My SH$%%Y Week & Fantasy Football Team

Sunday, 7:00pm: I'm at work, swamped, on hour #5 of a 7 hour shift (typically the number of hours I work in an entire week) on Labor Day weekend. A customer calls me all sorts of names and tells me repeatedly how stupid and awful I am. Then has the audacity to ask me what *my* problem was after I stopped being sweet in return. The man behind him took it all in, and apologized to me for this stranger's behavior. That's how bad it was. I thanked him, bit my lip to fight back tears, and managed to move on until my angel-on-earth GM asks me if I'm okay. I start bawling and can't stop for several minutes. Tip well and be nice, friends.

Monday, 1:00am: I realize that I am severely dehydrated; thanks to the excruciating leg cramps that have awoken me from my sleep. They continue for the next four hours, despite chugging water, using a massage gun, walking (read: hobbling), and a warm bath.

Monday, 5:00am: I get to sleep for the first time.

Monday, 7:00am: I am up for the day.

Monday, 4:00pm: After a trip to the park, board games, and day-off-from-school fun, I head back to work for another 5.5 hour shift; still scarred from last night's interaction and running on 2 hours of sleep. With a terrible headache and sore legs, I promise myself that I will go to bed as soon as I get home.

Monday, 10:00pm: Crawl into the sweet mercy of bed, thankful for a full night of slumber ahead.

Spoiler alert: This is where things turn for the worse.

Tuesday, 12:40am: I am awoken by a 70 pound dog jumping into bed while crying and dry heaving. Quickly remembering that she had not been interested in her dinner and went to bed with an upset tummy, I jumped out of bed and ushered her downstairs and outside. This is where I would spend the next 2+ hours cleaning up vomit, walking the yard with her while she ate grass, hand feeding her small bites, and running back and forth to the door.

2:30am: Cassie and I settle in downstairs; me on the couch and her on a blanket next to me on the floor. 

5:00am: I have a nightmare about a PTA event that does not even happen for another 5 months. My brain knows that it was a dream, my eyeballs know that they want to go back to sleep, but my adrenaline tells me that it's pointless and I should get up to make school lunches and start the day.

8:30am: Drop the big kid off at school. He hops out happily and heads in. I park and get Little Britches out of his seat and ready to head into his classroom. He is silently sobbing, yawning, and telling me through broken breaths, "I just want you, mommy." His saint of a teacher navigates the handoff flawlessly, he holds her hand and calms as they head off to start their day together. I, on the other hand, make it 3 steps and start bawling. I am tired, I have too much on my plate at all times, and I just want to scoop up my baby and snuggle him all day.

9:00am: I return home, Ryan greets me, and asks me if I'm okay. Oh, Ryan. Optimistic Ryan. Sweet, sweet Ryan. Do you see the bags under my eyes? Yesterday's mascara running down my face? Messy bun from 4 days ago hanging on by a single bobby pin?! Things are going great. I'm winning at life right now. Appreciate you asking.

2:00pm: I arrive to preschool pickup, having not been able to nap and also somehow not able to complete anything on my to-do list at home. I get in line and notice that for the 4th consecutive day, my child is wearing a backup pair of shorts. He is making it to the toilet at school, but struggling mightily to keep the pee *contained* to the toilet. Bless these teachers.

3:45pm: Ryan and Clark walk in the door, and the rush begins to get kids fed, Clark changed and out the door for soccer practice, the dog fed, and Linc and I out the door to PTA.

5:40pm: I am getting rapid fire texts from Ryan about Clark being thisclose to being dragged off the soccer field and to the car due to his poor behavior.

5:50pm: Remember that my fantasy football draft starts at the exact moment that PTA should be ending. Get my team page pulled up and ready to go so I can be ready the second the meeting adjourns. Things are turning around. I feel in control and ready to go. Oh, Heidi. Optimistic Heidi. Dumb, dumb Heidi.

5:55pm: A friend I have been trying to recruit to PTA for two years appears as promised, to sit next to me and check things out.

6:00pm: Meeting begins. 

6:45pm: I text our PTA babysitter to ask how things are going. She reports back that things are great and Linc is doing awesome.

6:47pm: She texts again that Lincoln has had an accident.

6:48pm: I shove my computer to my friend-who-is-finally-agreeing-to-her-first-PTA-meeting-ever, tell her I have to go, and ask her to take notes. I know that she was thinking that she had just been tricked into joining a cult and unwillingly became the cult secretary, but she jumped in without hesitation.

