10 ways to remove a skunk from your lunchbag or cafeteria

My parents were here for Thanksgiving this year, which was quite lovely, and before they left - right before they left, in fact - they deposited a(nother) box of stuff from my old room at home for me to peruse and dispose of as I like. This one contained the following: a little bit of junk, a good-sized stack of flute music that I doubt I'll ever play again, a framed certificate for being a good speller in 1987 (it went downhill after that, I'm afraid), a couple recital programs from college, and a folder full of my original creative writing from elementary and middle school. Some of it I tossed, but some I just had to keep. And tonight, I'm sharing just a little bit with you.

The following was hand written on lined notebook paper. There is no date but it's cursive and legible, so it had to have been late 4th grade or 5th grade. I'm preserving all the original grammar and spelling. (Yeah, I know. Slow day here in blogland.)

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10 Ways to Remove a Skunk from Your Lunchbag or Cafeteria
By: Susan

#1: Make sure that the lunch monitor doesn't scream when you show her. Then, call the vet. As he performs surgery on the lunchbag, tell everyone to be very quiet and exit the cafeteria.

#2: Have a trankurlizer gun ready in case the skunk wakes up. If he/she wakes up, shoot him with the gun, and when he goes to sleep, put him/her in your little brother's bed. Ask your "brother" how the skunk got into the bag.

#3: First, get a very quiet pair of scissors and cut him out of lunchbag. Then, carefully put him in a waterproof sack. Put a clothespin on your nose, and give him to the Hummane Society. Steralize your lunch, and EAT!!

#4: Tranqualize skunk to make sure he doesn't wake up. Put him outside and give him plenty of beetles so that he is not mad when he wakes up.

#5:

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That's as far I got, evidently. What should I have added to the list? Anyone?

oh, parenthood

At some point in parenthood, you completely relinquish your dignity. I think for me, the moment was before Daniel was born, after I'd been in labor for 20+ hours, when I was naked, sweaty, panting, whimpering in anguish, begging for the epidural, and I recognized the anesthesiologist as the recently divorced father of one of my piano students. I thought it prudent not to mention that to him, and whether he knew who I was or not, he was professional enough to keep it to himself.

I've had lots of those moments over the last not-quite-four years. There was the time I was 12 weeks pregnant with Anya and I was supposed to play in a masterclass for a Very Important Pianist and Daniel fell into a big fountain of water and I had to approach the teacher, who was (is) both famous and infamous for his teaching and temperament and ask to go last so I could comfort my whimpering toddler and change our soaking wet clothes. There was the time, not so long ago, when Anya decided to stuff her mouth so full of goldfish crackers in the checkout lane of a grocery store that she gagged and spit everything out, and I had to ask the kind-yet-freaked-out cashier for a paper towel to clean her up. And there was this afternoon in the Target parking lot when the early Christmas present I bought for the kids - a basketball hoop with adjustable height - wouldn't fit in the car until I took it out of the box and shoved it piece by piece into the front seat. That was after ripping the assembly instructions off the side of the box using a pen knife and my bare hands.

Why the basketball hoop? Why the early Christmas present? Because the other reality of parenthood, at least parenthood of children under 5 who are not yet spending most of their time in public school, is TEDIUM. Daniel is doing a little bit of preschool, but most of the time he hangs out with me and Anya, and truth be told, he's getting a little bored. I guess I'm a sucky mom for not keeping him more entertained, but here's the scoop: Anya's naptime is sporratic and unpredictable, there is precious little daylight, it's cold outside and folks, there just isn't a lot to DO around here. I mean, there is, but not when you have a cranky toddler who gets up at 5 and doesn't nap until 3, which puts a huge cramp on afternoon activities that involve leaving the house. So, basketball hoop it is.

Gosh do I miss summer.

I used to think I was a smart person with a lot of potential. Now I'm just trying to make it to 4:30 in the afternoon when Curious George comes on PBS and I can start dinner without anyone hanging off my leg (literally). I can blame the long, cold Wisconsin winters and tight job market all I want, but those are just excuses. Sometimes I just don't try hard enough, I guess. Sometimes, the best I can come up with is buying big plastic toys at a big big store three weeks before Christmas because that is the only way I can get through another day.

quick getaway

I took the kids for an overnight visit with my friend Stephanie, who currently lives in a very rural town in southwest Wisconsin. It's a lovely part of the country; in fact, here's a view from the side window of their house:



We left yesterday and returned this afternoon. Driving there is no picnic - lots of little county roads in places that aren't marked very well - so we met her partway in the small town of Blanchardville when she was done with work. Blanchardville is small enough not to have any stoplights but big enough for a café and public library. We went to Rivery Valley Trading Co, a little eclectic shop full of all kinds of fun stuff, the sort of shop that can only exist in a town like this. There was an antique sewing machine, shelves of used books, handmade pottery and hand knit hats, organic groceries (including a bucketful of Jerusalem artichokes which look like clods of dirt), and yarn (oh!) made from the fleece of sheep who happily graze on an organic farm just a few miles out of Blanchardville (this one). In fact, that sheep's owner, a tiny vivacious woman named Linda, was more than happy to share all kinds of information and stories about her sheep and how they take care of them. Unfortunately, the kids were getting bored, so I missed out on a lot of that conversation while I ran to get them snacks and keep them entertained while we looked around.

