The Rescue Pet

Yikes...sorry it's been 10 days since I posted last, a bit crazy at work/home but voila, enjoy!

The Rescue Pet

Most phone calls received at work from home fall under the ‘hmm…wonder if I should answer this one or not.’ Rarely do I receive the phone call with, “Mommy – I just wanted to call you and say how much I love you and miss you.” Instead, it’s usually “Mommy, (insert child's name) (insert bad behavior) me!” (i.e. Mommy, Max hit me!; Mommy, Jack took my cookie away from me!; Mommy, Delaney teased me!” Which usually has me saying, “Call you dad, I’m busy.” To which it’s almost always said, “But we only know your number, not his.” I believe I am going to get tattoo’s of Dave’s number inked on each of the kids, that way I can actually get 10 minutes of work done…in a row.

Imagine my surprise last week when I received a phone call without any of the above complaints or need to referee from afar. Instead, I received a phone call with the most ‘exciting’ news, “Mommywerescuedananimalfromthealley.” What? What exactly did he/she say? (When they talk that fast and that high pitched, they all sound the same). Which kid is this? “Mommy, it’s Delaney, weren’t you listening to me?” Umm…not really. OK, let’s try this again. “Delaney, what exactly did you say, and say it slower please.” “Mommy, we rescued an animal from the alley. We have a new pet, can we keep it?”

Of course, my first response, as any responsible city parent would say, “Delaney, PUT THE RAT BACK IN THE ALLEY!” In my world, there are really only a couple of animals that meander in the alley, looking all sad and “Please help rescue me.” 1. Rat; 2. Squirrel; or 3. Alley Cat. While all of the above are furry and range in order of cuteness from “Yikes” to “Hmm…maybe”, there is absolutely no way any of those animals are to find their way in to my house. Side story here…

…five years ago, when we were rehabbing our house we moved next door during the construction. In the middle of the night, while Dave was traveling, I heard the scurry of itty-bitty feet on the tile floor of the kitchen. With no one to yell or scream to, I did as any Kenmore neighbor would do at 3:00 a.m. I called our neighbor Adam. “Adam, umm, can you help me? There’s a RAT in the kitchen, and I’m home alone with the kids.” And in typical Adam fashion, he came storming through the door, made a lot of ruckus, grabbed a trashcan and went outside to the dumpster. He banged it around a couple of time for good measure, and came back in saying, “Your place is safe now, you can go back to bed.” Which at 3:00 a.m., was exactly what I wanted to hear.

The next morning at work, after I was clearly awake, caffeinated and reflecting upon the events of the evening, I called Adam saying, “Adam – you know, I recall hearing you throw away the rat in the dumpster with a lot of commotion, but I’m not sure if I actually recall seeing the rat that you threw away. Any chance you were just tired and going through the motions so you could get back to bed?” “Yep – gotta go!” And that is how we moved from Kenmore to the Hyatt while our house was being rehabbed.

I digress – when Delaney called with her rescue animal story, I immediately jumped to conclusions assuming that the rat from 5 years ago has come back to haunt me and now Adam moved so there was no where for me to go.

“Mommy – it’s not a rat!” Umm…okay. “Put whatever furry animal that looks all helpless and wounded back in the alley to die Delaney, after all, the alleys are like the island of misfit, hopeless animals. Stay inside.” “Mommy, it’s not furry.” Geez, what kind of animal did the kids rescue? “Mommy, we rescued a goldfish!” A what? A goldfish? Who goes dumpster diving in the alley for a goldfish? Ah, yes, my city kids. They also prefer to play on concrete as opposed to grass.

And so it turns out that someone at the end the alley decided to throw away their aquarium filled with nasty green water. For all I know, it could have been a science experiment gone awry. And lo and behold, there was according to the kids, “A little goldfish that needed a new home”. On my way home from work, I stopped at Target and bought the perfect, small, city-like aquarium for the fish that my children have affectionately called, “Fishy-Fish” because clearly, they are all captain of the obvious here.

When Dave and I returned home from work and moved “Fishy-Fish” to his new home, we looked at the fish swimming around in tight circles and eyed each other saying, “Umm…that’s not a goldfish, is it?” Nope, not a goldfish. More like a really large goldfish or a baby koi. Yep, that poor goldfish/koi traded in Shreks Swamp for the cleaner waters of the equivalent of a puddle. The fish will be like veal – tied to a small environment so it can never get really big.

And that my friends is the story of the Rescue Pet. You just can’t make this stuff up sometimes. Really.

The Workout Plan

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The Sneaky One

The Sneaky One

There were three wishes that we had for the first week of school:

1. The kids would actually be able to find their classrooms and subsequently be able to tell us which classroom they were in (it’s been a long summer….)
2. The kids would wake up before the first bell rings at school and at least have one eye propped up ready for learning
3. We would avoid at all costs any trips to the principal’s office, calls from the school counselor, calls from any of their teachers – in other words, good reports for all of the kids!

I suppose two out three isn’t so bad, is it?

It’s true, our last wish did not come true, perhaps we did not wish hard enough, or a more likely scenario we did not emphasize that seeing the principal so early in the school year is not necessarily a good thing.

