We stayed home from school today (i know) as we are all suffering horribly with seasonal allergies. My head feels like it is going to explode and the kids are up all night hacking, coughing and wheezing.
So, we stayed home. I had to run out on an errand and when i came home the girls had transformed the kitchen in to a lovely restaurant. Parker, toby and i were the customers. I ordered the orange juice and bagel with cream cheese and cucumbers from my lovely waitress, eliza.
Moments like these remind me how much i would love to homeschool. Remind me what a pleasure it is to be around kids with all their enthusiasm, energy and imagination.
My favourite thing about this little cottage i rent is my veggie garden. The girls and i spent a few hours last week weeding and laying out compost. We started some salad greens and they are already sprouting up.
I remember one spring when i was young my mom deciding to put in a vegetable garden. She spent hours digging up a huge area of grass in the backyard. I can still see her in her floral bikini top and shorts digging and shoveling and cursing. Coming in with a streaky sunburn on her back from my sloppy application of sunscreen. We spent that summer weeding and weeding and weeding. I think the weeds won out because i don't recall any vegetables except chives and pumpkins. In the fall that garden was reseeded with grass.
This is my second spring working this garden. I love it. For me gardening is the ultimate exercise in patience and reward. Having dirt under my nails gives me immense pleasure. It's satisfying work, it gives me time to relax and think while i squat in between beds pulling weeds and coaxing growth.
1. my daughter making lunches in the morning.
2. the dogs eating my costco haul and looking all innocent surrounded by 13 granola bar wrappers.
3. parker asking me what the difference is between saying crap and shit.
4. tuesday is tip-out day.
5. the sound of four children snoring because of hideous amounts of pollen in the air.
The other night i stayed over at shane's house because he was leaving in the very early hours on a business trip. The weekend was a long one at work because of a regatta happening at the local private school. I worked long and hard hours and was feeling more than a little haggard.
I woke up in the morning and followed my usual morning routine of coffee and desperately trying to shake the cobwebs out of my brain. I was sitting in my usual chair in my usual place in a house i lived in for four years, then left for eleven months, then returned to for eight, then left again. I sat there wondering where my memories were.
What happened in the last eight months? It's all a blur and in so many ways i don't even remember them. Being back in my house is similar. So many nights i sit and think "i don't remember ever leaving here."
And i sat in that living room in that chair and felt a little terror. Terror that so many months of my life have been lost to misery and sadness.
I had a long talk with the kids this afternoon because they have been very fragile recently. Tears in the morning when i drop them off at school, meltdowns in the afternoon, sad eyes in the evening. I told them that i was worried about them and that i wonder if they are having a hard time with all of this change.
They had lots to say. Mostly, they are happy. Sometimes, they are sad. Sometimes they are angry. They said it was so much fun – those eight months. The trips we took, the adventures we had. It was hard to hear. I am happy that they have those memories. I am sad that they are not the same memories i have. I am worried that they won't have those same joyful memories now.
I try really hard to be the best i can with them, but it is hard. It's hard to juggle everything. I have said before that i am a pretty slack parent when it comes to routines and rules and, well, school. I would rather keep them home when they are feeling sad than ship them off to school, but i can't keep them home every day.
I went to see the principal this morning after an especially rough morning drop off. I walked in and tears were running down my face. "I think my kids need to see the school counselor. I am worried about them. They are having a rough time."
"I understand. It's a bumpy road." And she gave me a knowing smile and said "It's going to be okay."
I remembered that all day. My kids have been to the smallest public schools, tiny private schools and gigantic public schools. In every single one of them i have found so much compassion and genuine purity of spirit. And so i come full circle with my bias against school and teachers – it all goes back to childhood, that i know because MY counselor told me so – and find immense support through those educators.
And i know it's going to be okay. And i know they will be okay. All of our memories are our own.
1. calling from work to check in and the babysitter telling me "i got mad at parker, i'm sorry."
2. coming home from work and toby is hiding in the closet banging his head against the wall.
3. coming home from work and eliza is braiding the babysitters hair.
4. coming home from work and tristan tells me how much she loves the babysitter.
5. realizing that the babysitter likes the girls more than the boys and feeling terribly guilty about having the babysitter to begin with.