While getting ready for church this morning, I noticed that my 17 year old daughter was wearing something which falls into the “Iffy” category. I made a comment:

“Kait, pull up your shirt. I can see too much.”

She responded “Mom, if I pull up the front of my shirt, you can see my butt. So…which crack do you prefer to see?”

“Oh I don’t know… why don’t we go ask your dad?”

“Fine. I’ll change!”

She cracks me up alright.

There is no such thing as preventable stress when you have to wake seven children in the morning. Every single day they all go through the five stages of grief:

Denial- “Honey, wake up. It’s time for school.
18 and life You got it
18 and life you know
Your crime is time
and it’s 18 and life to go…”

[Slight movement at first then copius amounts of facial contortions] “Nnooo it’s not. It can’t be. I just went to sleep a minute ago.”

Anger- “You need to get up now. I woke you up five minutes ago and you’re not getting out of bed. I don’t want you to be late for school.”

“Why do even half to go to school anyways? It’s stupid!”

Bargaining- “Mom…please…just give me five more minutes and I promise to get up.”

“Okay buddy, I’ve let you sleep for a total of ten extra minutes now. GET UP!”

“Just let me stay home from school for today and I’ll clean out the fridge and clean both bathrooms.”

Depression- “You’re going to school. You have one minute to get your freckled butt out of bed.”

“Ugh.” [throws covers over head and turns away from me]

“38…37…36…”

Acceptance- “FINE! I’m getting up. Now leave me alone !”

I hate mornings.

Are mothers ever short on cute things her kids have said? I think not and so here’s the verbal equivalent of you having to sit through one of my vacation slide shows. Today’s showcase features Elly Joy, without whom this world would be a much more joyless, quiet place:

Recently Elly overheard me ask my father a question:

“Dad, do you remember what gun I used to shoot skeet when I was in gun safety class?”

“That was a while back, Jennine. I don’t remember.”

Elly, with a horrified expression, asked “Mom? Who was Skeet?”

Once, during the potty training days, Elly ran to the bathroom, pulled down her pants, struggled onto the toilet and…um…fluffed. She looked at me with wide eyes and said:

“Mom! My butt just sneezed!!!”

Half way through a long family walk:

“Mom, my feet are running out of gas but my mouth still has a full tank!”

During an extended illness of mine, Elly- discouraged with my lack of teaching, said:

“May I please call 1(800) EDUCATE so SOMEONE will teach me how to read??”

On the phone with someone whom I will not mention by name:

“No. She can’t talk right now. She just ran into the bathroom and went in the tub with her shoes on and told me to tell you she’s in the shower.”

Momma’s lil drama queen. One day this kid will have her name in lights. You heard it here first.

Up until last year I homeschooled our children. From September 1993 until September 2005 I taught them all how to read and write, to think independently and be self motivated. I taught them the names of all the planets, the colors of the spectrum, multiplication tables, long division, the history of the world, civics, and countless other subjects.

Then along came Geometry and it’s gruesome cousin, Physics.

I found out then what kind of homeschooler I was when my eldest approached higher math. I’m the kind who knows her limits. You see, I do pretty well coming up with answers before the contestants on Jeopardy. I’m usually spot on when it comes to answering the daily question found in coffee shops. I know things like “Turtles can breathe out of their butts” and “A chemical reaction occurs when I leave Isaiah and Daniel alone in a room”. I’m just smart that way. But ask me to figure out the volume of a sphere and I develop an instant facial tick and a persistent stutter. J-just thinking about it is p-painful.

So we enrolled the kids in public school and I pretty much just washed my hands of the whole “parents are teachers” thing. I just want to be the one who kisses boo-boos and makes chocolate chips cookies as they arrive home on the big yellow blessing bus. I had visions of bon bons dancing in my head as I fantasized about my new “public school mom” days.

Ha!

Tonight we scooped the kids up from the Blessing stop. We drove about 40 miles to watch our “I’m-forever-going-to-talk-like-Eeyore” son play JV football before driving another 40 miles back to the elementary school’s Open House. From there we went home. Home means taking your shoes off, pouring something nice to drink and sprawling on the couch while watching the early news as the children get ready for bed on their own.

Yeah…in Bon Bon Land maybe.

What I heard at 9:30 pm was “Mom, I need help doing my homework” in stereo from my 6th grader and 9th grader. I shouted:

WHAT? I’m not homeschooling anymore! I ain’t yer teachur.
I’m yer mom and I only kiss owies and make PB& whatever-we-have-in-the-fridge sandwiches. My tax dollars pay for your teachers to teach you
and god knows you’re at school long enough during the day to learn to spell the
word “misspell” in one sitting! You mean I have to sit here and help you
with your homework because your teacher encourages you to involve your parents
in your education? I’m going to be guilted by the NEA into “A book before bed
keeps the short bus away” mentality? I’ve read aloud about all the books I’m
going to read aloud. From now on, I’m only reading to myself.

But I d-didn’t shout aloud. I only shouted on the inside. And only because I am just really tired.

Instead I sat down and patiently taught my ch-children because the truth is… homeschooling never ends. It’s just what parents do.

Yesterday was my first day as Lunch Lady. I’ll admit to being overwhelmed with the trial by fire. I would much rather have been trained in for several days before school started but nope. I got one day of “This is how you turn on the deep fryer. Now go deep fry.”

Part of the issue is that my two oldest children attend this high school and I really don’t want to be a source of embarrassment to them any more than I already am by just being at their school every day. I want to be the fun lunch lady who tells funny stories and always has time to smile and chit chat. I want kids to say “Kait! You’re mom is so cool!”

Ha!

Who am I kidding?

When I get stressed, I get really quiet. I’ve been told that sometimes when I’m concentrating really hard on a task, I stick my tongue out the corner of my mouth. Not exactly the cool mom image I want to portray. And then there’s the uniform issue. No hair nets, thank God, but picture if you will, tearing open a bag of skittles and those are the colors we wear in the lunchroom. It’s nice and bright and cheerful but I automatically look like a hospital paitent wearing jewel tones. Combine that with the fact that I probably look better in a hair net than a baseball cap and we have instant insecurity.

Insecurity is so uncool.

Kevin came home last night and I made the mistake of asking him if any of his friends teased him about me being there.

“So and So said that you were really slow. I told him that it was your first day and said ‘Duh! She’s gonna be slow’ but then he said ‘No, Dude, she was REALLY slow’.”

My poor kids.

This morning I woke up determined to be much faster. I fixed my hair extra cute and rolled up the sleeves on my uniform shirt and set out to deep fry faster than anyone had ever deep fried before. And I did! I had kids moving so fast through the line. Everyone was smiling at me and things were going great! I was on top of the world until Kait approached me during the second lunch period with a horrified look on her face.

“OMG MOM! Your zipper is down.”

Uh huh. It was down and the blinding neon tee shirt was showing so that it was absolutely unmistakable.

I’m not asking Kevin if he got teased today. I don’t want to know.