I’m blogging every day this week for the Week In My Life link-up hosted by Kathryn at Team Whitaker.
Another day, another can of soup for breakfast, and everyone’s happy—except that this morning the boys are also asking for bologna. Bologna for breakfast. It sounds like the title of a children’s picture book, and probably one in the 70-percent-off pile.
The best thing about bologna, as it turns out, is biting it into shapes.
Daniel makes his into a star.
Leo makes his into…well…let’s assume it’s the state of Florida. But you and I know he wasn’t using it to teach his brother a geography lesson. And there’s nothing that says, “I’m a great mom,” like turning around and seeing that your son is pretending to shoot a piece of bologna.
It still looks like Florida to me.
I take both boys to school on Wednesday morning, so we head for the car, and then the Buettner Bus is on its way.
Except it’s not. Even before I start the car, something has fallen on the floor and the boys are trying to pick it up. If only we cared about picking up the living room floor this much!
As we pull into Leo’s school parking lot, I’m feeling great about being on time. That’s when I hear Leo say to his brother, “Do you have a nosebleed?”
The answer, of course, is yes. And suddenly we are holding up the entire line of cars dropping off children for school. I have to get our car out of the way, so I make sure the nosebleed is under control, hand Daniel a wad of tissues, and we head to his school.
By the time we get there, his nose seems to be fine, so we go inside. Daniel puts his lunchbox on the cart, and he makes sure he puts it right next to his favorite teacher’s lunchbox. I tell her and she smiles. “He always does that,” she says.
A few hugs and kisses—and an attempt by Daniel to sneak out behind me, giggling the whole time—and we say goodbye. He runs back into his classroom, and I am off to the office for another full day.
My plan is to run lunchtime errands for Leo’s Pokemon birthday party, but somehow lunch comes and goes and I never get away from the office. The work day flies by and soon it’s time to leave to pick up our boys.
When I reach Daniel’s school, he is busy creating a picture of our house on fire and firefighters putting it out. It’s rather dark, but also exciting, and I do love his imagination. I ask where we are in the picture, and he draws us safely in the corner of the paper, far from the burning house.
Then we’re off to get Leo—one of Daniel’s favorite parts of the day. He loves Leo’s afterschool program, and the teachers there treat him like a guest of honor. And they always have something to tell me about Leo.
“Did you know he’s really good at chess?” one of them asks. “He is trying to play the other kids, and no one can do it.”
“I actually can’t play him in chess,” I admit. “I don’t know how to play.”
It’s one of the reasons I like his after-school program. He learns so much from the older students.
The boys want to play on the school playground, and I have to explain that it is dark outside. That silly time change.
As we drive home, Daniel is starving. “Mama, I am so hungry I am going to die,” he says. “I am going to die when I reach 10. 1…2…3….” He makes it to 10 and closes his eyes, giggling the whole time. It’s not very convincing.
I mention that I am going to go out for a little while during the evening, and the boys are appalled.
“No!” Daniel says. “Why do you have to go somewhere?”
“You can go for two minutes,” Leo tells me. “OK, three minutes. Then you have to come home.”
I explain that sometimes parents need to go out and do things. I happen to be going out with two friends—something I rarely ever do, especially because I work full-time, but tonight we have a special reason to celebrate. We planned a fundraiser at Leo’s school and it was successful, or at least it’s over, and we are having a moms’ night out.
Back at home, we notice a ladybug on the kitchen table.
“Can we keep it as a pet?” Daniel asks. It seems safe enough. His father finds a container for it, and puts air holes in the top. Daniel asks me what the bug wants to eat.
“Go find the L encyclopedia,” I say, and he runs off. He comes back with the right one, and we look up ladybugs. We don’t have any aphids, so we drop a piece of rice into the container.
I heat up leftover Chinese food and John announces that they will watch something educational on the iPad during dinner. So they do. And when it’s time for me to leave, I get kisses and everyone is content.
On the way to meet my friends, I turn on talk radio. A few minutes into the news segment, it still isn’t making sense to me. Suddenly I realize they aren’t discussing “delinquent minds,” but rather “delinquent mines.” No wonder I never listen to talk radio.
Dinner is wonderful, full of conversation and guacamole. Yum.
We have a lot of stories to share and much to catch up on. And what better way to do it than at our local Mexican restaurant. There are many ways to celebrate, but I don’t know that you can do better than with a plate of fish tacos.
I look at my watch and realize it’s almost 10 p.m. The restaurant is closing down. All the chairs are on the tables and we are the last people there. Have I ever closed down a restaurant before? I doubt it. But that was our day. And to think…it started with bologna for breakfast.
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