The Good, The Bad, and the Monday

Quotables:
Me: Rooster, do you like your hornet shirt?
Rooster: Yeah, it's cool.
Do you know what letter h-h-h-hornet starts with?"
Rooster: YES!
Me: What letter?
Rooster: Bee!

Rooster to Peaches: Peaches, do you want to be my best pal?
Peaches: Yes! Do you want to be my best pal too?
Rooster: OKAY!

Peaches to me: When will I get blue eyes so I can look exactly like you?

Teacher: Last week when I asked Peaches where the rooster was since he was not at school, she said, "Rooster is at home with my mother's husband!"


The Good:
I found more GFCF sources for "treats." They don't all taste like sand, either. Maybe that is why they cost as much as an entire aisle of cookies at Costco. It made me smile to see Rooster and Peaches sharing them happily.

One of my best friends bought a surprise for Peaches for her upcoming third birthday party: a fairy princess costume, in her favorite shade of pink. She's going to love it.

Another of my best friends is about to adopt a baby, following many years of working toward growing her family. She expects his birth to take place April 6, and I have her and her husband in my thoughts every minute.

I actually went out for a little while Saturday night, attending about 90 minutes of a wine tasting party thrown by a wonderful woman I met at a mom's group right after I had the Rooster. I almost didn't go, for many reasons (having left the group long ago, feeling out of place since I don't drink, knowing I'd get there later than everyone since I need to tuck in the kids, looking horrible with my pink eye, sounding horrible with my cough...) but I am so glad she urged me to attend. I had a lovely time talking with women about food, weddings, travel abroad, everyone's careers... lots of stuff other than kids. And when autism came up, I felt so supported and encouraged. I hope I will maintain this reestablished connection. It fed my soul. It felt like blogging, only I couldn't wear pajamas.

My pink eye is nearly cleared up. My cough sounds less ominous.

Tomorrow is Tuesday.

The bad:
Monday.

You know, I think Monday sucks at our house quite differently than it does at the homes of many of our friends and neighbors. Really, I look forward to going back to work. I dread Saturdays more than Mondays in a lot of ways. And yes, I hate how that sounds, and no, I do not want to spend my time away from my children, and I adore my children. But Saturdays are bills and chores, too many cartoons, speech therapy, unstructured time, fighting, "shoulds", and exhaustion from the week. Sundays are often a little better, and sometimes I even like my Sundays, especially when no one goes to the ER or has pink eye or anything. Mondays suck because they are the called-on-the-carpet time for what I did not accomplish all weekend despite feeling like I worked pretty (expletive deleted) hard. Didn't buy enough gfcf groceries in my three market runs for all the necessary school lunches and snacks? UH OH. Didn't fill out the sheaf of paperwork for school for the kids? OH NO. Didn't fill up the gas tank or stop at the atm? Run on fumes and skip lunch, because the children don't tolerate extra delays on the commute. Mondays mean I carry two giant sacks of goods to school: the changes of clothes, the diapers, the wipes, the snacks, the lunches, the required backpack, the clean blanket, the clean sippy cups, and hopefully my purse. Mondays the rooster has OT before school, so either my husband or I will be late for work. Mondays the rooster's shadow usually "doesn't feel well" and I can expect to scramble for a sub. Mondays the rooster doesn't transition all that well so I brace for the report. Mondays my colleagues tell me about their weekend adventures and lament coming back to work, but the good news for me on Mondays is I don't miss the weekends much.

Today I spent my lunch checking out another option for a school I'd heard about. I must have misheard, though. This school is a NPA, and it offers class 8-12:30 M-F in an old, run down church building in Koreatown for $25,000 a year. That does include OT and speech. That does NOT include the fee you pay to attend the mandatory parent meetings every Wednesday from 8:45-10, to sit with other parents and a psychiatrist and observe the children on a web cam. That costs $5000 more. Yet, that adds up to $30,000, a nanny, and a s***load of time away from work, 20 minutes away. Scratch it off the list.

So, that's the good, the bad, and the Monday over here. How about you?