I Get the Bronze

Clooney told me, as I tucked him in tonight, that I am his third favorite person. He didn’t mean it in a bad way, just as a matter of fact, and he said it in his cute little five-year-old voice, “First is Aunt Julie.  Second is Gram, and then you.”

That’s the story of my life: Going for gold.  Coming up bronze.

Today, I got up, got everyone dressed.  Made toast, pancakes, served cereal, packed lunches then loaded everyone into the car to take them to the doctor for their flu shots.  After that I let them have lollipops in the morning, in the car on the way to school, which I never do, but since they’d been so good about getting the shots, I relented.

I dropped the boys off at school, and then I delivered pumpkins filled with treats to a few of their friends in this neighborhood thing we have going on that is kind of like a chain letter.  You get “boo”ed with this plastic pumpkin full of treats, so then you have two days to “boo” two other people.  On Thursday I had gone to get my own flu shot, and then I ran over to the drug and dollar stores to get all the crap to put in these pumpkins. Then Friday, it turned out that one of the people I had planned to “boo” had already been “boo”ed, but I didn’t find this out until I was standing on their front walk with the thing in my hand.  That left me the dilemma of figuring out who else to “boo,” specifically who else might have two girls because I had filled this thing up with candy and girly things like bracelets and hair ties.  I finally remembered someone else, a friend of mine from a few blocks away, but I had only been to her house once, and that was at night, so when I was on her street, I didn’t recognize her door.  I actually had to go home and double check the address, which made me feel like a complete idiot, but I had to unload this pumpkin, and pronto.  Thankfully, The Princess didn’t complain much from her car seat, just sat there watching her mom do all this wacky stuff, moves that I am sure looked like some kind of crazy Chinese firedrill to her.

 Then I had to go back to school to accompany Clooney to the book fair they were having this week.  I do this every year, because a few years ago, Edison came home with an American Girl diary, which  no one there had thought to counsel him against.  He even drew in it before he got it home, so there was nothing I could do.  So now I go to make sure they are buying a) books and no other crap and b) appropriate titles.  Bought Clooney three books, though there was a bit of struggle about what he could and could not have.  (Also, I had The Princess with me, and they were raffling a Sleeping Beauty Barbie doll at this event, which she grabbed off the raffle table and absconded with. And darn, she’s fast. I had to chase her the length of the school to get it back.  Not pretty.)

Went home, made lunch for The Princess and tried to get her to nap to no avail.  Ended up playing with her dollhouse, which I did for longer than I really enjoy doing, but hey — when is it ever about me? Picked the boys up from school, and took them to this playground that we have to drive to because a) they’ve been begging me to take them there for months and b) Manfrengensen came home sick from work, and I figured I would keep them out of the house to keep the house quiet for him.  I even brought after-school snacks and drinks along in a bag.  Edison complained that he was cold because he’d been waiting so long for me to pick him up in the October air.  I told him to pipe down and put his coat on, for Pete’s sake.  What was he doing waiting outside school with no coat on?  He’s eight.  Are we starting with the coat thing already? We went to the park for a while, where I pushed swings, climbed apparatus, spun them on the spinner thing and removed sand from people’s shoes.  As the sun began to set, I brought them home and got everyone fed.

In the course of any day, I peel other people’s apples, mix numerous cups of chocolate milk and cut off everyone’s crusts.  I’m a short-order cook, a maid, a nurse, a chauffeur and a Supreme Court Justice. I do my best to accommodate any and all requests.

Bronze.