6:50pm: I have ran to the car for backup clothes, and sprinted back inside to grab Linc and get him cleaned up. We head to the nearest toilet, which is a student bathroom with the sink outside. I set him on the potty, take his clothes off of him, and grab some soapy paper towels to run back into the stall with and clean him up.

6:51pm: He shifts on the toilet, it automatically flushes, and he screams in terror.

6:52pm: I am trying to clean up a 4 year old on an adult-sized public toilet with soapy wet sandpaper posing as a paper towel. Note to self: Ask PTA to buy Bounty.

6:54pm: He is cleaned up, wet clothes (down to the socks) are in a pile on the floor, and I grab him off the toilet in a hurry to get back to the meeting. He screams, "I STILL WORKING" and I look down to see that he has explosive diarrhea. And I have pulled him off of the toilet. So now it's everywhere. On him, the toilet, the backup clothes, and the floor. Automatic flusher still going off every 4.5 seconds. So helpful to an overstimulated mom in a stressful situation with an upset toddler. And we're both covered in poop.

6:57pm: I track down the babysitter and give her instructions as though she has just been promoted to the head of the Secret Service. I need you to walk into the meeting, find Erica, and tell her I need a youth small shirt. Meeting. Erica. Youth Small Shirt. Return it to me, here, in this public bathroom stall that is now a crime scene. She deserves a raise.

6:59pm: She returns. I have gone through an entire roll of toilet paper, 6 trips to the sink outside, I've stolen a trash bag from the bottom of a trash can to put the biohazard clothing into, the automatic flusher has gone off 82 more times. PTA meeting is still happening upstairs. My phone dings that my fantasy football draft is starting.

7:00pm: Am I in Hell? Is this actual Satan-at-the-helm Hell? It feels like it might be Hell.

7:02pm: Lincoln is clothed in a diaper (that he hasn't worn in a year) that I dug out of the bottom of my car center console. I am pretty sure that only 1 side even has velcro on it. He's also wearing a shirt that just *barely* covers this sorry excuse for a diaper. No pants. No socks. I am holding his hand and running through the parking lot with a garbage bag flung over my shoulder like it is loot that I am robbing from a bank. Only instead of a large sum of money that could really turn this week around, it's 2 full outfits worth of soiled clothing.

7:05pm: I am texting every person I know in the PTA meeting, because the door has locked behind me. We are now stranded outside. Lincoln is in a shirt and a too-small diaper. I smell poop on one (both?) of us. My friend that I have invited to PTA for TWO YEARS has been completely abandoned by me and is typing away on my laptop, doing her damnedest to keep the pieces of my life duct taped together. Also, it's my turn to draft.

7:11pm: We have been let back in, the meeting has wrapped, I have apologized to and thanked my friend repeatedly, I dump ALL of my remaining responsibilities on my fellow board members, shove everything into a bag, and flee with a half-naked toddler. And it's my turn to draft again.

7:22pm: We arrive home, and Ryan asks how PTA went. Oh, Ryan. Sweet Ryan. Unsuspecting Ryan.

7:22pm: I am shouting orders as if we are in actual war. The front door is wide open. "LINCOLN AND I NEED A SHOWER! DOOR NEEDS SHUT. THERE'S POOP IN THE BAG. DO NOT OPEN THE BAG! GET TO THE TUB, LINC. IT'S BEDTIME. I NEED TO CHANGE CLOTHES, AND I THINK I HAVE 4 WIDE RECEIVERS AND NO RUNNING BACKS!!!"

Wednesday, 12:47am: Finished the PTA meeting notes, this blog post & a candy bar, abandoned all hope of winning this fantasy football league, and went to bed.

Y'all pray for me. And someone please trade me a running back!

Garbage Trucks, Stab Wounds, Floods, and Drums

I was feeling fancy yesterday, and wanted to make my family Hasselback potatoes with dinner. Knowing that they would be fairly time intensive, I started working on them as Ryan left to pick Clark up from school. We didn't have any chopsticks, so I grabbed the long grill fork to pierce each potato and use as my cutting guide, ensuring that I would not cut all the way through the potato. Things were going great until that last potato. Whether it was always going to be the last potato, or it became so after the following incident, philosophers will be debating until the end of time.

Ryan wasn't gone from the house for FOUR minutes when he received a video call from me, on the couch, writhing in pain, bleeding, and informing him that I couldn't feel 2 of my fingers. While the grill fork did, in fact, prevent me from cutting all the way through the potato, it did not save me from shoving the grill fork into one side of the potato, out the other side of the potato, and directly into the palm of my hand that was stupidly holding onto the far end of the potato.

