicked call to the window guy’s voice mail who was supposed to come at 9:30 a.m. to FINALLY put shades up in our front room and family room so our neighbors once and for all don’t have to see me in the pjs in the winter. Call Beetle’s husband to see if, by any chance, he left any doors unlocked because they have a spare key to our house. Beetle is in Vermont and due back later today. Of course, no doors are unlocked. Contemplate how late we’d be if we take the boy to camp by bus. Leave a message for Adam, who is in London, asking him where the hell he’s hidden the extra key.

8:57 a.m.

Pleading call to neighbor to drive the boy to camp. Go with boy and girl with neighbor to camp. Get home. Beetle’s husband calls. He suspects there’s a hidden key. We look. There is a hidden key! Unfortunately it fits none of the locks to their house. I take Pie back to the neighbor’s house to use the bathroom, window guy shows up (didn’t get message in time, but was really nice and it), and Pie and I walk down to Starbucks. I am grateful that it’s Pie I’m with, as she can handle the mile walk without any complaint. Others, who I shall not name, are not as sturdy.

10:11 a.m.

Pie: Mama, we are so lucky to be locked out!

Me: What do you mean?

Pie: Mama, it’s summer!

10:25 a.m.

After one venti iced green tea with one pump of sweetener, one chocolate milk, and one cinnamon-swirl coffee cake, Jasmine and her mom and sister come and rescue us. (I don’t think I’ve ever named Jasmine’s mom before. We’ll call her Laurel.) We head to Laurel’s house for the morning. I text Adam again. I comment on a Facebook post he made and even leave my own Facebook post asking him to contact me. I start calling anyone I know from his local office to see if I can find a number for the London office.  I leave another voice mail. Another text. And another e-mail.

12:15 p.m.

My husband doesn’t call, but Beetle’s husband checks in. Beetle will be home by 3:30.

1:12 p.m.

Adam calls! He hasn’t received a single one of my messages and is therefore surprised to find that I’m frazzled. He tells me where the key is. Yes! I leave Pie with Jasmine and, in 92 degree weather, walk home (not a long walk, but still a hot walk).

1:35 p.m.

Find key exactly where he described it would be. Hmm, key looks a little odd.

1:37 p.m.

Try key on front door. Curse Adam.

1:38 p.m.

Try key on kitchen door. Curse Adam.

1:39 p.m.

Try key on basement door. Curse Adam.

1:40 p.m.

Try key on playroom door. Curse Adam.

1:41 p.m.

Realize the key is the front door key… from before the locks were changed, oh, about a year ago.

1:45 p.m.

Walk the mile to the bus stop.

3:07 p.m.

Get the boy from camp and take the bus back home.

3:17 p.m.

Walk the mile back up the hill to our house. (“How much longer till we’re there? How much longer now?”)

3:37 p.m.

Beetle is home! She has our key! We enter the house!

3:38 p.m.

Hide a key that works in a location that only I know.

Hurry and get Doodles into his swimsuit, pick Pie up from Jasmine’s, and get to the Y in time for swim class with mere minutes to spare.

5:15 p.m.

Pie is monstrous. She wants to stay at the Y, but we have to hurry home for her piano lesson at 6:15.

5:45 p.m.

Feed kids dinner. Pie is rebellious. Pie loses her TV for the night.

6:10 p.m.

Pie: How much longer till my piano teacher comes?

Me: Five more minutes.

I notice there’s a voice mail. Piano teacher double booked. We lose.

I cave. Kids get TV. I get wine. I am so all done with today.

I stink. I mean this in the most literal of ways (and for you, Dawn, I’ll add, “and I don’t say ‘literal’ lightly!”). You walk into our lovely, more or less clean house, and breathe in the freshness. Then, as you make your way upstairs, you’ll notice this dank, disgusting smell. It was stuffy. And gross. And it didn’t take me long to realize… it was my running clothes.

As you may or may not know, Pie has an extreme aversion to sweat and refuses to come near anyone when they are the least bit sweaty. She nearly had a conniption when she realized that Adam put her to bed post-boxing class but pre-shower. True, he was no longer actually sweaty. But the mere thought that sweat had once been on his body was enough to repel her. She won’t come near me once I’m in my running clothes even if I have not yet gone on my run. “After you shower,” is her refrain.

