School -NOT READY YET!

Yes, indeed. School is coming, and it's time to get ready. (FYI - that hazy look - that's what miserable-o-meter 109 looks like). I feel like we have stepped on one of those moving sidewalks in the underground tunnels at the Atlanta airport, where you just stand, and look around, and then you are at the end of the moving sidewalk, and you are where you are supposed to be. We are going to end up IN SCHOOL! YAY! Miserable-o-meter 106 and school starts. Now I remember why we homeschooled all those years. I know school is coming because of football practice. The past two Friday nights, we have had scrimmages, or as I like to call them: faux games. No one keeps score, so why are we parking 4 blocks away? Seriously? Our Young Son, who for his whole LIFETIME has been at least a head taller than his peers - is NOT anymore. Not taller, not heavier, not bigger. Not yet. Not good. No matter how much he eats and sleeps and does magic dances under the light of the moon in the sweltering summer night, he remains...lean. Lean is a word with few negative connotations. If I didn't know he read this thing, I would use the word scrawny. But he reads it. So I can't.
Anyway - we find games, faux or real, an exercise in parental visiting, as the Young Son's lean self is most often found chatting on the sideline . . .. . . WITH BIG RUSS, his lax sidelines buddy. His brother, BigB won't even go. "To where? To do what?On Friday night?" (add screeching to get the full effect.) "I'm not going to sit in those stands to watch this punk ride the pine." Showing your age there, BigB, it's aluminum now. And nobody sits on it, unless they ate 9 brownies before the game.
We have a spotter, Mr. T, Big Russ's dad, who is kind enough to say - "he's in" when he's in, so I look up. Most of the time I need somebody to remind me what our Young Son's number is(70). The rest of the time....mostly talking. I mean really? Warm summer night, boys playing in the grass . . . . moms talking.

This is what my room looks like, and no Photoshop could make it look better. There will be children there all too soon, all excited about the school supplies and the new books and the new big grown up subject, Latin. And, they are assuming that I will be excited too. And I WILL! YAY! So, anyway, THEY are coming, you would think that I would be busy planning bulletin boards, decorating my room with dancing apples and singing stars. It seems like that is what I should be doing. But I'm not. (OK, it is now time to state for the record that I, teacher and mother, do NOT do dancing apples, talking stars or inspirational posters. My posters are from The Office)

And since my pitiful garden is putting forth it's 2 lame little fruits of the vine, it seems that I would be busy pulling weeds. Not me.Nor am I dragging the hose and the jugs of water around to keep my deck plants lush and green and blooming in the heat. Blessedly, BigD does that job, so we are good there.
Since I cook on Sundays for the whole week during the school year, it seems like I would be making those plans. Sorry, not yet. We did go to the Farmer's Market today. I didn't get this stuff. I got black-eyed peas, which do not make a pretty picture.

Oh NO! I am doing two things.

1. Reading. It's all I want to do. I want to lie in my bed, with the fan on, and read. Seriously, it's 106 outside. Don't tell anybody...I found Edward and Bella. I'm dazzled. I'm breathless.

2. Checking on two blogs babies and their families. I found these heart baby blogs on a little round-the-blogosphere trip I took. So....for reasons I don't know, I got all up in these babies' business, particularly this one, Jack. I don't know why. I don't know them. I have never gone to their part of the world, I have way more than 6 degrees separation from them. But, man. I'm waking up in the morning and checking on baby Jack, and I'm checking again before I go to sleep. I'm thinking about how to encourage his mother to keep up the pumping, because she CAN! I suspect his parents are particularly articulate, and I am drawn to their writing. Or I am appointed to pray for them. Or both.

Also, Stellan, whose 'prayer button' is up there somewhere on this blog. I found MckMama's passionate, frenzied, panic-stricken writing a week or so ago, and began to pray . . . in a normal, non-obsessive way.

Once, I did find a medicine that would keep me from singing in my head the theme from Gilligan's Island for days at a time. I need to find that medicine again. It is used for obsessive compulsive disorder. I liked it. A LOT. Because of the song lyrics.

Sadly, it won't stop the moving sidewalk taking me straight to school from inching forward. . . OK, we are to the point of HURTLING forward.