I'm fine. Or at least mostly fine. Either luckily or terribly unfortunately, I have also stabbed the same palm with a knife, and didn't have full function of my thumb for a couple months. So, I am experienced in this type of injury. I stopped the bleeding, assessed the fact that I don't need stitches, cleaned the wound, drenched it in neosporin, and covered it with a couple of bandaids. Before you think I'm reckless, I also texted the three people I know who have any experience in the medical field whatsoever, and 2 out of 3 of them said my treatment protocol was "probably fine". 

I made it through the night, hand extremely sore, but otherwise okay. My day today started at 4am, when I just couldn't sleep anymore. Being down to one hand, I figured I could use the extra time to get everything together. Ryan and I have had to postpone our standing date night for several weeks due to various illnesses and crazy weather, but TONIGHT was looking real promising. I knew that the house was in need of some cleaning that I had been putting off, but was feeling pretty confident in my ability to get everything done in 13 hours.

As everyone got up and headed out of the house, Lincoln and I shared some morning snuggles and talked about how today is trash day at our house. Tuesdays are big days around here. We never miss an opportunity to watch big trucks drive up and down our street. He pre-emptively opened the curtains, and then occupied himself with a toy.

While I had a moment, I figured that I better start working on cleaning the kitchen. I organized and scrubbed the counters, disassembled the stove grates and deep cleaned around the burners. I took the grates over to the sink, plugged the drain, and started the hot water so they (and some other large dishes) could soak before getting scrubbed. We have a large kitchen sink that takes a while to fill, so I started the robot vacuum and grabbed Lincoln his morning snack.

As Linc finished his snack, I asked him if he needed to use the potty. He said that he did, and took off running for the bathroom. After I get him situated, I usually leave the door open while I gather a new diaper or pull-up, and get a few things together for him. But today, I noticed how the bathroom sink could probably use a good cleaning. So I stayed with him and cleaned the sink, mirror, and vanity. By that time, Lincoln was done and eager to get his reward. Both of us pleased with our work, we flushed, washed hands, and gathered our things to head to the couch and get him dressed.

It was en route to the living room that I remembered the dishes in the sink that were soaking. I did some quick mental math to calculate how long that water had been running, and then braced myself before looking into the kitchen. Y'all, I now know what it felt like to be on the Titanic. Water was EVERYWHERE.

The sink was completely full, the counters were flooded, and there was enough water on my kitchen floor to have a current. I waded through the water and managed to turn the faucet off, while frantically thinking of a plan for damage control. Meanwhile, Lincoln, naked as a jaybird, ignored my distress and sprinted to the window to wave to the garbage truck he just heard driving down our street.

For anyone not picturing this accurately, *this* is how my naked 3-year-old was greeting our entire neighborhood.

Suddenly, the flooded kitchen wasn't my biggest problem. So, there's that.

I yanked our little streaker off the back of the couch, closed the curtain, and wrangled him into a diaper. None of which are easy tasks with two good hands, so I was struggling pretty hard one handed. There was no time to think of actual clothing, so I cut my losses and let the wild animal run free in nothing but a diaper.

Knowing that I still had to deal with the kitchen, I told Lincoln to head upstairs with me to grab some towels. While up there, he reminded me that he had yet to receive his bribe treat for pooping on the potty. It's usually a handful of mini m&m's, but he knows that we have a couple of drums sitting out in our guest bedroom and asked if he could play the drums instead. Figuring he would need less supervision and had a much lower chance of choking while I would be trying to dry up an ocean on our first floor, I agreed.

Once downstairs and able to consider my options, it was easy to see that I didn't have many. Our hot water is really hot. Like, fires of Mordor hot. I had a sink full to the actual brim of Hell fire hot water, and a river of sudsy water all the way to the dining room. And I have one good hand. And my 3 year old is upstairs beating on the drums as though he's auditioning for Blue Man Group.

Much like my freshly self-inflicted stab wound to my own hand, this is fine.

I threw some towels on the floor and grabbed every large storage container and bowl that was within reach. I started carefully scooping out the still steaming hot water into each container I had - did that include the dog's empty food bowl? Yes, it did. It didn't take long for me to realize that this was a futile effort, and that I needed to get the dishes out of the sink. 

One good hand, standing in ankle deep burning water, with the chorus of 'Wipeout' being poorly played by my half-naked toddler one floor above me. Just a quick recap.

Trying to work smarter (remember how I used the grill fork in place of chopsticks?), I knew that I could not reach my arm all the way to my elbow down into the burning hot sink water to unplug the drain or gather the dishes out. So I found the tongs. And I painstakingly, one-handedly, pulled each stove grate out of the sink with tongs.

