My transformation into the house frau is almost complete. With my spouse as a full time student it is now up to me to ensure that the household keeps running, the kids are fed, the homework is done, and that pigs don't start moving in to play monopoly. It's no easy task when you consider that we have two school age children, and a menagerie of pets.
I spent the entire evening for the past few days helping my oldest son -who is now in middle school- get caught up with his homework. Apparently when he came home last week and declared that he had no homework, or that it was done in ten minutes, he was sadly mistaken. Well the jigs up and it's not only sad for him, but it's also sad for me having to be the flame under his butt that helps him play catch up for the next few days. To his credit he understood the error in his ways, and spent the hours needed to keep him out of Saturday school for students that don't like to do homework.
The real saving grace in all of this is the fact that he has some very proactive teachers, and most of his assignments are on a web page that I can access. I can even print out an assignment if he somehow neglected to bring it home. I was up late last night answering email from my son's teachers, and took a short nap after the kids got off to school. Anyone who thinks our teachers don't work their asses off is smoking Wacky Tobaky. I was writing and getting answers to email messages from two of his teachers at 11:00 PM at night. I saw my oldest son's math teacher at the end of the next day, and she looked beat. I think a lot of parents of sixth graders are trying to dial in the school routine for their children. I can only hope that maybe, just maybe soon, some of my son's teachers will actually be able to have some sleep when the rest of my fellow parents of sixth grade students get a clue.
Building a routine from scratch can be a painful experience, but I'm a process guy. Or well I used to be when there was a manufacturing industry to speak of in this part of Oregon. Gone are the days when I managed repair departments, built assembly lines, and ran customer support departments. I used to develop systems for quickly turning around broken barcode scanners, and how to manage customer support issues with a high level of integrity. But now I create check lists for my son in hopes that he will remember to wear pants to school. Not that I think a middle schooler would be caught dead walking to school without pants, but I don't want him to be late.
After having to run back to school to get text books, and knocking on windows to get the attention of the school janitor, he started to understand this was not something he could let slide. We now go over a check list when I pick him up, leaving stuff at school is no excuse for not getting homework done, it just means he has to go back in and get it.
In between dropping off kids and picking them up from school I do glamorous things like grocery shopping. I started doing more frequent smaller trips verses a large grocery run once a week. I'm having a hard time with planning meals for the whole week at the moment; I'm not sure if I'm just being resistant to the new task, or maybe I have bigger things on my mind. I do enjoy thinking about what we should have today for dinner, and then going out to get the ingredients. My wife really doesn't care as long as she doesn't have to cook it. But if you get a large basket of Italian prunes from the Farmers Market don't be a glutton, because you will pay, and I'm not just talking about the price of that extra bottle of pink stuff you'll have to drink.
I've melded the dinner cooking with the homework schedule in a way that gives predictability to the children, and time for me to actually accomplish making the meal. My first child gets his "back from school down time," then I pick up the second child. The first one does homework while second is getting his down time, then dinner prep, dinner, then second one does homework.
Meatloaf was on the menu last night! Well actually two of them. If you make one large meat load it takes too long to cook, so I like to cook two smaller ones. I mix lean ground beef with ground turkey, then add sauteed onions and garlic, along with raisins , spices, and bread crumbs. And don't forget the Ketchup!
Now some of you may have recalled that my neighbor Daryl a few months back was distressed. He was walking up and down our street in agony after a doctor fresh out of vasectomy school botched the job, and left Daryl with a grapefruit sized scrotum. Now, when I was in the Air Force they used to scare new recruits by telling them that the inoculation they were about to receive would be administered by getting a square needle in the left nut. Well guess what, that treatment cured Daryl!
After receiving the square needle in the left nut treatment Daryl hung up the sweat pants and started wearing jeans again. Gone are the days where he wanders the streets thinking "will I ever ride my 10 speed again?"
Have a good one everyone, and watch out for Daryl, he rides that 10 speed like a maniac!
