Yankee Drawl

We’re Outta Here

Posted By jayna on June 7, 2013

About two months ago, I was half-heartedly eavesdropping on the husband while he talked to his parents on the phone. This and that about our upcoming family vacation and rentals and meals to cook and dates to travel on. June 8th came out of his mouth and I vehemently shook my head. No, no, no, we weren’t checking in until the 15th, dear, get it right!

But. . . yeah. No.

For nearly six months I had been going about my planning, sure that I had booked our vacation to start on the 15th. The day after Miss E was to finish kindergarten. It was written on calendars, entered into every time keeping device we owned, emailed to every family member I thought would need it, talked about over and over as plans were made. Conversation after conversation with the husband using that week.

No one corrected me for six months.

And then when they finally did, I spent a week convinced I was certifiably insane and had completely lost my mind. That was the only logical explanation to my entering a binding agreement to pay a hefty chunk of change on a rental house during my first born’s last week of kindergarten.

Thankfully, it turns out that I’m not completely insane.

Just a little bit.

Apparently, when I booked our vacation way back in the beginning of the school year, for the week of June 8th, the kids were actually supposed to be done with school on that Friday, June 7th. Whooo, point one for proper planning! Except . . . somewhere along the way, the school board changed the yearly calendar and adjusted for our (completely unnecessary) snow days by adding a week. The problem was, they never put out any sort of notice or publication or revision to the school calendar. Instead, it was more of a sly, under the radar switch. All of a sudden, June 14th was being used on things as the last day. So . . . in my mind, I simply matched up when I thought our vacation was to follow the last day of school. And continued to think that way for the entire school year.

Spoiler alert: It’s June 7th and we are not in Virginia anymore.

Today I picked E up for the last time as a kindergartener and found her more giddy with excitement over the beach than finishing her last day. She’s missing three days next week (the school board went on to subtract two days somewhere along the way – also without fanfare) and is unphased. With a stuffed backpack and farewell gifts from her teacher, she gave a giant peace out to all her friends and never looked back.

Tomorrow she’ll dive into the First Grade workbooks I packed up for her, true to the core of what an excellent student she’s become. She’ll read every book we brought in the car, out loud for her siblings to hear, with her voice full of confidence and the perfect intonation. She’ll talk about concepts we never dreamed she would grasp at this age and show us how the world of kindergarten really has changed in 25 years. We learned about stranger danger and how to tie our shoes, not about computers and chapter books. She can navigate websites and give presentations on her favorite animals, while we’re left scratching our heads over where on earth our first baby has gone. And on we’ll go, past this week and through the summer, until it’s time to go back and see if she really is still the tallest girl in her grade.

Farewell, kindergarten. You were a wonderful year to grow through.

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Tags: Miss E, Vacations

Alligator Say What?

Posted By jayna on June 5, 2013

And there I was, lamenting over the terrible, boring, un-adorable boy clothes. All those beautiful dresses that would never get worn again.

Ha!

Alligator hoodie.

Eating my words, one adorable boy outfit at a time.

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Driving Distracted {Full Speed Through Life}

Posted By jayna on May 30, 2013

I’ve been unplugged for the past while. Aside from my pocket sidekick (all hail the iPhone and catching up while sitting on the floor waiting for a kid to fall asleep for a nap), I haven’t cracked a computer for anything fun in nearly two weeks. The end of the day will roll around and the husband will ask me if I’ve done x,y or z – all on the computer – and I’ll laugh as I say how I don’t even have slightest idea where the computer actually is in the house. The few times I’ve had the mouse in my hand, I’ve been so rushed or distracted by the incessant demands for *loveandattentionandmememeeeee* from Tatey. There may have even been a bill accidentally sent along as $30 instead of $300. Which, funny now that I’ve fixed it, but yeah. Distracted.

So much has been going on. So, so much. At night, we sit down and just try to plant both feet back on the ground after flitting and flying in a million different directions all day. There has been project after project crossed of the giant to-do list, endless pop-up projects that stem from all those other original projects, school event after school obligation after school need. We’ve had visitors and sick kids again and a husband off to days away at school on some weekends. Yet, we’re still squeezing in every bit of exploring and hiking and playing that we possibly can. There have been decisions to make and news to adjust to and disappointment to swallow, all while planning and prepping and holding our heads high in the face of another adventure looming down the road. Life, man. When it comes at you, it comes full speed.

I make lists for everything now, filling up the dry erase board in the kitchen. If it isn’t on there, it doesn’t exist. There have been days when I thought I may as well start just keeping another one right on the glass front door, to soothe the scatter that follows me as I rush out of the house each time. Today, I spent thirty minutes looking for my camera. Thirty. We’ve been to the top of mountains, the homes of presidents, a preschool graduation and a kindergarten performance. Each and every time, I found my bag empty where the camera should be, cursing the cloud of forgetfulness following me around. If anyone knows me a bit, you’ll know this is a huge deal. I don’t just forget my camera. Does. Not. Happen.

