ever-fixed mark

The Route 51 bus circulates between our town and two others. In Port City, the end of the line, it loops a figure eight before starting the return route, which makes it seem like you encounter the bus everywhere you turn. For this reason, Husband calls it the “Ghost Bus.” When we see it around town, we shriek, “Yikes! It’s the Ghost Bus,” in true Scooby-Doo fashion.

Recently I was casting about for something to do with the boys and thought it would be fun to take a ride on the Ghost Bus. When I told Minor of my plan, the first thing he said was, “It’s not too scary for me?” My heart sank a bit, because he is sensitive to things that are potentially frightening, and I didn’t want him to panic aboard the Ghost Bus. We jollied him over it and, after missing the bus once and having to run a quarter-mile for it on the second try (they had changed the route), he enjoyed the ride immensely.

In general I try to avoid talk of monsters and ghosts. I figure, they already have a hundred and one reasons why they don’t sleep; there’s no need to add “fear of things that go bump in the night” to that list. Aitch is not afraid of ghosts and monsters, but he likes to play ghosts and consequently Minor is terrified. Minor frequently claims to see ghosts in our living room, and then we have to help him battle them with magic swords (sound effects: “Ching, ching, BLEAAAAAH”–that’s the ghost dying).

If this were a movie, Minor’s ghost sightings would be followed by strange disturbances that would eventually become too blatant to be denied by even the adults, but we are non-believers so in this house the dead remain at rest. Since the house is over a hundred years old and used to be a nursing home, there have probably been a few deaths on the premises, but until I have evidence to the contrary I’m going to assume that it’s the living-room wallpaper giving Minor the heebie-jeebies, and not specters of the walking dead.

Aitch has a folder in his backpack that, traveling between school and home, serves as a kind of drop box for communications between his teacher and us. Every afternoon when he comes home I take out the flyers, worksheets, and order forms, and then I load it back up with all the completed paperwork and tchotchkes that Aitch needs to return to school.

These are the kinds of things I have to deal with on a weekly basis:

• Lunch order form and money envelope
• School photo order form (I was soooo tempted just to throw it away. I mean, back in the day school pictures were a big deal, but that was before we had digital cameras, Photoshop, and 10 cent prints. What skill or materials could the school photographer possibly contribute that would be worth a $95 package?)
• Book order form
• Demand for $5 for a project to paint t-shirts in conjunction with a book they are reading (not phrased as optional; what do people do if it doesn’t fit into their budget?)
• Reminder that library books are due on Friday
• Homework worksheet (practice writing child’s name five times; child is also required to put his name at the top of the page and “sign” at the bottom)
• Request to re-do worksheet that child got wrong in class (coloring circles blue, squares red, and triangles green; he colored them all different colors)
• Request for a “small object” starting with the letter A for “letter of the week.”
• Reminder to send in the ingredient lists for all food child eats at school for snack
• Catalogue and order forms for PTO fund-raiser (I threw it in the trash and wrote them a personal check; I will volunteer, donate, or tithe, but I will NOT push gift wrap on unsuspecting friends and neighbors)
• Request to nominate PTO officers (this precipitated a round of calls among mothers begging, “Please don’t nominate me”)

This daily scavenger hunt is quickly becoming a part-time job for me, albeit one that costs, rather than pays. In the past two weeks I’ve put at least a hundred bucks in that damn folder.

A few days ago, Aitch and I had the following conversation:

Me: Aitch, the election is coming up soon. Do you know who’s running for President?

Aitch: John McCain.

Me: That’s right. Who else?

Aitch: Barack Obama.

Me: Whom do you think will win?

Aitch: Barack Obama.

Me: Why Obama?

Aitch: Because he’s the fastest.

At the time, I thought it was just one of those adorable, kids-say-the-darndest-things non sequiturs.

Three days later, though, I was driving down the highway remembering that conversation when the lightbulb went off:

Race. Win. Faster!

