The next chapter, wherein something really scary happens...

It's been about a month since we've known something was wrong with T. Three years ago he battled stomach cancer with surgery, chemo and radiation - and so far - so good.

A completely routine screening test has turned up some other news. T is now looking at surgery again - this time for another part of his digestive tract. And remember - there's not much stomach left...so no one really knows what will happen next. He is meeting with yet another surgeon right now - while I sit across the river, working and waiting. I would be sitting next to him but for a huge presentation involving potential dollars and senior vice presidents.

There are no guarantees that the surgery will remedy everything. I think it will, and I hope it will, but until they get in there and biopsy everything - we won't know. I have known this man for more than half my life, and loved him for at least 20 years. I am not willing to take no for an answer on this one.

I thought I was handling it well until I lost all control on Wednesday and almost started world war 3 with a neighborhood mom. I am apologizing to her for my tone. Because my tone was way out of line and out of proporation to the situtation into which she inserted herself. But she inserted herself into something, yet again, and really pushed my very-sensitive-about-working-fulltime-and-not-being-aroundenoughtobeginwith buttons - and aside from phrases like "why are you talking to me about something that happened between my son and another child - not yours?", "you are the grown up", "wildly inappropriate for you to call me", "what were you expecting me to do at 1 pm at least an hour from home, when all the kids are fine?", "I haven't heard from the school about this..." and it just went on from there. T wants me to apologize for everything. I'm only feeling the apology on the tone, - because screwing with the mom code of conduct is just not acceptable. And yes - the quotation marks are too much - but blazing red anger doesn't show up well in text.

And then I had to go to the dentist. On that point alone it pretty much sums up the week.

Bumbles and Stumbles

It is the middle of November and I am back from Chicago. Yes - I went to my favorite conference - one fueled by early childcare professionals on steriods (the mad combination of free mini-meals at the Residence Inn, juice boxes and freedom from children and parents (not their own, but the ones they take care of). And yes, shooting the potato launcher was not only fun, but frighteningly addictive.

20,000 people in early childhood took over Chicago. There is something so very wrong about people wearing deely boppers in public - and especially on Michigan Avenue. This conference is also known as the suitcase spectacular.

Fly three hours with one bag crammed with clothing and personal items, and check the big old empty bag on wheels. Why? Because you will actually have to wheel it onto the exhibit hall floor to collect: in no particular order: juice box, pencils (unsharpened), pens, a caterpillar in a jewel box necklace, a calendar featuring babies, a crest kid doll, garbage bags with peach scent, pencils (sharpened), paper, more paper, more paper, montessori building block, tooth brush, sample playdough, make your own book, fruit cup and spoon, yarn, finger puppet, fiskars scissors with kid sized handles, baby wipes, toddler wipes, calendar featuring research and quotes about the importance of preK, deely boppers, connectx toy, finger cymbal (yes - the other one got lost in the frenzy), ocean sampler, toy school bus (with phone number in case the need arises to buy a real one), sing-along dvd, bag with smiling family on it, fleece hat with logo, fleece ear warmers with no logo, toothpaste sample, lysol wipes sample, more miniture candy than Halloween on a really good year.... you get the picture.

Important safety tips:

Do not pick up more than you can comfortably carry home. The hotel housekeepers do not want the stray pencils, scented garbage/diaper bags, and information on how to purchase child sized equipment from catalogs that are thicker than most city phone books.

Do not purchase the seasonal clothing in bulk. You know this type of clothing. It's the turkeys on the sweaters, wreaths on the socks, pumpkins on the turtleneck kind of thing. Discretion. Discretion. Discretion. I'm not one to turn down socks - but more than 3 types of seasonal clothing on one person at one time is wrong. And to be kind, I think the sweater was just stretched out from carrying and dragging too much stuff...the resulting placement of the turkeys was just unfortunate.

And finally --- above all - do not get suckered into buying the wheelie crates. Those things are dangerous in the hands of crazed attendees.

I did manage to purchase some things for home, work and school. If you are ever needing a really cool science toy or tool - check out stevespanglerscience.com. It is one of best online catalogs around - and really, when you need 32 pipettes, moon sand, fizz color tablets and one lizard in an egg - go for it.