Once we got to Stephanie's place, the kids were in seventh heaven. She's staying at her parents' house for the time being, and it is just the sort of house you expect a retired couple with lots of grandchildren (there are 11, I think) to live in. They are kind, generous people who love having visitors, especially young visitors, and we felt at home right away. There are cats to watch and play peekaboo with. There are plenty of books to read. Also, there is a whole attic closet full of toys. I'm not sure what was more exciting for Daniel: the toys themselves or the fact that he could go in that closet, close the door, turn on the light, and go exploring all on his own. Blocks, trucks, marbles, games, stuffed animals, and the big hit of the evening: a plastic apparatus with balls to pound through holes in the top and run on a track to a tray on the bottom. Daniel took this picture of Anya playing with it:



Before coming back to Madison today, we visited Stephanie's cousin on her farm. P raises a few different breeds of sheep plus a wide variety of poultry. I was hoping the kids would enjoy watching the animals, but by the time we got there they were getting tired and ready to go home. We visited for a little bit, took some pictures, and headed back home.












Oh, I'm sorry...did you want to see some pictures of Daniel and Anya? Here are a few:






I really am grateful that I can take the time to make these trips with Daniel and Anya. Since I don't have a paying job outside the home (I refuse to say "I'm not working"), and since they are not in school full-time yet, I have the luxury of time, and I'm trying take advantage. On bad days, I call it "staving off boredom one day at a time." On better days, I simply consider this part of their early education: seeing different parts of the country, visiting different kinds of farms, and bonding with the people who are important in my life and interested their learning and development.

halfway there

I love how Daniel runs into his preschool class every Monday with a huge smile on his face. Most of the time he doesn't even turn around to say "Good-bye" to me. When I pick him up later, he runs to me with an equally big smile and a brief report on what their project was for the morning. Today they made butter, each kid taking turns shaking a big jar of heavy cream until that magical moment when it separated. Then they made pancakes, and according to one of the teachers, Daniel ate so many she was pretty sure he wouldn't want lunch.

She was right, and it turns out I was glad because while Daniel was in his class, I had spent twenty minutes on hold with our clinic trying to schedule H1N1 vaccinations for him and Anya. There's a shortage now, as you probably know, so only the high-risk groups are getting the vaccine. Children under the age of five are among those on the priority list, so when Nurse Kathy (we luuuuurve Nurse Kathy) said they had three doses left and we could have them, I scheduled appointments for right after Daniel was done with school today. When Anya and I went to pick up Daniel, I was trying to rush him into his jacket and down to the parking lot (rushing a 3yo is NEVER EVER a good idea, by the way), and I explained that we had to go get flu shots. "I don't want a shot!" he protested meekly, but he didn't make a big issue of it, fortunately.

On the way there we passed a fairly large cemetery. "What are those things sticking up?" he asked. I answered as directly as I could: "When people die, they are buried there, and those things are called headstones, so we can remember them." This prompted many more questions that I was, frankly, not ready for. I think it's important to address these things as head-on as you can; besides, I wasn't prepared with any kind of fluffy story or explanation of headstones and cemeteries. But after about the fifth time he asked, "Why do you have to go there when you die?" I changed the subject back to shots. I know he doesn't understand; Daniel's experience with death is thus far limited to witnessing day-old roadkill and stomping on ants on the sidewalk. Still, I plan to avoid driving by the cemetery until I'm better prepared for these questions.

Anya fell asleep on the way downtown to the clinic. She didn't wake up when I unbuckled her. She didn't wake up when I pulled her out of the car. She didn't wake up while we checked in at the reception desk where everyone in front of us in line, hacking and puffy-eyed, was delicately handed a mask with pinched fingertips and directed to the walled-off area of the waiting room reserved for people with a "fever, cough, or sore throat." She didn't wake up when we took the elevator to the next floor, sat in the next waiting room, or walked back to the exam room where Nurse Kathy asked if Daniel might be able to take his vaccine via the nasal spray to save the shot for a younger child. (He couldn't. We tried to teach him how to sniff, but he just wrinkled up his nose and exhaled every time we tried to practice.) She didn't wake up when Daniel got his shot. She only woke up when I placed her on the exam table and gently pulled down her britches for her own shot, and by the time she got it, she was too groggy from her little nap to complain. I'm proud to say neither kid uttered so much as a whimper, so we went to a nearby café for a reward of cocoa for Daniel, a cookie for Anya, and a latté for me (we had an early start this morning).

