Tag Archives: law school

The Back-to-School Curse

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willa_sick_birdie_0814

Still Life with Dog and Sick Kid

Things have gone from bad to worse at the MommyEnnui residence. I don’t know why it always catches me off guard when things go horribly awry at the beginning of the school year. I really should write, “Don’t celebrate yet! The shit’s about to hit the fan!” in my calendar on the first day of school every year.

I already knew last week was going to be difficult. It was the second week of school, we have a new puppy and Ad Man was scheduled to be out of town for several days. That meant that I’d have to get two sleepy, stubborn kids up at the crack of dawn, supervise their morning routine, make lunches and have the girls ready to get on the bus at about 5 minutes past the crack of dawn. I also had to simultaneously get a sleepy, stubborn puppy outside to go potty, somehow convincing her of the urgency of the matter, and then keep her from chewing on the children while they tried to avoid getting ready for school.

We managed to do it, despite a few mini-meltdowns by Biggie and Smalls over the outfits they’d picked out themselves just the night before and complaints about their breakfast which would have been deemed disgusting and inedible no matter what I put in front of them. Surprisingly, Birdie cooperated, contentedly spending time in her crate when I couldn’t follow her around at every moment. I tried not to make eye contact with her for fear of breaking the trance.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing though. This was the first week of homework for Smalls and, borrowing from her sister’s playbook, she cried, whined and ended up doing a half-assed job of it each afternoon. Biggie, on the other hand, was delighted that for once, her sister was the drama queen. She took advantage of the rare opportunity to be the “easy child” by being excessively cooperative and pleasant. Both girls have gotten really good at capitalizing on the other’s foul moods. Generally, it’s Biggie throwing a fit and Smalls smiling sweetly at me, saying, “I love you soooo much, Mommy!” These kissing-up skills should serve them well in their careers someday.

When Smalls got off the bus the next day complaining of a headache and stomach ache, I assumed she’d just developed an allergy to homework. I told her to go lay down in her room if she wasn’t feeling well. After about a half an hour of helping Biggie with homework, I realized that Smalls still hadn’t emerged begging for snacks and began to get concerned. I discovered her asleep in her room with the covers over her head, soaked in sweat. Yep…she was running a fever. At this point, I ran outside, shook my fist in the sky and yelled, “Noooooooo!!!” OK, maybe that part only happened in my head.

It turned out, I had my darling Smalls home with me for the rest of the week and through the beginning of this one. We spent long days watching High School Musical, High School Musical 2, Camp Rock, Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam, Princess Protection Program, Freaky Friday and much, much more. If I see one more Disney Channel star, I’m going to lose my freaking mind!

After 2 trips to the doctor, 2 strep tests, 1 mono test, lots of poking, prodding and pleading for a prescription for antibiotics (that would be me), it turned out that it was just a really nasty virus. Ugh…virus. That word dreaded by parents everywhere because it means you are officially powerless to do anything but wait until the virus is damn good and ready to release your kid from its evil clutches. Poor Smalls was stuck with the thing for 6 days.

Oh, and how could I forget the best part? On Fever Day 2 while Ad Man was still out of town, I had Birdie out to attempt a walk. This time, she took a few steps then planted herself on our neighbor’s uphill yard refusing to leave. I ended up carrying her down a set of uneven steps and twisted my ankle so badly I was sure it was broken. I hobbled home carrying the dog (who’s 20 lbs. now, by the way) and immediately iced my ankle while watching it swell up and turn purple. So, there I sat crying with a erratic, potty-training puppy, a sick child and a husband in Texas not returning my texts or calls. Because, you know, that’s how we roll here at MommyEnnui headquarters.

Without access to my absentee husband, I turned to Facebook for support. The best advice came from my friend S who recommended “B.R.I.C.E.”…bourbon, rest, ice, compression and elevation. Many other friends offered their sympathy and asked if they could do anything to help. Those from far away generally just said they were looking forward to a blog post about the whole debacle. So, this is for you heartless bastards.

On the morning of Day 7, I limped to Smalls’s room to check her temperature. Suddenly, the heavens opened up and rays of golden sunshine pooled on her IKEA rug. (Now that I think of it, that could have been dog pee, but I digress.) Once the room cleared of fluffy, white clouds and angels’ wings, I was able to focus on the thermometer stuck in Smalls’s ear which clearly read 98.6! (That’s 37 degrees Celsius for you Europeans with your fancy metric system.)

My joy overflowed, but after 6 days of vegging on the couch watching TV in her pajamas, Smalls was a little less thrilled with the idea of dashing off to school. Regardless, to the school bus she went! I celebrated by sitting on the couch acting as a buffer between Birdie and the furniture, quietly drinking my tea, and watching something (anything!) other than Nick Jr. I actually left the house to sit in a coffee shop with other adults and begin this blog post. I grabbed some groceries and headed home to the dog. It was a wild day of freedom.