And smelling our upstairs, I sort of get it now. It’s not tough. It’s not sexy. It’s smelly. Yuck. I thought of putting the clothes directly into the basement where the washer is, but then the basement would be smelly. I don’t want to wash each set of running clothes individually, because that would be a waste of water. Besides, as is well documented, I don’t do laundry. (The one time I did–I think I was washing sheets for guests who were coming over–Adam looked at me with the basket of laundry and said, “So you do know where the washer and dryer are!” My parents like to feel they are innocent of all the childhood crimes inflicted upon me–my father insists all our family moves only made me stronger–but no one can deny that my parents traumatized me in the laundry department. I hated doing the family laundry so much, I took to hiding everyone’s clothes in my bottom dresser drawer so I didn’t have to fold them. This went on a while before people started realizing that their underwear piles were diminishing.)

Pie "built" a fairy house in an Audubon Park as part as an eco-art program. And by "build" I mean, she directed me on what to do, so she wouldn't get dirty. Or sweaty.

So now I shower with my gym clothes. I take them in the shower with me and try to rinse them with water. The bathroom is littered with drying gym clothes as well as various swimming paraphernalia. It’s charming. But considering that it’s been 90 percent humidity and I walk in from even my not-so-long runs literally (there I go again! But you know I mean it!) dripping with sweat, it’s necessary (seriously–some folks get these cute little patches of sweat; my clothes are drenched. I’ve actually been asked if I jumped into the reservoir or something because the sweat is dripping off of me. Boy, I’m painting a lovely picture for you guys, aren’t I? I hope you’re not reading this with your breakfast. If you are, sorry!).

I also stink in a figurative way (please hold off on the “duhs,” folks!). I know I haven’t been posting much. My nice relaxing summer is slipping away and in its place is this psychotic, over scheduled summer that consists of me constantly yelling at the kids, “Hurry up! We’re going to be late!” As of this morning, I have officially given up giving up caffeine. (That sentence is correct. Just read it again.) We’ll see if that improves things or makes it worse. Here’s a random sampling of some of the summer activities we’ve been doing:

Pie: swimming classes, piano lessons, dance camp, preschool camp, Kindergarten Connections (get togethers with other future kindergartners at her school), lots of trips to the library for more Rainbow Magic books (ugh!!) and the summer reading program, building fairy houses at an Audubon park, playdates

It was Pirate Week at Doodles's theater camp, and he made a papier mache parrot, learned pirate songs, and acted in a pirate play.

Doodles: swimming classes, drum lessons, robotics camp, invention camp, baseball camp (not a hit–he’s skipping the last day as it’s “boring”), theater camp (huge hit–he’ll be doing another week later this summer), lots of trips to the library for more books on the interest du jour (it’s been the Revolutionary War, wizards, acting, and the latest is Geronimo Stilton books, karate, and Japan) and the summer reading program

Me: chauffeuring, swimming lessons (yes, for me–I’m taking an advanced stroke techniques class as I’m determined to finally learn to the butterfly and perfect my crawl; who knows? There might be a tri in my future), marathon training, chauffeuring, a pilates/yoga class, working on a program at our synagogue, chauffeuring, trying to finish up the third draft of my novel (could I be close to done?), gardening, chauffeuring, waiting for the appliance repairman (the oven still isn’t fixed!), chauffeuring

Adam: Um, I’m actually not sure what Adam has been doing. I know he goes boxing and takes piano lessons. And he shaved his winter beard. But other than that, you’d have to ask his Blackberry what he’s been up to.

No taxation without representation!

As a family: trips to the Reservoir and the outdoor pool at the Y, a Boston Tea Party re-enactment on a lovely sailboat, camping, my parents in town, going to see Toy Story 3, our neighborhood 4th of July bike parade, our 4th of July BBQ

Adam and I have been managing to get out a little bit. We had an awesome date last week–I found a program through Audubon (I’m really trying to take advantage of our membership!) that was canoeing on the Charles River, followed by dinner. There were two other couples and three guides. We paddled on the river for an hour and then stopped to have a catered dinner by the side of the river. Delicious dinner in a lovely setting, and then we paddled more. Our paddling got cut short by thunder and lightening, but it just gave us an excuse to stop off for a drink on our way home, as we had the babysitter for a while longer. Finding a place to drink isn’t always easy in this part of the world, but Adam remembered that a hotel that his company had been to for an off-site was just off the highway so we stopped at the bar there. Oy! We were in our canoeing clothes amidst a sea of Boston’s version of Bridge and Tunnel. We found a corner, had a nice drink, and then ran into friends who joined us. It was an actual grown-up evening! And we’re scheduled to have another grown-up evening next week! Pigs are flying somewhere.

