End-of-year insanity

Are your children melting down and/or acting out in weird ways? Are they whining on continuous loop like Donald Trump? Mine too.

Do you suddenly find yourself with regular urges to go hermit and hide in your bed, far from all remaining requests to attend school functions, check homework and pack lunches for last field trips? Me too.

Are you exhausted and in utter disbelief that soon you face 14 weeks of summer "vacation"? Of course. We all are, even if we're excited for it.

It is that time of year. School is ending. No one gives a ball about spelling or fractions anymore. Your children have no pants left with both knees intact. Half their socks are missing. Their shoes have holes in the toes, but then again, maybe those help them fit better because really, when was the last time you bought the kids shoes? You let them eat in ways you never will in any given September, simply because you have lost the will to manage anything.

Case in point: Yesterday, at a Memorial Day pool party, Jack ate four hot dogs in buns slathered with an obscene amount of ketchup before inhaling two brownies and a s'more. I "tried" to tell him this wasn't a great combo, much less a wise amount, but did he hear me? No.

Did I step in? Not aggressively.

Did he feel like complete ass afterwards? Yes. 

Meanwhile, I want to sue Percy for emotional distress. Doesn't that damn dog know I have 900 teacher gifts to make? I don't feel like walking him in 85 degree weather. Not because I don't enjoy heat but because I know him, and in said heat, he gets just beyond our gate, rolls on to his back, pants maniacally and refuses to go. 

If we go back inside, the insane bark-fest resumes, and I want to kill him. So, I make him walk but what that really looks like is me dragging a pug on his back around the neighborhood while muttering curse words under my breath. It's ridiculous.

6½ days left, people. For us at least. And the next day Ol gets four more cavities filled which is obviously a superb way to celebrate the end of school. 

May the force be with us all!

Farmers market and a hike

What a great day! The boys and I took one of my favorite friends, G, to the Dupont farmers market as she'd never been. We ate Red Zebra pizzas for breakfast, the boys got cookies and cream popsicles from Pleasant Pops for dessert, and I came home with a flat of strawberries and a million stalks of rhubarb. Plus sorrel, squash blossoms, a buttload of spring chickens and so on.

We cleared out five pints of strawberries alone and with freshly whipped cream tonight after a terrific hike through Battery Kemble.

the boys crossing a fallen log (do y'all love how Jack chose to wear a belt for this hike? bless his heart.

I can do it too!

scaling a downed tree's root ball

Compost salad with farmers market greens for dinner, American Sniper (Bradley Cooper was really good), the paper and now to bed.

Hope y'all are well.

Rambling pride

Tired, so tired.
Happy but…
harried
pooped
Why did that new plant die?
Want to stop,
be calm, quiet, collected
sleep like Rip
Want to belt it out like Linda Ronstadt
or Joan Jett
wish I had their voices.

Feel so young
but I’m not soo
anymore. And I feel that too.

Taught a great class this morning.
Strawberry cardamom.
Took boys out,
one to French,
other to the playground, snowcone, bookstore.

Left with a Lego.
Not a surprise.
Back to French.
“Has he been in French school?”
No.
“Mais, il est tres bien.”
Merci!

Pride.

Home, make dinner.
Share my favorite pasta
with the boys.
Of course, they love it like I do
and now want it tomorrow
and the next day.

Pride swells. Also territorialism.

We want pizza. Out of crusts.
Out of propane. No mozzarella.
Husband goes out, gets all.

Kids build Lego, crash MagnaTiles,
make so much noise. Want me to
watch it all.

I want to read the news.
Did you hear of the horror in DC?
A boy tortured and killed,
just a year older than my J.
His parents and a housekeeper too.
I just can’t.

Pour some wine, roll the crust.
T splurged and bought the best cheese.
Still high on eleven years of
marriage
celebrated yesterday.

Pride.

Hard work, earned happiness.

Pride in it all.