Throughout the afternoon, I hatched big plans for the next day. I was super excited to finally get back to my favorite morning hot yoga class. I laid out my clothes and put all my gear in the lovely, as yet unused, yoga bag my step-mom gave me months ago. I planned to finish this post and finally get it up on the blog. I was also going to make one of the zillion tasty recipes I’ve posted on Vegetarian Mamas recently but hadn’t been able to make with a new puppy and sick kid all up in my grill. I crawled in bed that night knowing that Ad Man would soon be home and feeling optimistic for the first time in a long time.

Same Couch, Different Kid

Same Couch, Different Kid

The following morning, I awoke with the sun…and the whining dog and the prodigal husband attempting to pry the children out of bed. When I stumbled out into the kitchen relieved to see Smalls still looking perky, Biggie moaned, “Mommy…my head hurts.” I held my breath as Ad Man stuck the thermometer in her ear, glanced at it and then turned to me with a look of such pity, it sent me into a complete psychotic breakdown.

I don’t remember much after that other than hearing Ad Man’s faint voice from far above the deep, dark place to which I’d sunk. I’m pretty sure he said, “I’ve got to go to work…you know, that place where people praise and throw money at me for a job well done. How’s that law degree working out for you? Oh, by the way, I have to go to San Francisco for a couple days next week.” Or something like that.

Girls, Girls, Girls

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jackie_amy_wineFrom childhood through my late 20s, I was the kind of girl that preferred the company of boys and men.  I wasn’t really a tomboy, but I would rather hang out in the living room with my boy cousins and all my uncles watching football than sitting in the kitchen with all the ladies. That may have been different if I’d had girl cousins my age, but in the absence of a female partner-in-crime, I generally stuck with the guys.

My best friend in preschool was a boy.  I still have a number of close guy friends from high school.  In college, I lived with my boyfriend and his two male roommates.  I ate meals with them (quite often straight out of a pan), helped to soundproof their band’s practice space, and published a punk rock fanzine with them.

In hindsight, I wonder if my social anxiety played a part in my avoidance of groups of girls and women.  I often found them intimidating.  Men tend to be more than happy with a surface-level depth to their friendships.  “Wait, you like drinking beer and listening to Nirvana?! Me too!” and suddenly they’re friends.  Being friends with women, on the other hand, generally requires more presence and participation.

But, something changed as I got older and had children.  Suddenly, I had this connection with other women that went far beyond the watching-football-together friendship I had with the guys.  I even felt more connected with my mother and grandmother, even though they’d both died before I had Biggie, simply because we’d shared the same experiences, albeit in different times.  I think one of the reasons my female friends are so important to me is because I don’t have my mom to lean on for advice about all the things she experienced before I did…being married, being a mother, facing the horrors of having teenagers and of entering middle age. Not that I would have taken her advice, of course.

mel_jackie_2013I now have the most amazing group of women friends any gal could ask for.  I’m still very close with my best friend from grade school and high school though we now live on different coasts.  My law school friends are friends for life.  And, I couldn’t function without my “sister-wife” who I’m so lucky to have living right next door.  It’s pretty unusual, but I didn’t meet the majority of my closest friends until after college, some in just the last few years.

There are just some things only your girl friends will do for you.  They hold your hair back when you puke and have your back when someone treats you like crap.  They’ll listen to your most intimate questions and tell you it’s totally normal (or not, and tell you to get your ass to the doctor!).  They won’t judge you when you feed your kids mac n’ cheese for the 4th night in a row or when you pour a glass of wine at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. They’ll know you’re kidding when you say you want to murder your spouse or kids or mother-in-law, but if you actually did murder someone, they’d totally help you hide the body.

This past weekend, my friend D had me and a group of other friends up to her family lake house for a girls’ get-away.  I’d met a couple of the others just briefly in the past, but I wouldn’t say I knew them well.  The rest of the ladies, I’d never met before.  We did things that men typically do when they get together, like drinking far too much, playing hilarious and potentially offensive card games, talking about work (or lack thereof) poking the logs in the fireplace and sitting on the deck staring contentedly at the lake.

But, we did other things I just can’t imagine the guys doing.  We cooked and ate delicious meals including salads and desserts, not just charred meat on the grill, we watched ‘Dirty Dancing’ (oh yes we did), we hung out in the hot tub, read trashy magazines, laughed until we cried and even did a little painting, which I hadn’t done since art school.  By the end of the weekend, we’d discussed everything from the challenges of raising a child with autism to our preferred method for bikini-area landscaping.  We bonded fast and hard. Seriously, it was like a really swank sleep-away camp.  And, I loved every girlie minute of it!