It was a sequitur, after all.

Every day when Aitch comes home from school, I ask him, “What did you do today? What did you learn? Tell me about the kids in your class.” I’m very eager to learn how he’s spending his days. Unfortunately, I’m treated to nothing so comprehensive as a narrative. Instead, he releases little tidbits of information in staccato bursts.

What I’ve learned:

Item: The teaching assistant is named “Mrs. Potkettle.”

What?

You know, “Potkettle.” Like when you have to take a horse to the doctor.

What?!

Item: In gym class, they have learned a little butt-shaking dance where they get down and shout, “Education!” Then the teacher yells, “Wishloobeckya” and they have to run to the other end of the room.

What?

Item: Aitch sits at the peanut-free table with a boy from his class and some other peanut-allergic kids. I can only imagine that they will form a tight-knit social group and grow up to intermarry and produce a race of super-allergic, bubble-dwelling children.

Port City Supernintendo, I implore you — can’t we make the whole school peanut-free so my kid can sit with his more genetically-advantaged peers at lunch? Let’s give Darwin’s Law a chance to work.

And…that’s all I’ve got. I guess I’ll have to wait for the parent-teacher conference to get the real scoop.

Today was Aitch’s first day of school. I wasn’t the only parent in the schoolyard wiping away a tear as I waved good-bye to my great big boy, off on his own for the first—

Oh, right. That was someone else. Our school had a “soft open” today—no, nothing like a cold open; more like “Orientation Part Trois.” Parents and kids attended for an hour (again), visited the classroom (again), met the teacher (again), and went home. Tomorrow, the kids attend solo for two hours, and so on extending the actual in-class time via a complex Fibonacci sequence until they finally hit a full day of kindergarten around Thanksgiving.

I suppose there are kindergarteners out there who might benefit from the dip-the-toe approach to school immersion. My Aitch is not one of them. He reacted much as he did during his last two orientation experiences: he expressed his anxiety about the situation by behaving very badly, something he would probably have been too intimidated to do if I were not there. (I know, wishful thinking, but in four years of preschool we’ve only had one negative report about his behavior, even during periods when he was throwing tantrums at home every day.)

We had a tussle over a lollipop that the teacher had given him in his “goody bag” (at 9:30 a.m.! Why is she handing out candy first thing in the morning?). I said he couldn’t eat it; he put it, wrapped, in his mouth. I told him he could no longer hold it; he bit into it. I tried to take it away from him, and he hauled off and hit me.

I didn’t know what to do. At home that would call for a serious time-out accompanied by a harsh admonishment, neither of which I wanted to perform in that setting. At this point we were about 45 minutes into the 1-hour orientation, and we had done everything we needed to do (including filling out forms that asked which “person or person’s” were authorized to pick up the child— GOD is it too much to ask that teachers pluralize correctly? They have college degrees, don’t they, and are supposed to be qualified to teach that stuff?!) , so I just marched him out of there.

When we got home, Aitch got that serious time-out and we canceled the beach outing we were planning. Instead, he had the pleasure of attending me at the RMV and then at a car inspection. I’m still aghast that he hit me on the first day of school, and I’m seriously wondering if it’s too late to hold him back another year, but I suspect he will be fine once school starts for real. I am a bit concerned now that we’ve accompanied him to school on three separate occasions, and tomorrow when we actually have to leave him behind, he’s going to freak.

What a crappy day.

Apropos of nothing…did anyone else watch the convention coverage on PBS last night? The look on Gwen Ifill’s face when they cut to her after Sarah Palin’s speech was priceless. It’s going to be an interesting season.

That sharp intake of air you heard a few months back was the sound of all the working parents of kids in Aitch’s preschool simultaneously realizing that, come fall, we would have to pick up our kindergarteners at 3:30 p.m. on the dot, instead of “any time before 5:30,” our current arrangement. (Frankly, I don’t know how parents who commute even manage to pick up their kids at 5:30. On days when I’m in the city and Husband can’t do the pick-up, I have to leave before 3:45 to be reasonably sure of making it, and even then I have three friends on speed-dial in case of traffic.)

