Nothing Exciting Today

Naps in Head Start may have to be banned – for Dolly, anyway. Since she started school she’s been taking a nap every day with her class and she’s been up late every night. It doesn’t matter if her nap is only 15 minutes or over an hour; she won’t go to sleep at bed time anymore. Maybe if the nap was early in the day it might not be such a problem; but they take naps around 1:00 in the afternoon and don’t get up until after 2:00. That’s too late for my kid to be sleeping during the day. I may be talking to her teachers very soon to have them give Dolly something else to do during nap time. Her being up this late is taking away my “me” time.

I did have “me” time today because the house was empty except for me. All the kids were in school and Kara had meetings again. What did I do during my free time today? I made breakfast (oatmeal), showered, found a recipe I needed for dinner tonight, found a fax number I need for tomorrow, and I sat on my bed watching a movie and folding laundry. I started the laundry right when I started the movie and both were done at the same time. That was nice, and all the laundry is folded and put away. Then it was almost time for the kids to start arriving home.

I was supposed to pick up Dolly but Kara didn’t think she’d make it back in time to be here for the bus. She tried calling a friend to see if she could be here but the friend wasn’t available. So Kara picked up Dolly and I stayed home waiting for the buses to arrive and to get all the boys started on homework. While I made dinner we were chatting and got simultaneous phone calls on two different phones from the boys’ schools. It was an automated reminder that the kids will be dismissed early for the rest of the week due to parent/teacher conferences. No biggie there but we can’t figure out why we should even bother getting the boys up to go to school at all.

See Ty and Kara’s oldest son (Big Boy) start school at 8:45 but are being dismissed at 10:45. Zach and Kara’s youngest son (Little Boy) start at 9:45 and are being dismissed at 11:45. What’s the point of any of the kids going for two hours each day? That makes no sense considering the conferences don’t start until noon. Yes, I understand the teachers need a break to get prepared; but then why not just make a day-and-a-half of straight conferences and let the kids attend school the other day-and-a-half? That would be the logical thing, right? I think so and Kara agrees. We don’t get it.

To top that, the automated message told us that next Tuesday all the kids will be dismissed at 2:15 for the Thanksgiving holiday. No problem right? No. The reason they’re being dismissed early, though, is for a “district wide emergency go home drill.” What the fuck is that? They actually have to practice dismissing the kids in case of an emergency? Haven’t they done that before? It’s a procedure in case of inclement weather or other such emergency where schools have to be closed in the middle of the day. But why the need for a drill? I guess there is some sort of procedure the kids have to follow in school but I don’t know what it is. Maybe I’ll ask the boys’ teachers at the conferences.

I’m thinking that, with the boys home early for the next three days, I won’t be getting much done around here. I’ll do some more organizing down here and see if I can’t get a few more boxes unpacked and maybe some pictures hung. I don’t know. It all depends on how they’re behaving and how many times they interrupt me. I do know that we’ll be going through their dressers to weed out the old and don’t fits. I couldn’t even get Ty’s clean clothes in his dresser because they’re so full. His clean stuff is stacked neatly on top of the piano in their room. Yes, they have a full-sized piano. It’s a player piano and it came with the house when Kara bought it. It also can’t be moved because it’s heavier than all get out. But it makes a nice show piece and it’s great for stacking clean laundry. If I had the money, I’d get it tuned and would play a little. I took some piano back in school and remember some. Maybe one of the kids would even want to learn it. Who knows?

So that’s that. I had a day to myself and spent it doing laundry. How nice for me. I think that, next time I know I’ll have some free time, I’ll do all my chores early and spend the rest of the day doing nothing. Maybe, maybe not; I can’t tell right now. The kids will be gone next week. They’re going to their dad’s for Thanksgiving. They’ll be gone from Wednesday evening to Sunday afternoon. What will I do with myself? I don’t really know but if I think of something exciting, I’ll let you know. Right now my brain is too tired to think about it so I’ll let you stop reading and I’ll go find something else to do.

Until next time…peace to all.