As the last grate came out, something happened with the giant crockpot that was also soaking. Something science-y. Water displacement? I don't know, but I'm sure that Bill Nye has a super interesting lesson on it somewhere. The crockpot started to shift, and with it, came massive bubbles. Giant, hot, soapy bubbles are now BILLOWING over the top of the sink. It's Pompeii up in here now.

Thinking that maybe if I start the garbage disposal, the suction might displace the plug (I don't know?!), I quickly turned it on, but heard the only sound in the world worse than a toddler being left unattended with a drumset; the screeching and grinding of some utensil stuck in the garbage disposal. So, that didn't work.

Neither did using the oven mitt. Or the snow shoveling gloves. And I dropped the tongs. 

Left with no other choice, and time not on my side, I gathered up that superhuman strength you hear about when mothers lift cars off their kids, and I stuck my one good hand into the erupting volcano of hot, sudsy water, and retrieved the plug. Mercifully, the water drained. And my husband didn't swing by for lunch in the midst of the ship quite literally sinking.

When he gets home tonight and asks me how my day was, I will be able to truthfully report the following: Lincoln pooped on the potty, I can feel my fingers again, I fixed the garbage disposal, and I mopped the kitchen floor. The rest of this little adventure stays between us, mmmkay?

Bloggable Material

It has been 10 months since I last posted here. That's a long time! I could have grown a whole human baby in that time (I didn't), or finished a year of schooling (nope), or joined crossfit and turned into someone who loves working out (ha ha ha, yeah...no). Every time I start to think about my little corner of the internet here and how I should probably dust off the keyboard, I quickly talk myself out of it and decide that I am too tired, or should be filling my time with dishes and laundry and soaking in my babies because we all know that babies just don't keep. Sometimes, like this week, I tempt fate by uttering something about how nothing really 'bloggable' has happened in my life. And then life knocks me on my a  gives me new material.

Today, I ran into a friend and we exchanged a few quick pleasantries. I apologized for my brevity, as I had no less than 4 metaphorical fires burning across my life that needed my immediate attention, and as I excused myself to leave, she sweetly commented on my hair and how cute it looked. I turned my head around, took a step in her direction, and LAUGHED IN HER FACE. You see, friends, I knew some things that she didn't. Like the fact that the hair she just complimented hadn't been washed in *at least* four days. Or that there were no less than 39 bobby pins shoved into that hornet's nest atop my head just trying to hold it all together. And she had no way of knowing that tonight when I finally prioritized washing my hair, that I could smell the sweat running out of my scalp and down my face before the shampoo ever touched my head. Sidebar: Hi, my name is Heidi, and I'm disgusting sometimes. She didn't know any of that. She just saw me, in front of her, maybe in need of a compliment, and she led with the lens that she sees me through - one in which I have my crap waaaay more together than I really do. 

Here are some other things that she likely didn't know about my week -

Ryan has been planning a trip out of town for the last few weeks. The night before he was scheduled to leave, he had an untimely run in with a bout of the stomach flu. Travel plans had to be postponed, but I still took on the single parent duties so that he could rest and rehydrate. And rest, he did. In fact, my Goldilocks husband rested everywhere he went that day. In our bed, in the guest bed, on the couch, in the chair, and then the other end of the couch. While his body was recuperating, his mouth was BREATHING ON EVERY SLEEPING SURFACE IN THIS HOUSE. All of them. Every single germ-free oasis that I could rest my weary head on was contaminated. That left me with one pillow, a single blanket, and a can of Lysol to work with. 

No stranger to a little sickness in the house, I compartmentalized all of the things that would need laundered, and then quickly got distracted with remembering that it was trash day and we had 2 bags and a recycle bin that needed taken to the curb. Being the strong, independent woman that I am, I slipped on my flats and headed out the door. I would return shortly; barefoot, limping, and bloody, as I had managed to step on a twig that went through my shoe and INTO MY FOOT. 

That left me crippled, bedless, a single parent, and dodging the stomach flu. Perfect. 

I managed to (literally) hobble through the day and the first PTA meeting of the year, get the kids home right at bedtime, and collapsed onto the couch to open my laptop and start organizing the 7 page word document of notes that I had just taken at the aforementioned meeting. I am the PTA Secretary this year, and while I used to be a near prodigy in all things Microsoft Office, I have been out of the professional world for the last 4 years, and my rust is definitely shining through. It is super important to me that I do a good job for the school and my fellow PTA officers, so I refused to close my eyes until the notes were organized and edited and uploaded to the shared drive for review. 