Normally, I’d scour this entry and look for ways to make it more interesting and witty, but the kids are antsy–we’re headed off to the MFA today–and if I don’t post something soon, my father will begin the harassing phone calls. And I wanted you to know why I stink, both literally and figuratively. If the next month of summer is anything like the first (has it only been one month since school ended? Yikes!), you’ll understand why the posts may be sparse. We still have more camping, a summer vacation, canoeing for Doodles, a family Insects and Ice Cream event, fencing for Doodles, a girls’ night out for me, a visit from the Tweedle Twirp and a visit from the Peter, birthday parties to attend and birthday parties to plan, more preschool camp for Pie, an animation class for Doodles…. I still haven’t figured out the WordPress/iPhone thing, but if I do, maybe I can post a bit more. But if not, happy summer! (Just six and a half weeks till school starts again. Just six and a half weeks till school starts again. Just six and a half weeks till school starts again…. Deep breaths….)

I have a cold. And I’m the first to admit, I’m a serious drama queen when it comes to colds. I wallow in my misery and try to bring everyone down to my level.

Tonight I prepared dinner for my children, as my husband gallivanted at his boxing gym. I had to reach deep to muster the energy to not sneeze all over my children’s food. But I managed. Because that’s the kind of mother I am.

But then the kids started whining. So I said, “Hey! I’m sick! I have a cold! Where’s the empathy?”

To which my darling son replied, “Mom, we’re kids. Kids don’t have empathy.”

Tell me about it….

I’m forcing my kids to take swimming lessons. Actually, I’m bribing them. With Zhu Zhu pet crap. If they both take the class willingly, they get some cage or maze or Richard Gere lookalike to use with their weird robotic gerbils that make no sense to me. If Pie consistently puts her face in the water by the end of class, then she gets a second Zhu Zhu pet toy.  It’s working. She put her face under the water four times today. Progress. He needs to learn to swim with his arms out of the water. In order to pass the deep end test at our pool, he has to swim the length of the pool with a proper arms-out-of-water crawl stroke. He’s working on it.

Our Y has what we call “the mat room,” which is a room designed for little kids with lots of mats and climbing toys. There’s a big kid climbing room, but the rock wall was recalled and it hasn’t been replaced yet. It’ll be another six to eight weeks. Which means the big kids end up on the mat room more often than not.

I used to feel safe leaving my kids in there while I ran out–to get water or go to the bathroom–but not anymore. Not with those big kids. Today there was this boy in there absolutely wreaking havoc. The kid’s mother must have yelled at him five times to stop jumping from the towering pile of gymnastics blocks to the mat below, where he came precariously close to the little people. He blatantly ignored her every time, flashing her this annoying “What me? I’m sorry!” look as he kept right on causing trouble. He’d yell, “Fire!” hurling balls across the room. He recruited younger boys to chase the girls and pelt them with said “cannon balls.” He’d jump off the top of the slide. It was horrendous. And the worst part? That obnoxious kid left when I did. Had the nerve to get into my car and come home with me.

I remember not too long ago that I was petrified in that room, because the big kids ran my kids scared. Now my kids are the big kids. That boy of mine has morphed from this easygoing, happy kid sitting in a corner of the room daydreaming, to this creature who must be in motion at all time. Kicking a soccer ball, throwing baseballs, climbing atop the trapeze bar on our climber in order to swing high, hopping down the stairs, dancing in the living room, jumping up and down when he should be sitting for dinner. He’s in constant motion.

This summer, the boy has minimal camp. I fear for the house. I fear for his bruised and scraped knees. I fear for my sanity. It’s going to be a looooooong summer.

The preschool videos are done, the teacher cards are made. Two dozen cupcakes and one cake have been made and decorated for the end-of-year picnic cake walk and cupcake spin. Class gift for other child has just been sent off for completion. Relatives have come and gone and getting ready to come again. Adam is cursing the Celtics and I’m eating spoonfuls of leftover of chocolate frosting.

Summer is about to begin….

We had the invasion of family, which began when the forty-foot RV pulled into our driveway. You haven’t seen so many folks slow down and stare since Adam did his naked dance in the front yard after getting his MBA.* Doodles loved it. Pie felt a little shy and refused to go into it for a few days but then couldn’t stop bragging about how she got a private tour.