At the kindergarten information session this winter, parents had only one question for the principal: “What are the details of the after-school program?” It wasn’t all worked out yet, the principal told us, but information would be forthcoming.

At the parent orientation session in the spring, there was only one question: “After-school program?” “Details to follow!”

At the kid orientation session, the same question was asked and answered: “The after-school people will be here next week for the kindergarten screening; ask them then!”

At the kindergarten screening, there was no information available. “We’ll let you know as soon as we hear something.”

Two weeks ago, I heard a rumor on the playground that the after-school program was going forward, but it was going to be held at the elementary school, so all the kindergarteners would be bused to it. I called the YWCA, which runs the after-school program, to get the details. I left several voicemails and finally got a call back.

“So,” I asked, “if you are busing my kindergartener from one school to another for the after-school program, who would be in charge of holding and administering his Epipen in case of an allergic reaction?”

“Well, I guess that would depend on which bus company is transporting the kids,” she said. (Keep in mind this is a mere two weeks before the start of school.) “We haven’t worked that out yet. If we’re contracting with a company to do it ourselves, then I don’t know what we would do. It’s never come up. If we are using the school district’s buses, then I guess we would use their policy.”

“Which is…?”

“I don’t know.”

I did a bit of digging (I’ll spare you the blow-by-blow of unreturned phone calls and unknowledgeable administrators) and managed to piece together the bits of something that might form a policy if anyone ever thought to gather them together as such; of course, no one has, because this is the first time in the history of Port City schools that any parent has expressed concern to anyone about their food-allergic child riding a school bus. Here it is:

• There are no adults on the bus other than the bus driver.
• Bus drivers are trained to recognize the signs of an allergic reaction in children…
• And I’m sure they can do this effectively while driving the bus safely; however …
• Bus drivers are not required to administer Epipens in the event of an incident; they just have to pull over and call 911. So…
• The school district recommends that I “develop a relationship” with the bus driver, presumably because he or she will be more likely to damn the liability and inject my kid if we’re friendly. However…
• It is illegal for the school to inform a bus driver that my child has a health issue. So…
• If the bus driver with whom I’ve cultivated this close relationship gets has a bad lobster roll at the Park Lunch one day, requiring a substitute for the afternoon run, the driver will have no idea there’s an issue, and I’ll have no idea that there’s a different driver. But…
• The school nurse reckons I can enlist the help of a mature older child to monitor Aitch for reactions. So, it’s all good.

So, imagine you’re my neighbor. “Hi, this is Denise, from down the street? I need a favor…can your seven-year-old sit with my son every day on the school bus and check him periodically for anaphylactic shock? Also, I’ll need to teach her how to administer epinephrine via an auto-injector. No, it’s very safe, even if she injects herself by accident. My husband did it and he lived to tell the tale. No, I promise I won’t sue her for malpractice if something goes wrong. Of course, I’ll need a backup if she’s going to be absent. How mature is your six-year-old?”

Husband and I made a last-minute decision to get away sans enfants for two days, and because we are booking so late in peak vacation season (coinciding with the only good weather we’ve had all summer), we’ve had a hard time finding lodging that meets our requirements. Basically, we want something that’s less pricey than a luxury inn, but not as folksy as a bed-and-breakfast.

An old friend of mine from the Peace Corps, I’m told, has opened a bed and breakfast not too far away, and another mutual Peace Corps friend suggested that I book a room under my married name and show up to surprise her. Back in the day, my relationship with the innkeeper was intermittently fractious — I can’t remember why — and that scenario suggests to me that episode of “The Office” where Pam and Jim stay on Dwight’s beet farm, which he’s converted to a B&B. It actually sounded kind of quirky and fun, not to mention rife with dramatic possibilities, but the B&B in question is not on a lake, and I intend to take advantage of the nice weather in my kayak.