We're only halfway there, of course. Kids as young as mine have to get the H1N1 vaccine in two doses, so around this time next month, I have to call the clinic again to see if they have enough doses that day to finish up. By then they should have enough seasonal flu shots for us all as well (our county ran out of the seasonal flu shot a month ago.) I hope it goes this well next time around.

i'm phoning this one in

It's Friday afternoon. Both kids are sleeping (rare) which means bedtime will be hell and a long time coming, but I don't care. The dishes are done, the bread dough is rising, the laundry is washing, the other laundry is folded, the other other laundry can wait for the weekend and by golly I intend to enjoy this peace and quiet with a cup of much-needed coffee.

It's been kind of a long, boring week and I don't have much to say about it. However, I think it's high time I shared some choice pictures from the Daniel-cam. Enjoy.

silly me

I am about to send a check for $1 to the Illinois Tollway system. Why? Because on the way to Kentucky, I forgot that our I-Pass is still in the other car. I breezed right through the fast lane, realizing too late that I had missed my opportunity to pay cash. The toll in Rockford, IL is one dollar. ONE DOLLAR. A buck. I worried a little at the time that I'd get a notice in the mail with a picture of me driving blithely through the tollway, with a notice of a big old fine attached. But then eleven hours later, when I finally pulled into my parents' driveway with two sleepy kids in the backseat, I'd forgotten all about it.

On the way back home last Wednesday, as we prepared to go back through the tollway, I remembered and confessed to Stuart. Yes, confessed. You see, I NEVER break traffic rules. I'm not a rule-breaker in general, (except for being a political lefty and really feminist, but that's different.) The worst I've done is accidentally park in a disabled spot on campus, which, by the way, was only temporarily for the disabled; it was usually metered, which is why I didn't realize I had done anything wrong. My argument didn't fly with the UW traffic nazis, sadly, so I was stuck with a hugely unjust fine. Bastards. I won't tell you how much that cost me, but it was a huge chunk of my piddly little graduate assistant paycheck. Huge. (I pointed that out in my plea for mercy, but they didn't buy that, either.)

So tonight we looked up on the IL tollway website what to do if you blow through the tollway like that. Well, I say "we" but it was really Stu because he's even more of a rule-follower than I am. And it turns out they forgive you for doing that a couple times, because we are human and we all make mistakes and besides, for pete's sake the sign that says KEEP RIGHT FOR CASH ONLY only shows up about 6 feet from the concrete wall that divides the I-Pass lane from the cash lane. Golly gee whiz. I owe the toll, so I'm going to pay it, but I won't get fined unless I make that same mistake twice more.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go write that check.

(I didn't rebel much as a teenager. Can you tell?)

out of whack

Everything has been a little screwy the last week or so, like the weather. And sleeping. Over the weekend, it was warm enough both Saturday and Sunday to wear sandals and flip-flops. On Saturday I dug out a pair of shorts for Daniel to get ready for a trip to the park. Yesterday I hung a load of laundry on the clothesline outside, something I didn't think would happen again until another six months from now.

And the sleeping. Oh, the sleeping. While we were in Kentucky, the kids were going to bed freakishly late. One night Daniel didn't get to sleep until almost midnight (that nearly broke me). Now that we're back, we are evidently still adjusting to the two-hour time change (having moved over a time zone two days after the end of Daylight Savings.) Anya has been getting up between 4:30 and 5:00 in the morning, despite my desperate pleas to just go back to sleep. Yesterday she was up at 4:30, DIDN'T HAVE A NAP, and then was in bed a little after 5:00 in the evening. It's just after 6:00 now and Daniel is in bed, having nearly fallen asleep on his dinner plate. Other nights they've had their usual bedtime of 8:00 or so. I have to admit the unpredictability is getting to me a little bit.

On a completely different subject, will someone please Joe Lieberman to get his stupid head out of his ass? He is trying to classify the Fort Hood shooting incident a terrorist attack. A TERRORIST ATTACK. A tragedy committed by an individual who was clearly mentally unwell? Yes. A terrorist attack? Hardly. Sadly, these shooting tragedies have happened in our country before. Columbine, Virginia Tech, the D.C. sniper, the factory in Goshen, IN. Why were those not terrorist attacks and this is? Because a Muslim guy did it? Maybe there's something I've missed here, but last I heard being a Muslim doesn't automatically make you a terrorist.

Sorry this post wasn't more coherent. I clearly need more sleep.