Stuck in the Car. ALL DAY!

Well, school’s been in session a couple of weeks, and now it’s clear how I’ll be spending all that free time I thought I’d have.

In the car. Driving them all to and from school.

After our move, it turns out that NOBODY is able to ride the school bus, due to the faraway location of the bus stop and the fact that the middle two kids wanted to stay at their old school (which we are no longer zoned for). Plus the twins go to preschool three mornings a week.

The thing that makes this really maddening is that the high school lets out at a different time every day.

I’m serious.

They get out at 1:47 on Mondays, 1:55 on Tuesdays, 1:47 again on Wednesdays, 2:30 on Thursdays, and 2:40 on Fridays.

Unless it’s a four-day week, in which case it’s 1:47, 1:55, 2:30, and 2:40.

Oddly enough, they do manage to START at the same time each day…

I cannot imagine who thought this was a good idea. Some anonymous administrator with no children?

In any case, I’m spending a lot of time in the car, and so are the twins, who are NOT enjoying being forcibly detained in their car seats for a couple of hours each day. And they’re not shy about voicing their displeasure.

I’m stocking up with snacks and diversions like I’m settling in for a siege every time we get in the car. I think they’re getting used to it…

But the worst part is being stuck in a long line of cars when a recently potty-trained toddler starts screaming, “I have to go POOP!”

I’d like to see that anonymous administrator sit through THAT a few times.

above image from free-extras.com

There Are Centipedes in Paradise

I found a curled-up centipede in the dryer.

Fortunately, it was dead. They are hard to kill; you have to really beat them to death, or preferably cut them in half. Ewww.

They have the nastiest centipedes here in Hawaii; it‘s a form of the Vietnamese centipede. They are disgusting to look at, and also poisonous.

Fortunately, their bite won’t actually KILL you. It will just make you swell up and hurt a lot. So that’s some consolation, right?

Here’s a photo from another Hawaiian blogger who has an interesting centipede story as well.



That is seriously gross-looking, right?

According to Wikipedia these things are actually sold elsewhere as “terrarium animals,” but I can’t IMAGINE a less appealing pet.

So far I haven’t had any of these nasty things inside the house, although we’ve killed several outside the door.

And my daughter’s friend had one in her BED. Ewww!

But anyways, Dryer Centipede is the closest we’ve had to one inside, so I think we’re pretty lucky.

Unfortunately, I mentioned the dead centipede in the dryer to the kids and they freaked out, asking if I re-washed the clothes afterwards, and if not, exactly WHICH load of clothes was it, et cetera. (Obviously THAT information was not disclosed.)

So now they are all concerned that there are “centipede germs” on their clothes.

But WHICH clothes? I’ll never tell…

What's Einstein got to do with it?

Thought for the day: Be suspicious when your child suddenly spouts seemingly meaningless trivia about the school performance of famous people.

My eleven-year old said, when getting into the car after school on Friday, "Did you know Einstein failed math in school?"

You can probably guess where this is going, but I seem to be a little dense these days.

Then I received my first e-mail from the school's automatic grading system. (Although I do understand this is after only two weeks of school, and there's time to fix this.)

Language Arts   A
Writing              A
Science              A
Health                A
Career Journal   A
Math                  D
Homework        A

Uh huh. Apparently that (likely erroneous) bit of dead-celebrity trivia was code for, “I’m doing rather badly in mathematics, mother.”

Hey kid! Einstien was in trouble with HIS mother for this, and so are you!

image above from wikipedia
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A Pair of Crazy Preschoolers

The twins had their first day of preschool last week.

Only I just got around to taking their picture in front of the school today. People were walking around me while I tried to get them to BOTH look at the camera at the same time, which is pretty much impossible by the way, and giving me weird looks.

The other moms were all thinking, “Hey, lady! Didn’t you know the first day of school was a week ago?”

Sorry folks. We’ve got Kids Number Four and Five here. They’re lucky we don’t have to wait until next semester for me to remember my camera!

So we are working on adjusting to the preschool environment.

On the first day I returned to the sight that every preschool mom dreads: Baby Girl was not in the clothes I brought her in.

Which means, she was wearing her backup clothes that they keep in case of accidents.