In the meantime, little Pie has been on a roller coaster ride. Preschool has officially ended. And she’s really not sure how she feels about it. She vacillates wildly in her “Yea! I can’t wait!” and “Waaaa! I want to go back to preschool!” Last week she had her kindergarten visit. But the night before she lay in bed and wailed, “I don’t want to go to kindergarten! I want you to come with me! I want you stay with me all the time! But I don’t want to go to homeschool!” But we solved one of the major problems. She was worried that she wouldn’t be able to turn on the faucets in her new school (they are the push down kind and she sometimes has trouble reaching them), but we were at the school for Doodles’s art show and Pie’s teacher-to-be took her into the bathroom and showed her how to use them. She also promised that Pie could ask her for help if she couldn’t do it herself and I think that relieved a lot of worries.

Pie did great in her preschool end-of-year celebration. But we had to make a quick exit, as she started getting teary eyed (and, okay, I did, too). She was happy today when I had my last volunteer session in Doodles’s room and she came, and his (her future) teacher announced to everyone that Pie had graduated from preschool yesterday and she had them all applaud her. Pie loved that. And today was a meet-up for the kids in her kindergarten and she had a blast. I find it hard, though, because I look at her and all I can still see is “little.” How can she be heading into elementary school? Of course, as good as the day went, the night was rocky with her crying in her sleep. She made her way to our bed and then demanded, half asleep, that Adam leave as she only wanted me.

Meanwhile, Doodles has mere days of first grade left. It seems as if his school should have been done long ago–I’m ready for summer to be here in full swing. But yesterday was “the best day ever” for the boy. At his school’s fundraiser this year, I bought him the honor of being “principal for the day.” And that day was yesterday. The kid was in heaven. He got to deliver mail. He went into every classroom to “assess the learning.” He got to make announcements, including decreeing extra recess for the entire school. He was allowed to choose two friends to have a lunch of pepperoni pizza with him and the “other” principal. When I went to pick him up, kids were still calling him principal, even though he finished in time to change back into shorts and go to music class.  When I was at workboard today, Mimi and Pie were in deep conversation when Mimi said, “Oh my God. Doodles was so handsome yesterday!” And Pie responded, “I know! Didn’t he look so cute?” And Mimi said, “His hair was really nice and he looked so good!” And then I shut the conversation down because it was just too strange for me.

And I now have to go to bed. Not so much because I’m tired but because Adam’s jumping and twitching over this basketball game has me jittery. And it’s also weirding me out that he’s watching TV with his eyes open. That never happens. Adam + couch + TV = sleep. The universe feels off. So goodnight. Maybe tomorrow things will be right again.

*Okay, so maybe there was no naked dance. But I was really struggling with a way to finish that sentence and that seemed to work so well.

We subscribe to Boston Organics (is subscribe the right word? I guess so, but it sounds funny to subscribe to veggies). Every week a box appears on our front porch full of organic goodies. For a long time we had a CSA, but I found myself overwhelmed. I love eggplant, but I finally lost it on the fourth week of getting five eggplants. Need I say I’m the only one who likes eggplant in this house? With Boston Organics, I have a “no” list (as in NEVER send me cauliflower because we will never, ever eat it) and they send reasonable amounts of each food. We get 2/3 veggie and 1/3 fruit. It works. Well. Except for those times when I leave town for a weekend. Or when Adam has a lot of nights working late or Doodles has Cub Scouts or track and field or Pie simply melts down early and we don’t have family dinners. Which has been happening a lot lately. So the veggies have been piling up. I had three bunches of asparagus in the fridge and six beets and a whole lot of yellow squash. I was determined to use some of this stuff up.

Asparagus? Easy. Roasted for Shabbat dinner tonight. That’s the best way: a smidgen of olive oil, a bit o’ time in the oven, and we’re all happy. Beets? A little more challenging. Adam loves beets. I think I could even call them his favorite vegetable. But he likes them really simple. Roasted. And that’s about it. I dressed them up tonight with a little lemon, onion, and olive oil. Myself, I prefer them with oranges and goat cheese, but my man is a simple man so plain beets it is.

But I refuse to prepare all six beets “plain,” as Adam won’t eat leftovers, which means I spend days eating boring beets until they get slimy and tossed and I feel guilty about wasting food. So today I had a brainstorm. Red Velvet Cake. I was going to make Red Velvet Cupcakes. With the beets. (Which, by the way, is one of the traditional ways of making it. None of that “two bottles of red dye #40.”) Genius.

I roast the beets. I puree the beets. Pie comes into the kitchen. “What are those?”

“Pureed beets,” I tell her.

“Ewww!”

“No, they’re good!”

Her nose wrinkles. “They look gross.”

She goes off to play. I bake hallah. I roast potatoes. I make Red Velvet Cupcakes. Pie returns when the cupcakes are done.

