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Summer break goes from freezer to roof
(by Christine Thome - June 24, 2009)
BEYOND MY CONTROL, BY CHRISTINE THOME
Summer break goes from freezer to roof
Wow! I can't believe school has already been out for two weeks. I guess time really does fly when you're the mother of four and heavily medicated. Just kidding about the medication. Kind of.
Yep, only nine more weeks until school starts again. That's the equivalent of 5,443,200 seconds of trying to keep my four darlings from killing each other; or 90,720 minutes of hearing, "I'm bored," over and over; or 1,512 hours spent continuously restocking the refrigerator.
One would think that suddenly switching from the daily grind of homework and constant scheduling to one of sleeping late and no responsibilities would be an easy transition, but it's not. I call this period re-entry, because, like an astronaut's re-entry into the atmosphere, this transition time takes about a week or so for your body and mind to adjust.
Our transition week is up now, and all I have to say is that things better get better real quick or I will be sending more than one child to the moon.
On the first day of our summer break, I made my way downstairs in the morning and acknowledged my four children, who had done nothing but move their bodies from their beds to the couch and take up the same prone position in front of the television.
I bit my tongue as I took in the scene of empty cereal bowls, wrappers and cups strewed around the family room. "It's their first day off," I reminded myself. "Be a nice and let them lay around for a day."
So I planted a smile on my face and picked up the trash. Instead of getting a thank you, my son asked me, "Hey, Mom, can you make me some waffles if you're going into the kitchen?"
"Nice mom, nice mom, be a nice mom for the first day," I muttered to myself.
"Sure," I yelled back.
Instead of finding waffles in my freezer, I was greeted by the sight of pink flip-flops. Now, I too had celebrated the beginning of summer break the night before with a few glasses of wine with good friends, so my first thought was perhaps the wine was a little strong last night, and I really was not seeing flip-flops in the freezer.
I closed the freezer door, counted to 10 and opened it again.
Flip-flops were still there.
"Anybody know why there are flip-flops in the freezer?" I asked calmly.
"There they are!" yelled one of my daughters as she ran into the kitchen to retrieve her ice-cold flip-flops. "Thanks, Mom, I've been looking all over for these."
"Still doesn't answer my questions of why there are flip-flops in the freezer," I stated the obvious.
"Jack hid them from me," she stated matter-of-factly. "He's always hiding our stuff."
"You gotta admit it, Mom, that was a pretty good hiding spot," Jack said as I shot him a dirty look. I was done being a nice mom.
Two days later, John and I were out of town when we received a call from our oldest daughter.
"Any idea why Louie is on the roof?" she asked. Louie is my little foo-foo dog, and he certainly does not belong on the roof. Seems she came home from work to find Louie happily wagging his tail on top of a small roof in the back of the house.
"No, I don't know why Louie is on the roof, and, to tell you the truth, I really don't want to know why either," I sighed into the phone. Actually, it didn't take me long to figure out how Louie got on the roof, and I was pretty sure that it involved the same child who liked to freeze flip-flops. Nothing intentional. He just forgot his key and decided to jimmy a window. The problem occurred when he forgot to close the window and screen.
Looking back on my first week of summer break, I realize I had more questions than answers. Why are there flip-flops in the freezer? Why is Louie on the roof?
Why don't kids go to school all year long?
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