Which means, she had an accident.

Which means, in other words, my kid’s the one who pooped her pants on Day ONE of preschool.

Yep. Looks like I’m going to be THAT mom this year. The one the teacher has to put on a grave face to TALK to at the end of school.

This suspicion was confirmed today when I was informed by the teacher at pick-up that BOTH twins had to be put in Time Out today.

According to the school’s discipline list, Time Out is like DefCon Three. It comes after (1) Warning and (2) Toy Confiscated or Child Removed. It’s only one step below getting sent to the principal.

(Not that Baby Girl and Baby Boy are particularly scared of getting sent to the principal. Seeing as they’re three years old.)

But anyways, the teacher put on her Serious Face and suggested that I talk to the twins about being quiet and sitting down during circle time.

I doubt this will do any good, but I’ll give it a shot. I’m going to read them a book about preschool and try to talk up sitting still and listening to the teacher. Honestly, it’s a hard sell for a pair of toddlers.

I felt like telling the teacher, “Look. They’re little savages. I know it. That’s why I’m bringing them to YOU to help me civilize them. Just keep putting them in time out. They’ll get it eventually.”

I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that we can refrain from more potty accidents.

I REALLY don’t want to be that mom!

The Hazards of Watching Crime Shows

Yesterday ET (my 14-year-old) came to me in a state of high excitement. She insisted she’d found a dead body in the woods near our house.
Well, what she actually said she’d found was a freshly-dug grave!

(She said it in italics like that too.)

Obviously I highly doubted that there was a corpse stashed away in our neighborhood. Plus I was busy watching the twins. ET found this attitude very offensive.

She texted her friends indignantly, “I found a dead body and my mom doesn’t believe me!!!!!!!!!”

I asked her to wait until her father got home and present him with her alleged evidence, arguing that dead bodies definitely fall under the heading of The Man’s Job. She said it was going to be dark before he came home, and that GG and Boo could watch the twins for a minute.

So Little Miss Nancy Drew insisted on taking me to view the crime scene. Unfortunately it involved me hiking uphill on a pebbly path in my flip-flops.

While we walked, ET told me her various theories of how the freshly-dug grave came to be there.

ET: There was a patch of freshly-turned dirt marked by a wooden cross. I’ll bet there’s a serial killer on the loose around here.

Me: There’s no serial killer, honey.

ET: MOM! Serial killers EXIST you know. They’re not mythical creatures!

Me: Okay. Why would a serial killer mark the grave like that that?

ET: Because he’s crazy!

Me: I think you’ve been watching too much Bones and Criminal Minds.

ET: So maybe there was some man who got drunk and got in a big fight with his wife and then he killed her and then he was afraid someone would find out and so he dug a grave and hid her in the woods.

Me: Again, why mark the grave? Isn’t the point to hide the body?

ET: Duh! It’s his WIFE! He FEELS bad!

Me: (Giant sigh) (Much puffing from walking uphill) Are we almost there?

ET: Or what if it’s one of the construction workers? Like if one of them got killed on the job and then they didn’t want the boss to know so they hid the body with the woods? But they mark it with a cross to show he was a good guy or whatever.

Me: Okay. You’ve GOT to stop watching Bones and Criminal Minds.

It was like talking to Velma from Scooby Doo, but with fewer facts.

When we finally got there, it was obviously a pet grave. There was NO WAY it was big enough for a person. It was not even big enough for anything larger than a cat. I pointed out that there was actually the outline of a box in the hole, less than two feet long.

She tried to insist that a person really could fit in there, but she was losing steam.

I said that if she really wanted to dig up poor Fluffy and make sure, she could be my guest, but fortunately the sight of the box convinced her.

So we headed back downhill. ET was very disappointed.

Real life is so much less exciting than TV.
   
images from amazon.com

A Musical Tribute to Going Back to School

Do you hear that?

It's a choir singing, to the tune of the Hallelujah Chorus!

"They're BACK at school now! They're BACK at school now! Back at school now! Back at school now! The kids are back at school!"

It's a beautiful sound. Silence in the house.

Now I'll finally be able to get some things DONE around here.

Right after I catch up on my facebook account......

Hey, is it time to pick them up ALREADY?!