I’ve since apologized to her. With an empty card and full battery, she’s tucked back in the bag where she belongs.

(What? You don’t give all the important electronics in your life a gender? Well, then I guess I’ll just keep her name to myself.)

Thankfully, in part from our dependence on those pocket sidekicks, I have managed to continue clicking away. All the school functions and grand explorations are well documented in not-as-nice resolutions and little Instagram squares. The cloudy nights, peaceful naps, rainy days and hot afternoons, swing lessons, president’s homes and mountain tops are all there in rows. I’m going to look at these few weeks as a bit of a stumble along my usual way. Tomorrow won’t be any less hectic and jumbled, but this forgetful funk over my head is on notice. I may not be able to do it all, but damnit, I will at least remember to do most of it.

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Tags: Randomness

Listening Is The New Fixing

Posted By jayna on May 17, 2013

I’m going to do it. Leaping off the bridge. It’s been so long since I let loose and railed on this poor, unsuspecting soul, but oh, tonight it’s on.

The husband has been away for a few days and the solo parenting gig has not been kind. Not one itsy iota. I’d love to blame the general funk from the girls on the rampant allergies plaguing all of us, but that might be a bit too lenient. And Tatey? I will give someone a million dollars if they can figure out exactly what is causing him to scream for 9 out of the 10 hours in his day. Just, speak up when you figure it out, because I’m pretty sure I’ve gone at least partially deaf.

Anyways . . .

As I often do during these stints on my own, I made an overly ambitious list of projects to complete during all my “free time.” Yes, now is when you’re all welcome to laugh at me. I fully recognize the crazy. But, instead of slowing down that roll, I busied myself with making a complete mess out of the house, with tools and half completed parts everywhere. Today I spent part of naptime and an hour before dinner trying to scrape off all of the clear caulk on my new shower and tub, which was only installed three months ago. It sounds entirely crazy, but I swear I had a good reason. Apparently, the tile install guy decided to use a clear silicon caulk to seal everything which, in addition to turning yellow over the past few months, was not something we could paint over. This left a weird line around the top of the tile where the paint was uneven and didn’t meet up right. Soooooo, it needed to come out.

Long story turned extremely short, it was a nightmare. Absolute nightmare. If silicon could turn to cement, this did. My hands are ripped to shreds from digging and bashing them against the tiles and 8pm found me in tears on the bathroom floor as I struggled to curse quietly enough to let the kids keep sleeping. An hour later and I had it all finished, looking amateurish but completely functional. I, of course, started the project fully expecting to be completely dazzled with the professional results I’d see at the end of the night.

Sweaty, exhausted, covered in caulk, I went downstairs. The garbage had to go out to the curb, along with 7 bags of grass clippings that weighed nearly as much as I do, thanks to the rain today. Then there were dinner dishes to do and laundry to switch and lunches to make and, oh yeah, heading back upstairs to clean up the giant mess I’d left in the bathroom when I originally came down meaning only to get a drink of water. Somewhere along the way, the phone rang.

We’ll start with the moral of the story. Men, when your wife is complaining of some great accomplishment being incredibly difficult, a giant pain in the ass, and it not turning out absolutely perfect? Do not, ever ever ever ever, proceed to suggest that she just call and hire someone to come out and do it better.

Don’t do it.

I normally have so little to complain about with this guy. Piddly stuff, here and there. But oh, oh boy, did he ever walk right into this one. I talked to him twice during the day while Tater was screeching and screaming bloody murder in the background. He had fair warning when I answered that that had been the soundtrack of the day. I even prepped him at the beginning of the last conversation, letting him know that the only thing I wanted to hear as he returned home and saw the finished bathroom was “That looks wonderful, dear!” I even said I would settle for, “My, that looks better than it did before!”

Instead his alleged attempt to console me over the terrible time I’d had while accomplishing something we’d put off for three months, was . . . to advise me to simply hire someone to do it over. To take down my blood, sweat and tears and do it better.

Oh, husband.

I’m going to just chalk this one up to you being a completely clueless man and not picking up on all those hints smacking you upside the head about me wanting someone to listen to my woes, and not fix my problems. Thirteen years in and we still haven’t bridged that occasional speed bump in the communications department. I completely forgive you for this terrible oversight in judgement and promise to move on from this little incident. But . . . I still fully expect to hear that it looks lovely and how you can hardly see the imperfections and it would have been a complete waste of money to hire a handyman for something like this and oh my goodness it’s so awesome to have a wife that can do these sort of projects in the first place whatever would you do without me.

Or something like that.

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