Second Monday…

Man, just when I thought we were doing so well, good old second Monday rolls around to fudge everything up. And though she was grumpy, tired and downright hostile a few times, Greta's finest moments this morning involved some truly inventive delay tactics.

First, she said she was too sick to go to school. Oldest trick in the book, I know, but, still very effective, especially since she has a very mild cold. But, since that was my go-to excuse growing up, daddy wasn't buying it. Sorry, biscuit.

So, then she got really creative and staged a “sit in” on the toilet for like five minutes. When I told her we had to leave, Greta said she was waiting for her poo to come out and that she wasn't going to school until it did. Good times! Needles to say, the poo never came and many tears were shed as we made our way to the kitchen to put on her shoes.

There again, she pulled out the big guns claiming that her shoes had tiny sticks in them that I couldn't see but that hurt her feet. After much stick searching and more tears, we switched to another pair and hurried to the car, where she staged perhaps her finest trick of the morning: pretending to fall asleep on the drive to school!

I don't remember trying that one as a kid, but, wow, if they gave out gold stars for morning delay tactics Greta would be top of her class! Simply put, she was good, but I was better. And since I've grown accustomed to half-dragging her ass to school lately, I just pretended not to notice that she was “asleep” and kept right on dragging.

And despite all the tears and recriminations — not to mention the fact that she would not say “goodbye” to me when we parted — we still somehow managed to make it to school on time, but something tells me we're in for another long-ass week…

 

 

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Kindergarten Week One: The New World Order

Yesterday marked the end of the first full week of kindergarten and let me tell ya, whoever said I’d have more time on my hands once Greta started school is full of shit. I haven’t felt this frazzled and out-of-my-element since those first few days after we brought Greta home from the hospital. Seriously, it’s been non-stop since Monday morning.

One of my new mom friends equated this week with starting a new job, and she’s not far off. I was anxious, way too concerned with my hair and what I was wearing, tired as fuck (sorry, but my usual F-word substitute, “fudge,” just didn’t seem to express how truly exhausting this week has been) and completely overwhelmed with paperwork. Insanity!

And though there have been definite highlights and I’ve made fast friends with several very chill moms and dads of students in Greta’s class, I think all three of us are a little overwhelmed by the sweeping sea change washing over us right now.

So far, Greta has been loving school but it’s the getting up in the morning and going there that kills her. However, aside from Wednesday morning, which was just horrific — at one point I was literally dragging her to class! — she really loves her teacher and each new day was better than the last. So, that’s progress in my book.

Personally, I found myself finally getting into the groove around Thursday, which is great because it ended up being one of the longest days of my life. I got up at 7:15 (which, believe it or not, has been my start time all week!), got Greta ready, dropped her off at school at 8:25 and then headed to my first PTA meeting at 8:30. Luckily for me, I managed to squeeze in some breakfast, because it turned out to be a three hour meeting! Yikes…who knew?

Fortunately, the meeting got out a little early (at around 11:00) so I had time to run to Costco and Trader Joe’s before heading back to school to pick up Greta at 1:30. We then headed to the park for a mini reunion with some of our old friends from Greta’s pre-school days, and then headed from there straight to ballet class, where we shared an emotional goodbye with Greta’s beloved ballet teacher who started her maternity leave today.

After ballet, we ran home to change and pick up Mrs. Yeti and then hurried back to Greta’s school for a massive “Back-to-School” picnic. They had food trucks, music, a farmer’s market selling produce grown at the school’s onsite garden (!) and again, many chances to meet new parent friends. Simply put, it was awesome. If all the parents at Stevenson are as hip, artsy and totally diverse as the ones we met this week, this new world order might not be so bad after all!

Now, if we could just get a handle on the constant flow of paperwork coming our way, I think we might be ready to face week two. Wish us luck!

 

 

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Greta’s First Day of School

Yesterday was Greta’s first day of kindergarten and though it was a long, trying day for us as parents, Greta’s biggest complaint was that she only made one new friend and could not remember her name. Ha! And though I’m usually bad with names as well, Mrs. Yeti and I managed to make a few friends at the Parent Mixer held in the lunch area right after school started as well. And better yet, all of the parents we met (and liked!) have kids in Greta’s class. So, here’s to new friends for everyone!

We’re all still getting used to this new schedule — lemme tell ya, getting up early after a lifetime spent staying up to the wee hours sucks ass, man! — but, day two was already much easier than Monday, so, progress is definitely being made.

Now, if I could just stop yawning all the damn time…all would be right with the world.

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Sleeping Standing Up

Hello again, blog friends. Sorry for being away for so long. This time I have a great excuse, I was working my butt off! So much so that I actually fell asleep standing up one day. Yep, like a horse. Except horses usually stay standing. I, on the other hand fell like a ton o’ bricks and hit the back of my head on a cheapie IKEA desk we have in our hallway. I survived the fall with a trip to the emergency room and a couple of staples to the back of my head…the desk, however, was not so lucky and had to be trashed.

And though I fell in front of Greta the first thing she said when she ran over to check on me was not “Oh, my God, Daddy! You’re head is bleeding!” or “Are you alright?”. Nope, the first thing she said was: “Wow! Look at that desk!” Actually, it was quite a site. Black particle board pieces and books scattered all over the hallway. Me sitting on the ground with blood all over my hand and a dazed look on my face, and Greta just staring at that broken desk.

Anyway, the bleeding stopped almost immediately, but, wow, there’s a lot of blood in the back of your head! Who knew? So, I called a 24-hour nurse hotline that we have on our insurance and talked to a lovely certified nurse named Susan. After asking me a bunch of really gross questions (“Is there a yellowish-red discharge oozing from your ears?”, “Are your pupils the same size?”, etc.) she told me I was probably fine but that I should head to the emergency room just to be sure.

Luckily, Mrs. Yeti was able to ditch out of work and hurry home to drive us (for some reason Susan thought a man who just fell asleep standing up and was bleeding from the head might not be the best driver, crazy, huh?) to the ER. Where we waited and waited and waited until they finally pulled me behind a curtain, stapled up my cut and send me packing. Good times.

Oh, did I mention that having staples put in your head hurts like hell?! Well, it does and let me tell ya, I owed Greta’s bad word jar a hefty chunk of change when we got home. I’m sure the truly sick and injured people in the ER loved hearing me swear up a storm too. Sorry, sickies, but that shit hurt!

The good news is I’ve been trying to get more sleep on a regular basis, and, believe it or not, I do actually feel more rested. Funny how that works, huh? Anyway, this whole getting enough sleep thing is still an ongoing project — changing your up-all-night writerly ways at my age ain’t easy, folks! — but, it has been working out nicely so far. We’ll see how easy it is to stick to when I have a bunch of deadline at the end of the month…

So, that’s what I’ve been up to. I also traveled to Hamburg, Germany for work (which was crazy fun) and churned out a record number of stories for work, I wrote two features for APEX magazine, two mini-features for a new magazine I’m working on, and a handful of stories for the APEX Editor’s Blog. Sadly, that left little time for blogging or, obviously, sleeping. But, it did feel awesome to be writing so much about stuff that I’ve really come to love. So, that more than makes up for it. That said, I do promise to be a better sleeper and blogger going forward, so, stick around.

Oh, and if anyone has an old desk they can spare, we’re on the market for one, so, let me know! 🙂