Right as I was giving it a final look before sending it off with any glaring mistakes, I noticed that there was a single rogue bullet point on the screen where it should not be. Fast forward to me trying every single editing trick that I already knew, reformatting the entire document, and googling next-level editing tricks. I had tried everything. Literally everything that I, the help icon in Windows, and Google collectively knew to try. None of it worked, and now it was personal. Every ounce of my self-worth was hanging on by a thread, in the form of a bullet point that couldn't be deleted. 

It was at this point that I found myself silently crying on the couch while my foot soaked in epsom salt, and absolutely inhaling the last of the quick dinner I had made myself after realizing that I had only consumed 190 calories in the last 11 hours. A last bite, a deep breath, and a wipe of the screen later, I was ready to dive back into solving the problem. Wait. Where did it go? It's missing. The bullet point that I have waged a war against and spent the last 90 minutes trying to destroy is gone. WHERE DID IT GO?!? 

It went on my finger. Because it was a flake of black pepper that must have flown off of my fork and onto my laptop screen over an hour and a half ago. 

And I told the universe that I didn't have any bloggable events in my life! That's how you end up sleeping in a chair, clinging to a bottle of lysol, walking around with part of a tree in your foot, and nearing a complete mental breakdown over a single flake of pepper.

If you see a woman with her hair in a 4 day old bun, frantically trying to solve a million life problems at once, just give her a compliment, okay? And remind her to wipe off the screen before she smashes her brand new laptop into 300 pieces.

Hair in a bun and soaking in my babies, because babies don't keep

Smoked Ribs, Fried Brain

I'm tired, y'all. Lincoln has been waking up at midnight for two weeks, both of my kids have pink eye, I'm remembering speech appointments for Lincoln and dress up days for Clark, I have groceries to buy and meals to make, and I'm trying to be Susie The School Volunteer. I. Am. Tired.

If you take nothing else from this post, know that I'm attempting to function under extreme conditions while trying desperately not to catch or further spread conjunctivitis. My brain power is at full capacity.

Today was long. We picked Clark up as a family, ran some errands, and made it to my happy place (the plant store 🪴) just as the skies let loose in a torrential downpour. After perusing and making my choices, we made a run for the car with 2 kids, a flimsy umbrella, a 20 pound diaper bag, and a cardboard box full of plants, pots, and soil. By the time we made it inside the car, the box was crumbling and we were all soaking wet.

As we traveled home, we realized that it was nearly dinner time, and we were all pretty tired. The rain was subsiding, so after we got the kids and car unloaded, I told Ryan that I'd go check and see if a BBQ food truck that he likes was open, and grab dinner to bring home. 

At the exact moment that I pulled into the parking lot, the Heavens opened and dumped buckets of rain everywhere. Having upgraded to a sturdier umbrella while I was home, I was confident that I'd be fine. I hopped out of the car and headed to order. While standing there, I discovered that they must park in the lowest point of the entire parking lot, as my boots and socks were rapidly filling with cold, dirty rainwater.

Bless the woman in the food truck who was trying to help the vegetarian woman order BBQ for her entire family. She even helped me maneuver the checkout system, as I'm too short to reach up that high. 🤦‍♀️

I ran back to the car to wait for my order and excitedly text Ryan that they were there, open, and had ribs. That's the holy trinity of food truck BBQ! A few moments passed, she called out my order, I waded through calf-high water with a current, and retrieved dinner for my family. Feeling like Superwoman.

Once settled back into the car, I put the keys in the ignition, turned them, and...nothing except the radio turned on. I knew that obviously my battery was working, because I had lights and music, and assumed that I just hadn't turned the key far enough. So I tried again. Same result. Hmmmm. Maybe I need to take my keys out and start over. Which would have been a decent idea if I could have gotten my keys out, but they were STUCK.

I have encountered this a few times in my driving career, so I calmly moved the steering wheel around a few times and jiggled my keys again. They weren't budging. I continued this dance of turning the keys all the way forward, all the way back, move the steering wheel, jiggle keys, huff with exasperation, think for a few seconds, and turning the keys again for a solid five minutes. 

My next step in problem solving was Google. It literally holds all the information on earth. I input a couple searches, skimmed the answers, and found that the good people of the internet don't have many more ideas in this situation than I had already tried. 