18 Pumpkins and a String o' Lights

The snake is lit. The party's over and the squirrels are not yet attacking. It's been a bit warm where we are - and the pumpkins are suffering. Forget squirrels - it's warm weather rot we're talking about. And now that our pumpkins are carved and assembled into the snake, we are hoping it lasts until Halloween.

The little guy hosted some neighborhood families Sunday afternoon - for worms on a bun (shriveled hot dogs) and mummy pizzas. Yes - when stressed I tend to overdo it. And the adults made do with bratwurst and oktoberfest brews. There was even chocolate cake and the kids sang happy birthday to the witch decoration.

Just after dark it was time to light the snake. No candles for this effort. Make those white lights year round and break them out for summer nights and fall pumpkins too.

Everyone was home by 8 pm - which explains why we overslept on Monday and had exactly 27 minutes to wake up, dress, eat, pack lunch and get to the school line. I gave up on make the train - which as it turns out - I did sort of make.

Because it's right that when my regular train breaks down...my holy-crap-I'm-not-going-to-walk-into-my-office-until-11am-train stops to help out the passengers from the broken regular train.

Duct tape, balloons and fusible webbing

Halloween is fast approaching. The first years - cute animal costumes from a large box store - because - well - I don't sew - and I was strapped for time. He looked great - a sleeping elephant, a pumpkin, a duck. All washable, and wearable for many occasions. Like grocery shopping and leaf raking.

You'll just have to turn your head sideways to catch the picture. It's enough that I actually had a picture...

And then he asked to be a volcano. That's right. A big, exploding volcano. With a little help from the fabric department at Wal-mart and some stiffy stuff - I created a volcano. 2 semi-circles, fusible webbing and one very large bucket later the label on the stiffy stuff said - let dry until stiff. (I should mention this stiffy stuff had it's heyday back when Martha Stewart was making the lecture rounds at area Junior Leagues. Way back in the eighties.) After applying a little heat courtesy of an underused appliance - the hairdryer - the costume was sort of volcano shaped - and even included holes for arms and head. Throw on a red sweat suit and voila - volcano.

Oh - but you ask - the hissing and spitting rocks. Yes, I admit, my no sew costume got carried away here. Lots of fabric strips and some sparkling foam balls attached to a fabric headband. He vetoed the headgear and instead wore it around the neck. With the exception of the papermache ravens in the nest at our town's parade - he was an original. And it came in handy last year when the the kindergarten class was studying volcanos. He took it to school where all the kids tried it on...and most of the mothers wondered if they would have to make one over the weekend...

Then, one year there was the "I want to be a hot air balloon". The costume looked great but he came down with a 102 fever - and the costume never made it any farther than our living room. And finally, last year - he asked to be a power ranger. And I caved. No more duct tape and fusible webbing. No more balloons. No more glitter and pvc piping (the balloon costume). Only the best ebay can buy.

And so we come to this year - and he's asked to be Harry Potter. Complete with glasses and the nice Hogwarts robe - "not the one from the the weird store". In our neighborhood the weird store is the seasonal real estate that transforms for large holidays with retail dreams - you know - like Christmas City - or Halloween House.

The sweet part? He request a working wand as well. Not a fake one - but a real magic wand. I asked him if he'd been practicing spells and he said no - kind of shyly. But I think maybe he's been thinking about it. Twice now I've walked into the kitchen to see him waving a spatula like a wand at the dog and saying words that sound faintly like Hermione Granger's incantations.

The dog's still here. And so is he. And that costume will be arriving like all good costumes do - from the underground of ebay.

Remember those Book Club Days?

Yes, it happened. The first Scholastic book club catalog came home in the backpack about two weeks ago. It's still old fashioned enough to be a paper order form and check list...but the kid is as excited as I was when I was six. He carefully selected his item - looking at the pictures of the covers - and recognizing words like POKEMON and EXCITING. No classics were selected this time around, just some short easy readers and the coveted Pokemon series...

