Robin Chartier – Page 131

First day of school joy

The “joy” is that we actually got up on time, got “breakfast” (Caleb ate cereal, Carter only wanted decaf coffee, but I made him eat an apple too, and Calvin is in High School so who knows if or what he ate.) The pain will come tomorrow and every day after that when we have to get up at 6:30 for the 7am bus. I am not a morning person and neither are my kids. We can get up and get moving, but it’s not a pretty sight. Most people are super excited for the first day back . . . not me. I’d be happy to have them home all year long. Not because I’m an awesome mom and I love having them around all the time, but because I love sleeping in that much. Truth.

I only have one elementary schooler?

This year I have one in high school, middle school, elementary school, and preschool — that’s some awesome family planning, huh? Camille won’t actually be going to preschool though. It’s hard enough getting the kids out the door in my pajamas. I can’t imagine if I actually had to get dressed and drive her to school — no thanks! I think today we’re going to walk to the neighborhood salon and get pedicures. We’ll talk about nail polish colors and call it educational.

Waiting for the bus as dad leaves for work — the bus was late this morning and if I had to hear one more time, “Mom, are you sure today is the first day?” I was going to strangle them all.

For better or worse — déjà vu

I got this message from Josh yesterday morning. Since then, he’s been doped up, lying with his feet up and hobbling around base. Since he can’t drive or bike, I get to play the chauffeur.

How fitting that it was 9 years ago this week that we were in a similar situation: living in the desert, a husband who could barely walk, and celebrating our anniversary. I joked on the long drive down the hill, “Did you ever imagine on this day 7 years ago, that I’d be driving you to back surgery with three little boys in the back seat? (Our newest, Caleb, was only a month old at the time.) For better or worse, huh?” Back then I had a lot less wrinkles, but a lot more crazy. We were quite a pair — he was broken physically, and I was broken mentally.

This time we’re 4 days from our anniversary and I’m just driving Josh to work and physical therapy appointments, which is WAY better than surgery. And there’s something that’s a little more acceptable about having back problems when you’re almost 40 instead of still in your 20s which makes him less frustrated about it (or maybe that’s just the Valium working).

So we won’t be putting on our dancing shoes this August 23rd — instead we’ll be celebrating with a cocktail of Motrin and accessorizing with ice packs. PAR-TAY!!

Some observations with a side of hypocrisy

Another Saturday morning, another movie. Whose life is this?! I guess it’s a happy compromise: we get out of the house, the kids get to experience a bit of American pop culture, and we stay out of the heat.

It feels a bit ridiculous though as I eat a breakfast of nachos and Coke while Josh, who has a will of steel (Steele), keeps to his paleo diet and munches on almonds and black coffee. The cleaner he eats, the faster my diet deteriorates. I ate half a bag of BBQ potato chips yesterday just because I could.

Meanwhile I look around the theater and am amazed by how many kids have their iPads out, entertaining themselves via small screen before the big screen entertainment begins. What happened to old fashioned fun? Stuffing kids with junk food and soda to kill those endless minutes before the curtain rises while they rattle off irritations like, “how long til the movie starts? I gotta pee! I’m bored! Carter drank more than half of the Sprite! I hardly got any! Uh-oh, my popcorn all spilled on the floor. Can I get another one?”

Now these little automatons silently play their apps, completely oblivious to the sound of my children fighting over Twizzlers. Thankfully I have my own small screen and can escape to an alternate reality right alongside them. How long til this movie starts anyway?! I’m out of nachos…

I might be in trouble

because the last thing this household needs is another living, breathing creature added to it, but my kids fell in love with these kittens today.

A friend has been fostering a litter of 4 kittens since they were less than two weeks old (the mama cat was hit by a car) and is bottle feeding them every 3 hours.

I knew my cat-loving boy would jump at the chance to snuggle and feed some kittens so we went over to her house today.

They just started walking and have needle sharp claws!

They’re about 4 weeks old now — 2 more weeks of bottle feeding.

She thinks she’s an excellent cat mama. Poor kitty.

Caleb’s favorite kitty, Sweetie.

Carter’s favorite is Simba. They both want to adopt “their” kitty.

Caleb has been wanting a cat since we left for Egypt — he wanted to adopt the millions of street cats that we saw there. I told him that as long as we had a cat (who was living out her old lady days in Santa Cruz with my parents) that we couldn’t get another cat. But now that Daisy has gone on to kitty heaven, he thinks it’s perfect timing. I was thinking perfect timing would be after our next move . . . but he’s been waiting almost 3 years. That’s 1/3 of his life. Poor kid.

Armfuls of fuzz.

It would be totally stupid to get a cat now — especially with our dog, all the extra paperwork and expense trying to get it off the island when we move, so of course we’ll probably end up with one. Good grief.

Bahrainageddon

Today is “Rebellion Day” in Bahrain. A new holiday — code for a day of protests. According to my resident expert, August 14th is the day that Bahrain became independent from England, so this year the Shia are declaring August 14th as a day to exercise their independence from their government. All I really know is that we’ve been told that we have to stay home. Again. And I just got an email that the boys’ boat trip to the island was cancelled tomorrow because of all the “unrest” on the island. Boo.

Last year we didn’t have the pleasure of celebrating this holiday with the Bahrainis, but Egyptian Revolution Part Deux has fired everyone up again. Last year the heat kept everyone home and quiet until November when things cooled off here weather-wise, which signaled it was time for things to get heated up politically.

The most irritating part of it all is that the severest clashes are contained in areas that we aren’t even allowed to go. Oh wait, more irritating than that is that the areas we are allowed to go on the island just keep getting smaller and smaller. It’s like they took a blob of red paint and slapped it all over the map. It makes me want to leave — not because I’m concerned for my safety, but because what is the point?

I’ve been spending all this extra free time watching old episodes of The Mentalist and knitting. This project is going to be a tube shaped cowl and the “pattern” is called A Few of My Favorite Things. It isn’t a pattern as much as a concept: find charts of things that you like (example of a knitting chart is in the top right corner of the photo) and knit them into a cowl. So far I have sheep, suns, robins, and cups of cappuccino (of course!), but this photo was taken the other day when I wasn’t as far along. I don’t normally do colorwork, but this has been a fun change of pace.