Soaking wet from literal head to toe, hot and sweaty from wrestling with my entire steering column, and near tears, I called Ryan. He ran through a couple things I had already tried, I tried them again with him on the call, and then we started brainstorming. He was at home with 2 kids and 1 carseat. I had 2 carseats and a disabled car, in the pouring rain, with food that I don't eat getting colder by the second. 

Nearing a complete mental breakdown to accompany this weird half breakdown of my car, I threw my hands in the air and gave up. I told Ryan "I don't understand. My battery isn't dead - I have lights and music when I turn the key. I can turn them off by pulling the key all the way back toward me. I've moved the steering wheel every direction that it goes. My keys are locked into the ignition, but the engine won't turn on. WHAT DO I DO?!" He very calmly ran through the list of things I had tried, and briefly hesitated (assuredly debating whether he was risking divorce by asking his exhausted, stressed, panicked wife the question that he was considering) before saying, "...and the car is in park?"

Y'all!!!! MY CAR WASN'T IN PARK. I had driven up, and apparently just pulled my keys out of the ignition without taking it out of drive!! Of course, the engine won't start and automatically be in drive, risking the lives of all around. Point, you, car makers of the world.

I'm tired. Like spend-15-minutes-fighting-to-get-my-keys-out-of-the-ignition-without-checking-to-be-sure-the-car-was-in-park tired. Enjoy this photo of Clark eating marginally cold ribs while I go to bed at 7pm and sleep until Monday.

Nine Days, Zero Naps

We're officially 2 weeks into the school year, and the Sloans are over here thriving surviving. Today concludes the first full week of school, and we are tired. Not like a normal tired, either. Like the-6-year-old-was-begging-to-go-to-bed-at-4:30pm-tired. 

Over the last nine days, we have endured the following:

- Agreeing to allow Clark to make one purchase from his Amazon wish list if he completed a full week of good reports. 

      - 42 separate conversations about the exact moment he'd be allowed to complete the purchase.

      - Finding a desired toy for $10, telling him he could buy 2, and then finding out there was only 1 left in stock. There were tears, friends. We prevailed and found a similar toy for $30, but there was some confusion and we didn't discover until checkout that he thought he could get 2 of this item as well, but mom thought $60 was too much. There were wails, friends. Finally, we found a $15 *and* a $10 toy and we both made it out of negotiations alive. 

- The school pickup line.

        - It's tough on these streets, y'all. And the parking lot. And the turn lane. And the exit lane. And the one way streets. Parents are the worst example of getting in line and waiting your turn that I have ever seen. And these poor teachers, exhausted from a long day of dealing with our offspring, now have to stand in the blazing sun and direct traffic while diffusing hissy fits from parents who are sitting in AIR CONDITIONED cars. It's the most bonkers thing I've ever seen.

        - We are supposed to put neon lime green signs in our front passenger window that has the name(s) of our child(ren) so the already overworked school staff can grab the right kid(s) and get them into the right vehicle. Name shaming the random consonants that people have thrown together and put on a birth certificate is my new favorite game.

        - My kid is 6. With a backpack half his bodyweight. He is tasked with getting into the car, getting the door shut, and getting himself buckled faster than a NASCAR pit stop. Because I am a decent human being, I don't like to leave the parking lot until my precious cargo is safely buckled, so I drive past the rest of the waiting cars and pull off to the side until I hear the click that tells me he's safe and we can go. I looked in my rearview mirror, pulled forward, and then heard the roar of an engine propeling a car next to me, speeding *directly* toward a staff member directing traffic, before cutting me off and forcing me to slam on my breaks to avoid an accident. Congratulations, dude. You just played chicken with a kindergarten teacher and risked all of our lives to pass a HONDA CIVIC and gain 1 car length. Also, your kid has a dumb name. 🙄

- No Naps & A Mid-Week Urgent Care Visit. 

         - Lincoln loves naps. The mere mention of a nap produces a huge smile on his face as he races toward the stairs and signs "I Love You" to anyone left behind. I have been looking forward to getting to partake in these naps since we made the decision to send Clark to in-person learning. So of course this is the week that Lincoln chooses to boycott daily sleep. THIS IS NOT WHAT I WAS PROMISED!!

         - Clark developed a deep, wet, nasty cough that appeared right after we ordered our food at a crowded restaurant. So we're the jackholes who took a hacking kid to infect the entire building. 🤦‍♀️ 

- The desire to do everything.

       - Clark has played soccer twice through a local sports organization, and the experience has been pretty terrible both times. Ever the optimists and against our better judgement, we decided we would give flag football a try through the same organization. I emailed first to be *sure* that they have enough coaches this year, and was assured that they do. We signed him up, they charged us 4 separate registration fees, and emailed to let us know he's on a team without a coach. Ryan is a saint and agreed to attend a coaches meeting to see if it's something he's comfortable taking on. Exactly 3 people showed up, and one of them was under the impression that this league of 1st graders is the NFL Combine.