The main event - delivery of the books happened at the end of school yesterday. He had his story time while he was in the bathtub and even hair washing went well. He fell asleep with most of them still on his bed. He's happy and trying to read. What's better than that?

Back To School Night

The auditorium is as I remember from my childhood. It's cramped, hot, and the really big old fans don't get turned on until the principal says it's okay.

Which she did. Which was a good thing because there were lots of pregnant women roasting in their seats. I was not one of them - but I was suffering from the effects of the odd 90 degree days we'd been experiencing.

Our son's teacher is a pro. We walk into room 124 and it's neat, orderly, and organized. We sit down at his desk. She begins to talk and adds that she hasn't asked the children to clean up their desks. She wants us instead to see exactly how the desks are kept.

This signals doom in our household. I put my hand in and several crayons and a white sock tumble out. She continues talking and says there should only be one or two pencils and their folders for poetry and weather, along with math and language arts journals. All other materials should be in the pencil boxes. Uh oh. I catch a crayon or two and the others hit the floor. The other parents in his cluster don't seem to be having the same problem.

The mother across the way pulls out a pencil box filled to capacity. Our boy's is filled with an unopened glue stick. Points for the boy - he kept the cap on! I move some things around without putting them away. And my hand hits an object I don't recognize. And then I do -- contraband. It's a red crayola crayon sharpener - and not on the school supply list. I recall at least two conversations about not bringing it to school.

It seems that all those pockets in his backpack have been used for something. The transportation and distribution of kid contraband. I leave it tucked in the back of the desk, where I found it.

The teacher goes over the curriculum, homework and thanks us for helping to start off every day on a high note. It's time to put the chairs back on top of the desks.

Back To School Night ends and I find myself hoping that our boy remembers this teacher the way I remember my first grade teacher. Room 10, Miss Geneva Hayes. Because she taught me to read, and I haven't stopped since.

First Days of First Grade

Last Thursday marked our boy's official entrance into public school. Here's what we all learned.

While Mrs. Betty Murphy signed all correspondence with Mrs. Betty Murphy, she only wants to be called Mrs. Murphy. For a child who refers to his friends using all three names (First, Middle, Last)and is himself referred to by his friends as Firstname-Middleinitial-Lastname - this can be confusing.

Next - the class is divided into three supply lines. Rather like the military, I believe. Supply line two is responsible for Heavy Duty Tissues. Our supply line number two reported for duty with a jumbo box of 3-ply soft tissues. Supply lines one and three brought goldfish, cheerios or wheat crackers, and paper towels. Mrs. Murphy is grateful.

Finally - the end of the day and aftercare at the local Y. Right away - this is a disaster. Suzanne, our trusty sitter, makes the initial run with me so she knows where to go and the child care workers can see we all belong together. We spot him before he spots us. And Suzanne audibly inhales - the kind of sound that were it in a movie would signal misfortune for a main character.

He hates it and threatens the next day to jump off the bus and run away. I am once again wearing the crown of meanest mommy ever because I suggest that until we have something else worked out, this is the way it has to be.

In an effort to fix things I spoke with the head teacher, Miss Karisma. She told me that our boy had been fresh with her and she had corrected him following their discipline procedure. Hmmm.

She reported that she had told him "... I be doing this right now, you will need to wait." He replied "Miss Karisma, you are doing something right now and I need to wait a minute." She called it fresh and I tried to explain that he responded to her in the same way I did when he says "How much dollars is that?"... , how many dollars is the whatever-is-catching-his-eye-and-short-attention-span. He's 6, he doesn't understand nuance (and I never should have tried that word...) - we are not seeing eye-to-eye and I just want my money back for two months of care he will not be attending.

Oh dear. On the upside, he really liked P.E. and the class is beginning to chart the progress of the pilgrims on a timeline and map. He learned a new word - ballast - and he's class "inspector" for the next two weeks. The inspector checks to make sure the lights are turned out and the window shades are at "mid". Which I'm guessing is midpoint.

He is also intrigued/repelled by a game called Girl Run - which means girls chase boys around the playground. It's a game that hasn't been banned - like dodge ball.