The trouble with most inns in New England is that they’re not different enough from what we’re leaving behind. I mean, if I wanted to sleep in a drafty Victorian with rickety furniture and funky wallpaper, I could just stay home — and here, Dog is allowed. Now that I think about it, wouldn’t it be awesome if we opened a B&B here? We have three unused bedrooms that could be outfitted at minimal expense, and a dining room that is never used that could hold three couples for breakfast. As long as our guests were down with our “slacker hospitality” ethic, we could probably bring in a little cash.

It sounds like the premise for one of those hugely successful, double-titled, memoirish non-fiction books you can’t believe someone published and wish you had written: “A Year of Bed-and-Breakfast: How I Opened My Heart by Opening My Home as a B&B,” or some such. It would be divided into twelve chapters, one for each month, each containing a story about one of the wonderfully wacky guests and a seasonal recipe for a breakfast food.

Doesn’t that sound like the most perfect amalgamation of A Year in Provence, Eat, Pray, Love, and Julie and Julia? I’m going to write a proposal right now.

It has been storming continually for about a week here: round-the-clock thunder and lightning, like those scenes in the first season of “Battlestar Galactica” where Helo and Sharon are fleeing the Cylons on post-apocalypse Caprica. You know those scare stories that the local news runs every summer, about people getting struck by lightning? Well, NPR ran one last week. NPR! You know it’s bad when your Serious News Outlet features “When Weather Attacks.”

There was one break in the weather, Saturday, which was the day I had planned to take Aitch camping. The local wildlife refuge was running a special one-night family camp-out, a sort of Camping Lite for those of us who are not completely one with nature. The idea is that we would come in after dinner, pitch our tents by the visitors’ center, go on a hike, come back and have snacks and stories in the barn, brush our teeth in the restroom, then bed down. The following morning we would have breakfast, go on another hike, and then leave.

It sounded like a great way to camp without all the muss and fuss of cooking over a fire, peeing in the woods, and so forth, but after I signed up and got the schedule in the mail I began to have some reservations. Aitch has historically not been good with structured group activities. He does fine at school, but when we have tried to enroll him in some type of lesson or class, he can be really resistant. I suppose I should be worried, but I have chalked it up to his being a Not Quite Five who needs to do his own thing when he breaks loose from school. If he doesn’t want swim lessons or karate classes or soccer right now (or, frankly, ever) that is OK by me; from what I’ve seen we’re not risking any great loss of scholarship money by failing to hone his skills at this critical juncture. So I have adopted a policy of enrolling him only in one-off activities, and then only if I can accept his bailing out after five minutes. I decided I could accept that outcome, although I really hoped that we could have a nice mommy-and-son trip.

I had to wake Aitch from an unplanned nap to get to the campsite on time (Danger, Will Robinson!) and then tear him from the arms of the father he had not seen for a week (Danger!), but he was in a good, if silly, mood as we put up the tent. The camp leaders really did run a tight ship; after half an hour they briskly called us together to commence hiking. We had not yet finished putting up the rain canopy on the tent, but the leader said, “Oh, you won’t need that, it’s going to be so hot tonight,” and I thought about the weather forecast and how nice it would be to see starts through the tent mesh, and I agreed.

The hike was an hour and a half in duration, conducted at the measured pace of the leader. Our boys are not able to keep a measured pace off-leash any more than the dog can, and I found myself having to tell Aitch to slow down, or hurry up, or stop digging for worms, and kind of resenting it all the while. I mean, I understand the value in a group activity, but this was camping. Shouldn’t the kids be running barefoot through the woods wielding sharpened sticks? Then after about half an hour, Aitch started complaining about bugs. I had not lavished DEET on his head and face, as I always do for myself, thinking to preserve his fertility for future years. The skeeters were fierce, though, some of the worst I’ve endured. Lately I’ve been noticing that Aitch’s best tantrums are accompanied by allergic reactions. I’m not sure if the allergy causes the bad behavior, or the tantrum just exacerbates his allergies, but I did know that I was not looking forward to a public meltdown in the woods. Luckily, he held it together until we made it back to the barn for snacks.