       - In one week's time, I have joined the PTA, secured a corporate sponsorship, and volunteered to do some snack shopping for the school each month. Lincoln volunteered to look adorable, shop with me, & charm the amazing school office staff. 💕

I'm not going to get that nap, am I??

Fear, Loathing, and First Grade

Do your best. Stay focused. Move with urgency.

These are the goals that Clark and I identified for this school year. This school year, where for the first time, he will not be with me all day. To say I've been dreading this day is not accurate. I've been *consumed* by it. 

He's my first baby. The baby we prayed for, the baby who I quit my job to stay home with before he became a big brother and started school, and the baby who we checked on each night in his crib to be sure he was still breathing... until he wasn't a baby anymore. I still check on him every night. Just to be sure.

Tomorrow, that baby who now stands 3 feet tall, talks from sun up to sun down (Lord, be with his teachers!) about everything under that same sun, is missing 2 front teeth, has a nose dotted with the cutest freckles, and is sporting a mohawk with a lightning bolt shaved into the side of his head, will get out of my car and walk into school without me. Ryan tells me that I'll then drive my car home and wait until it is time to pick him up, but I have already made peace with the fact that I'll be forcibly removed from the parking lot.

Ryan and I decided before Clark was born that we would not teach our children to be afraid. We acknowledge all feelings as valid, and we have allowed him the space to say all the things he's feeling about school that don't fall under the happy/excited umbrella that we as a society expect 6 year olds to embody. We've talked for hours this summer about how it's okay to be nervous, scared, and sad about not being home this year, but we've also done our best to keep *our* feelings out of his world.

We have saved our sadness, fear, anxiety, and general doom and gloom for each other and for you. Welcome to our pity party. Tissues are on the left, and emotional support chocolate is on the right. 

Knowing how Clark was feeling about the changes ahead, we worked together to come up with a motto that we can have for the year and I can say to him each morning at drop off: Do your best. Stay focused. Move with urgency.

Do your best. Clark is going to do awesome. He's a smart, kind, and funny kid. He's been excited to make friends and to have specials like gym and art for two years (I'm a decent 'core subject' homeschool teacher, but PE and art have *never* been my thing). He excels in academics, he has been practicing how to introduce himself, and he is good about remembering his manners. His best is amazing. 

I'm going to do my best, too. I'm going to do my best to encourage him and not let him see my sadness. I'm going to do my best to let him be 6 and make mistakes and then make them right. And I'm going to do my best to generally just get out of his way.

Stay focused. Oh, Lord. This is my child who has to start his bedtime routine one full hour before lights out just to have a prayer of making it there on time. "Go to your room and get in pajamas" usually takes 20 minutes, two calls to the Alexa device in his room that he *always* answers with "Sorry, mom! I got distracted.", and all of my remaining patience for the day. He can do hard things (like staying on task), and I will keep reminding him of this. 

I'm going to stay focused, too. Focused on the growth that Clark is going to experience and how his independence will continue to expand. Focused on the confidence that I'll surely see sprout up in him. And I'll stay focused on my time with Lincoln, who has never experienced being the only kid in the house.

Move with urgency. I've always been the kind of person who rushes through tasks so that they can be finished and I can have the rest of whatever time is left to myself. And I think it's both science and law that people like me have to marry and procreate with people like Ryan, who doesn't crack open a suitcase to start packing until we should have already left for the airport. And like his dad, Clark can...delay. I'm convinced that the house could be on fire, and Clark would find a reason to LEISURELY walk around in literal circles, holding onto something that needed to be thrown away 10 minutes ago, and looking for his other sock... that's also in. his. hand. 

I'm going to move with urgency, too. Both from the parking lot so that I might make it off school grounds before sobbing (or landing a misdemeanor trespassing charge), and throughout the rest of the school year. I'm going to move with urgency and excitement when it's time to pick him up and hear about his day. And I'm going to move with urgency in our time together after school, too. I'm going to be quicker to set my phone down, ignore the laundry, and sit on the floor with both of my babies.

It's here, y'all. First grade waits for no one. He's ready, but I'm going to need more emotional support chocolate. 

