Serenity Now

I like reading Jo(e) because she writes about enjoying quiet moments communing with nature. That’s so not my life right now.

A couple of weeks ago, I was rubbing my hands together with the prospect of lots of time. I would have two kids in school and a smaller teaching load. There was going to be vast buckets of time to play around with. Time to plan meals, exercise, read. Maybe I could even soup up the blog and finally decide if this is a personal or a political blog. Dream on, blog girl.

Since school started, I have been busier than ever. The boys came home
with a folder of paperwork after the first day. I had to fill out six
hundred emergency forms with the identical information.The nurse, the
teacher, and the board of education have their own forms for plugging
in the cell phone of grandma and aunts. Computers, people!

My eight year old, Jonah, can’t seem to take less than an hour and half
to do his homework. Yesterday, he had to write twenty sentences based
on his spelling words. Jonah insisted on coming up with interesting,
creative sentences for each word. "The creek is blue" wasn’t good
enough. It had to be "the man and the boy looked in the creek for
fish." Then he had to daydream between each sentence. He also expected
me to hang out in the kitchen the whole time he was working.

Ian is in special ed boot camp this year, which requires a lot of
parental involvement. Notes must be written to the teacher. He has four
pages of homework everyday. I’m not complaining. I think he is speaking
better after one week there, so I’m happy to do this stuff. It just
takes time.

Mornings are insane. I have one hour to shower, do my hair, make
lunches, make the waffles, get them dressed, get me dressed, pack up the homework, and wait
at the end of the driveway by 7:42 when Ian’s bus arrives.

Then I’m either giving lectures or planning them. I thought I could do
the class prep in two days, but it’s taking longer, because I’m
multi-tasking. I am still catching up with all the chores that got put
on ice earlier in the year when I was crazy busy. I have to toss out
piles of last year’s school papers and make doctors’ appointments. I am
supposed to make calls to contractors about rehabbing the kitchen, but
I haven’t had a chance yet.

Afternoons, I am driving the kids to activities and doing last minute
food shopping. Tonight I was supposed to go to Ian’s Back to School
Night. Thank god that got canceled because of a bomb scare.

So, I’ve actually got a moment to chill. Classes done.  Mom’s bringing
over dinner tonight. All we have to check off is homework and TKD.