Thursday

It started out like an ordinary Thursday, Ajers whispering into my ear at 7:20 a.m. to please get up so I can send him off to the school bus. Hubby was still home and had made the kids breakfast.

We sent the kids off to the bus, and Tukey and I waved them goodbye.

"Have a nice day! We love you!"

Things were just grand in the old Seven Bridges Estates. I chatted with the five other Bus Moms and scratched the ears of those dogs leashed to their owners. Then, I invited the rest of the moms who I hadn't seen the day before to my "Off-To-School Bagel Party."

A power walk with my good pal R--shout out to my 'dearest dear, silven foxed friend!'--and back home to prepare my little gathering of women.

Six moms came over, some with kids, some lucky enough (?) to have them all in school, and we laughed and joked about "if the dads could see us now," drinking Starbucks, sipping lemon iced tea, applying a neat spread of Honey Almond cream cheese onto our fresh Einstein bagels, swatting at the occasional curious bee. Oh, would they think our lives were so glamorous.

And, for those few, precious minutes, it did seem pretty glamorous. Until that damned yellow bus rolled in hours later.

(Mind you, I did manage to do three-quarters of two loads of laundry, clean the kitchen, make my bed, take a shower, return some phone calls, clean up the family room, so it wasn't as if I had been lounging langourously--and, interestingly enough, Hubby just yelled from the laundry room: "What's the status of the laundry in here!?!?")

The bus comes home. Chaos errupts. And I know that there is more chaos west of me that I could ever imagine, and that I pray to God I never am faced with a natural disaster, and now, as I'm typing this, I am thinking, "Oh God, Stephanie, you are sooo pathetic (and I mean me, not Stephanie Klein, although she's quite pathetic too, but at least she has a book deal!) to be frustrated at the mundane mundaneness of your simplistic and blessed life."

And wow, just two glasses of Chardonnay into this and I have all the worldy knowledge I could possibly ever hope to exceed!

Bus home, kids fly out, soaring like mindless gulls, searching, scavenging for that last fry on the beach, that open clam shell, to grasp and pull at its meat, to feed itself, to satiate.

Yep, they come home hungry.

And ornery.

And grouchy.

And yet, they are still raring to go, to fly out into the streets onto their skateboards, their bikes, their scooters. They deposit their wares: papers that need to be signed, coloring pages they are so proud of, assignment sheets I must read, all over the kitchen counter, they scarf the snack I have dutifully created for them. Then, one is off swimming; the other is seeking neighborhood friends, the other, my Tukey, is asking me to help him open his birthday gift.

The Ninja Turtle stuff.

The Ninja Turtle stuff that has two million and one of those plastic twisty-ties and black anchors and strong tape to keep the toy from falling apart in transit to Target.

God, I loathe the engineer who came up with that invention. I can imagine him in his lab, thinking, "Hmmm. I've got an idea to secure this toy into the box. And it's such an idea that will royally piss off every parent that spends the money on this toy, that will then have to pull and prod and twist and retwist and hurt their fingers, all for the sake of opening one toy, of making their child happy. And at that immediate instant.

I sure wish I kept each and every one of those damned ties since I've had children. I could do something really creative with it.

So, I'm rambling, and it's because this is really good wine, and I think I just told someone the other day, Christa perhaps, that "I never drink during the week. Just not into it." Well, after this afternoon, I'm into it.

And it hasn't been a terrible afternoon, just a little more stressful than the average, un-wine-needed Thursday.

It's time for gymnastics. I tell AJers we have to go. He defies me. "I'm not going!"

I'm not good at discipline, and am all set to just leave ...

(SIDENOTE: Hubby just comes downstairs after getting kids into the bath, and yells, "NOW WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

"I'm VENTING!"

"I thought you were a GRANDE." Smartass. Then he says, I would have yelled at him had he been on the computer this close to kids' bedtime. (Now I just hear him tell AJers that "Mom is 'blogging' about her hard day." F-er!)) I can't even tell where these damn parenthesis start and end anymore.

So, we're all set to leave for gymnastics, and someone yells, "Luke is peeing on the tree!"

Great. What will the Desperate Housewives think of this?

And it's not just any tree. It's THE tree, right in front, right in front of our driveway, right in front of the cul-de-sac of homes right across the street from us. Right where practically every freaking neighbor can view my cute little Tukey, on his very last day of his third year of life, urinating on the tree.

OK, there is too much more of my 'saga' to continue, and I hope you all know I'm joking, it's not a saga, just another day in the life of...the Manic Mom, who has a prescription of 30 Xanax waiting for me at the pharmacy as I type (anyone want to buy some.... KIDDING! JOKE! I KNOW THAT IS TOTALLY ILLEGAL --but email me offlist--ha, kidding again!)

I've had two glasses of wine, have eaten my way through a box of Club Cracker Stix, have had bagels with cream cheese, soup, bread, salad with fruit, 1/2 of Tukey's leftover grilled cheese, and a bowl and a half of Tortellini filled with chicken plus fresh parmesan cheese grated on top.

And now I could use a big old fat chocolate bar. Ummm... doesn't that sound good? Oh, I forgot, my 'friend' arrived today to. Do you think that has anything to do with the frame of mind I'm in tonight?

Out.