“Cupcakes!” she exclaims.

“Yep!” I say, frosting them with a cream cheese frosting.

“What kind?” she asks.

I hesitate. “They’re chocolate cupcakes. The name of them is Red Velvet Cupcakes.”

“Red Velvet?” Pie asks. And she gets right to it. “Are they called Red Velvet because of beets? Did you put the beets in the cupcakes!”

Luckily, I have the other three beets prepared to make Adam’s plain Jane salad. So I evade the question. “The beets are here in the sink.”

“Oh,” she says. And went back to play.

At dinner tonight, she pronounced the cupcakes “delicious!”

And the boy? He’s nobody’s fool and you’re not going to sneak a veggie past him, even in a cupcake. My Red Velvet Cupcake, which by the way, didn’t have a smidgen of red in them by the end, were pronounced “not for me,” and left half eaten.

You can fool some of the Pies some of the time and all of the Doodles… never.

Why is it my son who would go an entire week in the same underwear needs to be constantly reminded that he can wear the same pajamas a couple of nights in a row? Not that that’s the point right now. It’s a genuine question. I simply don’t understand. And why can he remember every level of card-jitsu in Club Penguin but can’t remember what he did in school five minutes after the bell rings?

My kids are in a mood today. Both of them. Pie had a complete meltdown on the way home from walking the boy to school because I mentioned we might go swimming this weekend. It’s supposed to be 80 on Sunday. Pie has been begging to swim. We can go. But I happened to mention that the outdoor pool at the Y was opening, and that sent her off into convulsions. She doesn’t want to swim outside. She only wants to swim inside. And only now. Not on Sunday. Thirty minutes of tears commenced.

My son, meanwhile, spends all his time locked up in his room, rereading Diary of a Wimpy Kid (books 1 through 4) or his new discovery, Calvin and Hobbes comics. I forced him outside. Harumph. Given their mood, I thought we should have a nice mellow family night. How about a movie? We can all watch the first Shrek. He hates Shrek. No, he’s never seen it. No, he doesn’t know what it’s about. He hates it. He’ll watch a different movie on his iPod. Okay, then, I say, no movie night. “Oh, oh-kay. I’ll watch Shrek!” Thanks for the favor.

The best part about all of this? It’s a three-day weekend. I get three days of loveliness from my children. And even better? Only two and a half more weeks of school for Pie and three and a half for Doodles. And then there all mine! Whaa haa haa haa ha! Thank goodness drinking white wine or sangrias at noon in the summer is acceptable. It is right? Right?

My little man is starting to develop a Napoleon Complex. Of course, as his mother, I’m aiding and abetting, albeit unwittingly.

Doodles’s school fundraising auction was last Friday. (Side note: my boy has a super cute podcast up on his school’s website. If you know the name of the school, look at the podcast on May 7. If I know you, you can e-mail me for the link.) I went. I drank. I bid. Never a good combination. The upshot is I got two things I really wanted. And the boy? The boy got the one thing he really wanted.

The next morning, he woke up really early. “Did I get it?!” he asked.

“Get what?” I said.

He gave me an exasperated sigh. “You know what!”

“I don’t know.” He rolled his eyes. “Mr. Principal, that is.”

“YEA!!!”

Yes, that’s right, my son is going to be principal for the day. He’ll be ruling the school, and then he gets to invite two friends to join him for lunch with the current principal. He’s already informed me that he’s giving everyone extra choice time.

My father already asked. And I’ll give you the same answer I gave him: I’m not telling how much it cost. Let’s just say it was four Chardonnay’s worth of bidding. (Blame my husband. Who else walks up to his wife and says, “I thought you’d want another glass of wine while you’re bidding”? Insane!)

This morning, before school started, it was like he was a rock star. “Doodles! I heard you’re going to be principal! Who are you taking?”

Let’s see how long this takes for it to go to his head. I suspect it may have started already. I’m pretty sure I just heard him say to Pie, “Some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me.” She better watch out for horse heads.

Doodles had computer time while Pie had her show.

Me: What do you want to watch?

Pie: Um, do we have Sonny with a Chance?

Me: Uh, no.

Pie: Can you check and see if it’s on live TV?

I check.

Me: It’s not.

Pie, sighing: Okay, then I guess I’ll watch Hannah Montana.

Me: When did you start wanting to watch such big kid shows?

Doodles calls from the next room: Mom! She is a big kid!

Me: She is?

Doodles: Yeah! She’s almost five, you know!