My Friday, the Old and the Small of it

So Thursday was hectic, to put it mildly, and I didn't fall into bed until 3:30am. When I had to get up at 6:30 to make sure the big kids were up, well...that was pretty darned early. And were they up? Not so much. Oldest was in the shower, but Middle Child was still firmly tucked into her bed, and when Oldest emerged as I was coming out of M.C.'s room, he snarled at me that he DID wake her up, she just didn't listen to him. (Which may have been true.)

I would've stayed up to help them get out the door, but they were basically surly, snarling, vicious creatures, and I was not too interested in losing a finger to one of them. I retreated back to my room, where the Small One was calling for molebats. (Or something.) I did stick around long enough to be chastised for not waking them up earlier, as now M.C. wouldn't get a shower and Oldest wouldn't finish his lab.

Tried in vain to get the Small One to sleep in, but alas and alack, off we went into our day. Midway through the morning, I got a phone call from the high school, that went something like this:

Man: Mrs. Momtype? This is Dean Importantguy at the high school, and I have your Oldest here in my office.

Me: Mmm hmm?

Man: Yes, well, we are WELL into second period, and he has not been in class, and a teacher found him in the bathroom working on something.

Me: (silence in which you can hear crickets chirping, because I'm not sure I WANT to know what he was working on in the bathroom)

Man: Er... I think it was some kind of homework. (speaks to my child, away from phone) What was it, son? Uh huh. And when was it due? Uh huh. (back to me) It was a lab, and he says he left his book at school and couldn't finish it, and it was due second period. And that's THIS period. But we're WELL into the period and he hasn't been to class.

(And yes, he did mention to me SEVERAL times about which period it was and the fact that he hadn't been to class.)

Me: Mmm hmm, well, I know he was concerned about. So what happens now?

Man: Well, I'm going to have to give him a detention. Because (say it with me, folks) it's well into second period and he hasn't been to class.

Me: So... what does that mean? I have to pick him up late from school?

Man: No, no, it'll be Tuesday, and you'll have to pick him up an hour and a 1/2 late.

Now, at this point I got tickled. Because while I do appreciate being kept in the loop, my son most assuredly would have come home and told me what was going on, because he would've needed a ride on Tuesday. So really, not that important to call me right now, and anyway... what a HORRIBLE offense, right? Doing homework in the bathroom at school- what's next? You know, that's how it starts, and pretty soon they're doing schoolwork at home, and science projects on the bus, and where does it all end, I ask you? Hooligans! So I giggled.

Me: Well, I guess there's really not much chance of getting through high school without ever receiving a detention, huh?

Man: (taken slightly aback) Erm, well, actually, I was surprised to learn he was a senior, because I've never seen him before, and so I thought he might be a transfer student, but he tells me he's been here all four years. (said a bit incredulously, as if the kid had probably just transferred in and was trying to pull one over on the dean)

Me: Yeah, I guess that's because he's usually a pretty good kid. But thanks for keeping me informed.

I hung up, and got a text message from my Oldest about five minutes later that read:

"Yeah, so that pretty much sucked."

Meanwhile, back in toddlerville, my sister-in-law had invited me to come paint handprint tiles with them at a local pottery place. Though I typically think that taking a toddler into a pottery place is about as much fun as taking a fork to my eyeballs, I agreed, because a)it was for the in-laws,b) Small One loves her cousins, and c)I had some things I needed to bring to my sister-in-law, and the pottery place is closer than her house. It was determined that we would meet in the afternoon, after Small's nap.

Only napping was not in the plan for my youngest child. I got her to sleep, and five minutes later she was running through the house, yelling at me in a loud voice. After about an hour of trying to get her back to sleep, I stuck her in her crib (aka "baby cage") so that I might shower, and after 45 minutes of her calling to me from her crib, I took her back out and stayed with her on my bed until she finally dozed off. Of course, this meant that once again I had to break the rules and wake a sleeping baby, but I waited until the last possible moment (and actually beyond the last possible, as I was 30 minutes late) and then fed her lunch in the car.

The pottery adventure? Bit of a nightmare. Have you ever heard the expression "bull in a china shop"? "Toddler in a pottery shop" is, in my opinion, at least that stressful. And not because she's not a good girl, because really, she is, but she did want to take all the breakable things off the shelf, and she didn't want to put her painted hand on the tile in a flat way, but insisted on making it into more of a squid shape, so that it was VERY tricky to get more than her fingertips on the tile. By the time we left that place, I was wiped out. So of course, afterward, we went to a toy store. With two 2 year olds and a 4 year old. Because we are gluttons for punishment.

On the upside, she did demonstrate her rather remarkable intellect in ways that tickled me, both on the drive over, and in the toy store. On the way over, she was playing with various toys, and doing what I call "toddler conjugation". She'd pick something up and say, for instance, "Zebra. Baby's zebra. MY zebra!" and then nod and smile, and move onto the next item. In the toy store, she picked up a cow puppet and said "Oh, wow- a COW! Moooooo, cow! Mommy, cow." and at that last "cow", she did the sign for cow. LOVE her. And when it was time to go, I anticipated a fight, but no, I just suggested that she tell the toys goodbye and she did... individually.

"Bye bye cow! Bye bye, kitty cat! Bye bye monkey! Bye bye, cars! Night night, balls!" (Why the balls got a "night night" instead of a goodbye is anyone's guess.)

And since I mentioned the signing, I'll leave this rather long narrative with the video of my Small One signing, in case anyone on the planet earth has not yet seen it.