 

Clark Started Online Kindergarten (And Other Things That Are Okay)

Clark started kindergarten this week. It didn't go the way any of us had imagined it happening. He didn't need to set an alarm (because he was awake, dressed, and standing next to my side of the bed at 6:40am. I sent him to play with legos in his room and I went back to sleep for another full hour.), there was no bus to catch, backpack to unpack, or desk to find. Instead, we got up, walked downstairs, ate breakfast, brushed teeth, sat back down at the table, and opened up a chromebook.

We as parents have all had difficult decisions to make over the last 18 months. Not one of us has emerged from pandemic life unscathed. If you hear nothing else from my words, please hear this: I see you, I hear you, and I know it has been hard; whether you made similar parenting choices to ours, or the complete opposite. 

After months of nightly discussions, tracking covid numbers in our community, discussing our options with our school and our pediatrician, and a whole lotta prayer, Ryan and I made the decision to start Clark in online learning. Y'all, I have seen less of a fuss made when someone announces that they are joining a cult than I saw when we told people that our five year old would be spending the first 10 weeks of kindergarten learning on a chromebook.

The dialogue usually goes a little something like this: we are asked about Clark starting school. Then the room turns into Who Wants to be a Millionaire: the lights dim, save for one bright, blue-tinted, hot spotlight shining directly into our face. Regis, God rest his soul, looks us dead in the eye and asks us "is that your FINAL answer?", there is a long pause, everyone is uncomfortable, we are silently doubting our answer, and then mercifully, the person we are conversing with decides whether we made the correct selection or not. A few times during this summer-that-seems-to-have-lasted-for-six-years, we have experienced the proverbial studio lights come back on, we are praised for our correct response, and we all joyfully move on.

That scenario, friends, is not the one I choose to write about today. Because if we have learned anything from this little corner of the internet, it's that in the awkward and uncomfortable moments of my life, there's usually some pretty funny material in there if we dig hard enough.

The response sequence that Ryan and I have most often found ourselves in is as follows: the person we are conversing with slowly and quietly repeats the word "online" to themselves, over and over again while we stand there quietly, nodding and smiling, and waiting for our conversation partner to scan their brain for socially acceptable words that seem to always escape them in this part. After what feels like seven full minutes of silence, they usually perk up as if they have just thought of the most supportive answer, smile, and in every. single. case we have experienced, their voice jumps up an octave as they exclaim, "well, that's okay!"

It is at this point that their inner monologue becomes audible for the whole room. We watch as they desperately try to find another supportive sentence to follow up that groundbreaking statement of acceptance that they just expressed to us. If you can get past the skin-melting awkwardness of it all, it really is the funniest thing I have witnessed since my binge viewing of 'Schitt's Creek' during the first quarantine.

Listen, I know that this decision is not a terribly popular one. Ryan and I agonized over it, and questioned ourselves and each other as if we were quizzing the other one on our plotted bank heist to be sure there are no holes in our story (sidebar: if you ever need to rob a bank and your choices for a partner have woefully led you to the Sloan residence, pick me. I'm a terrible liar, I get all sweaty when I'm nervous, and I'd probably demand way too little money to make it worth anyone's time, but I'd still last longer under interrogation than Ryan.). But, it is our decision, and one that I assure you, we have not taken lightly. We are fully prepared that if Clark becomes a 3rd grade dropout who can be found smoking cigarettes in an alley behind a 7-11, we'll know that it was definitely this decision where things took a turn.

Can you imagine if we all just started responding to other peoples' life choices with a combination of condolences and resignation for their future?! 

Person 1: 'Hey Sloans, I'm getting married to this person that I love!" 

Sloans:

Sloans:

Sloans: 'Well...that's okay!"

Person 2: 'Hey Sloans - I got my hair cut!'

Sloans:

Sloans: 'Well...that's okay! It'll work out. Probably..."

Person 3: 'Hey Sloans! I'm pregnant!"

Sloans:

Sloans: (smile fades)

Sloans: 'Well...hmmm...well, that's okay! I'm sure it will be fine! You have probably considered the lifelong consequences of this decision, and somehow landed on this one, but...yeah! We're saying it with enthusiasm to try to make ourselves more comfortable!'

Friends, it has been a long, hard year and a half of isolation. People-ing was hard enough before we had to consider masks, 3-or-6-feet-of-distance, and which-kind-of-learning-model we each enrolled our kids in. I know we are all doing our best, and it is less-than-ideal no matter how you slice this gooey shit sandwich we find ourselves living in. I think most of us are doing our best to re-enter society and feign excitement and support over each other's wrong decisions.

So anyway, Clark started kindergarten. It didn't go the way any of us had imagined it happening, and that's okay. Just like your hair.