Tears and cheers and a thing called Eeegee’s

Posted on | August 2, 2012 | No Comments

My boy did good. He made me proud. Whereas I, on his first day of kindergarten, was a blubbing wreck.

Of course I waited until Munchkin had turned around and single-filed it into the school. Then it was time for the tissues.

My baby boy is growing up and I love it (he is so desperate to be a man) and at the same time I mourn the rapid passing of time. I adore the little man he is becoming: compassionate, sensitive, kind and funny, wiry and button-nosed with huge eyes and oversized feet. But before long I won’t be able to scoop him up in my arms and blow raspberries on his belly. I swear he and his pals sprouted several inches these last few months alone.

The night before had been much more pleasant, with no tears, but lots of cheers:

Yes, you saw it right: empty bottle of vino and just two glasses. That was me and pal/neighbor W, high-fiving it that the long, hot brutal days of summer vacation in Tucson were over…. and that we and our boys had survived it.

Imagine the scenario: two five-year-old boys with curious minds, mountains of energy, and testosterone bubbling just under the surface of their perfect skin. Summer camp is over and there are still 10 days left until school starts. The mums have to work, so they decide to swap kids, three hours at a time, and do double-duty on the childcare (and then catch up on their hours late at night while the kiddos are in bed). It’s frantic to-ing and fro-ing, drop-offs and pick-ups, loading and unloading, extra booster seats and (I admit) sometimes not, sometimes a cushion under a bum instead because what-the-hell-it’s-only-a quarter-mile-between-our-houses.

The boys can’t play in the garden because it’s too hot. They can’t ride their bikes because it’s too hot. They can’t go to the zoo/park/crazy golf/insert other fun outside activity here because it’s….. yeh, you get the message.

One of them is not a fan of movies so the cinema is out too. Both of them get bored of TV after about half an hour. And there’s only so far a roll of duct tape and some cardboard will go in terms of keeping them happy. And so there is baking of banana bread and planting of plants and there is scrunching up of tin foil into something resembling the solar system. There is drawing around little bodies on big scrolls of paper and there is using pipecleaners to replicate the organs of the human body. There are trips to Home Depot, there is buying of boxes of screws (which they never use but it made them feel all manly). There is a trip to a shop selling precious stones, and two to the Children’s Museum. There are drive-throughs at Eegee’s for frozen lemonade (because seriously, Tucsonans would not survive these 100+ days without it), and sometimes there are trips to the frozen yogurt shop. There is the daily dip in the pool (the best bit, but we can’t be in there all day cos they’re fair and the pool has zero shade). There is even a wild naked dip in the pool one day.

And now you see why there was an overload of wine. We did it! We survived. Without any bodily injury or murders, with two little boys intact and two mothers intact as well. If you hear a little woop-woop coming from our side of town as the schools go back, that’s us, celebrating and thanking God that we have friends who are like family and, in the absence of grandparents, we can cope… just.

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