Finally, the kids were able to relax and play freely for a bit, but then the leaders decided to read a story. They chose a compelling tale about the founding of the Audubon society. A sample:

Fashion was killing birds as well as women’s chances to have the right to vote and be listened to. For who would listen to a woman with a dead bird on her head? And if the senseless slaughter for a silly fashion was not stopped, in a few years the birds with the prettiest feathers would all be dead, gone forever, extinct.

This is not exactly the kind of deathless prose that inspires five-year-old boys to sit open-jawed around a campfire. I had to ask Aitch to settle down a few times, and I was getting kind of irritated at the situation and tired of the sound of my own voice. He was, though, as well-behaved as could be expected.

Finally we settled down to bed. It took Aitch a while to fall asleep (he was, no doubt, contemplating the origins of the Audubon society), but he was happy. And I was relieved that we’d made it through the whole evening without any major incidents or demands to go home.

I woke up around 4:00 to rumbling sounds. “Amazing,” I thought, “You can hear the highway all the way back here.”

Then there were flashes. “Heat lightning,” I thought.

More rumbles. More flashes. I looked up and realized I could no longer see the stars through the mesh in the tent. The weather report had lied, and I was going to be struck by lightning and, even if I lived, I would set off metal detectors for the rest of my life, just like the people on NPR!

Maybe it will pass, I thought.

Then I heard the pitter-patter of raindrops on the tent. “We left off the rain canopy,” I remembered. (Reading comprehension test: did you catch the foreshadowing way up there in paragraph 4?) We had two choices: Put up the canopy before the storm hit, then wait out the dangerous part in the barn; or just strike the tent and get out of there. We opted for the latter, and managed to get everything packed up right before the worst of it. I felt like an idiot for not putting up the canopy in the first place, but in the circumstances I think it was the best we could do.

So, after a rainy Sunday and Monday we are experiencing another storm-free day — so far. It happens to be Race Day, and now I can add to my list of Race Worries (number 1: the starter’s pistol will trigger a Pavlovian response in the form of a need to urinate) fear that I will get caught in a freak thunderstorm.

With any luck, the lightning will give me superpowers, like the ability to run ten ten-minute miles.

Damn. I just spotted a guy running down the high road pushing this stroller containing what appeared to be three sleeping three-year-olds. That’s about a hundred pounds of kid being propelled down the main thoroughfare at six miles an hour in very heavy traffic.

Dude, I cyber-salaam you. You are truly worthy of the medal.

Last week, my desire to go for a morning run coincided with Dog’s, Husband’s, and Minor’s respective desires to pee, sleep, and be awake at the crack of dawn. So I hitched up the dog to the baby carriage and took one half of the household out to do a quick three miles.

I was the recipient of kind smiles and thumbs-up from the other runners in recognition of my accomplishment, and I felt like I deserved them. It is no mean feat to run so encumbered, not to mention serving drinks and snacks from my convenient rolling cart to my crabby companions like some kind of sweaty stewardess. My triumph was a bit marred by the knowledge, though, that I could never earn the gold medal in the Parental Multi-tasking Triathlon (running, dog walking, and child-minding). That spot is permanently reserved for my friend L., who runs with her dog AND her twins. Unlike the Chinese, though, I am content with the silver.

The next day, however, I went out with Dog alone and saw a man running with a triplet stroller. While I may be content with the silver, I’m not crazy about the bronze. I crossed the street to check it out and saw that only two of the three spots in the carriage were occupied. “You know, you don’t get points for that unless all three of them are in there,” I told him.

“The third one’s with her mother,” he said sheepishly.

My silver medal is safe for now, unless he gets a dog.