There are many descriptions we’ve used for Max – if he was our first, he’d be our only; he’s ‘high-spirited’, he’s Dave’s son and not mine (really….), etc. And now we add one more moniker to him, The Escape Artist. By virtue of his new name, you can surmise the flurry of activity that lead to the dreaded phone call:

“Hi, this is Max’s teacher. We had an incident today.” Crap…we’re only on day four of school, couldn’t he at least get through the first week? “Well, as we were going to breakfast, we realized that we were missing Max. We immediately called the office and started a search for Max.” Great, now the principal knows that she has to keep an eye out for the sneaky one…I was hoping, as usual, to skate by the year flying under the radar, not above it. Thanks Max. “It turns out he left via the fire escape door and was found outside in the playground. A parent found him and brought him to the office.” Well, you have to give the kid some credit for knowing the playground is at least more fun than cafeteria food.

And that, my friends completed our first week of school. Dave and I quickly arm wrestled for who was going to get the ‘opportunity’ to pick up Max and steer him in the right direction of life, and at least directionally back to the inside of school, not outside. So Dave did as any good father would do – talked about life lessons of staying in school, the streets are a mean ugly place for a four-year old all over a hearty breakfast in the Loop. After all, he was outside freaking out the teachers while the rest of the kids ate their cereal, he was hungry. I know what you’re thinking, because frankly I’m thinking the same thing, ‘you rewarded his actions with breakfast?’ This small piece of information was not discovered until days later, apparently in the ‘don’t tell mommy’ category. Why is this important – well, if you acted up and your parents came and fed you breakfast, you just might think that was a good thing, not a bad thing. Parenting 101 – don’t encourage bad behavior by rewarding with a nice treat like breakfast.

Fast forward to yesterday, also known as “Day 5” of school:

“Hi, this is Max’s teacher, we had another incident today.” Why, oh why can’t my incidents be the ‘he wet his pants and had an accident and we don’t have a change of underwear at school? “We sat down to journal” umm…he’s four, what is he going to journal about…”and Max did not want to journal. He apparently didn’t want anyone else to journal either as he began to take their journals away and became very disruptive.” Apparently, so disruptive that the security guard and school counselor was called…on a four-year old.

And so we have learned the hard way that Dave’s son, also known as Max, is not just sneaky, he’s sneaky smart. I have also learned from my mother-in-law that Dave was the exact same way at this age, so I am genetically not responsible for his behavior….unless he’s sweet, loving, cute and funny. Then I take full credit! We are crossing our fingers that we end this week on a high note and I can stop my walk of shame to his classroom as other moms point their fingers mumbling under their breath, “Oh, there’s Max’s mom.” I’m thinking of putting in our application for ‘Super Nanny’ and see if she can herd cats or tame the wild child named Max. Our precious, beautiful, wonderful son Max who is never-hardly-some-of-time-ok-a-lot-of-the-time-Dave’s-son a little mischievous, a little naughty, but awfully cute and lovable.

The First Day of School

The First Day of School

Nothing says summer is over than my traditional last minute run to Target to scrape the bottom of the sales barrels trying to scrounge up a pink eraser that is not half chewed, pencils that actually have lead in them and paper that has lines on it…in a straight line. And every year I say, “Next year, I swear I’ll get my act together and shop earlier.”

Today was the official end of summer as Dave and I dressed, fed and got each blue and white dressed child with the most important first day of school accessory – the bribe. Yes, you heard correctly, I had to bribe my children to actually make it through their first day of school. “Don’t forget kids, when you get home, mommy left you 1^st day of school gifts if I get a GOOD report!” (aka, please don’t have the counselor call me on the first day of school – we’re already on a first name basis).

And thankfully, the bribes worked. Even Dave sent me an IM this morning with the following note, “Hey, did you get any calls from the teachers or counselors at school?” “Not yet, they’ve only been in school for 45 minutes, I’m sure we’ll get a call by lunch.” No calls, happy tired children – I call that success!

As I was going through the kids back packs, I came across CPS’s Student Code of Conduct handbook. While school started today (9/2), the book actually says, ‘Effective September 11, 2008’. Which just had me wondering if the first week of school was a free ride. Could the reason we received no phone calls and only glowing reports is because even if they did misbehave, the code of conduct does not go in to effect until next week?

There are six groups of inappropriate behavior categories in the Code of Conduct book. After reading the book, I’m happy to report that while the counselor has called us on three separate occasions (you can guess which kid, let’s just say if he was the first, he’d be an only), my children have for the most part avoided virtually all of the behaviors listed with exception to the following:

Running in the hall or building - Come on, seriously, we need a parent teacher conference for this? All of my kids have violated this rule.

Displaying behavior that is disruptive to the orderly process of classroom instruction – It’s true, Jack was affectionately referred to as the “Kissing Kindergarten Bandit” for excessive kissing of both the boys and girls in his class. Thanks to Jack’s over-affectionate personality, there was a no-kissing rule established in Kindergarten.

Fighting – two people, no injuries – O.K., Max is guilty of at least trying to slam his teachers fingers in a drawer, but it ended fairly when at the conclusion of the day, Max jumped on his lego tower puncturing his groin, a trip to the ER and just missing his testicle sidestepping the dreaded nickname, “One Nut Max”.

Gambling – I’m not really sure if this counts as gambling vs. just enterprising, but Delaney is guilty of trying to sell lined paper (bought from the Bargain bin at Target) for $0.05 per sheet. She was in first grade at the time, I just think she’s a chip off the old capitalist pig parents block.

And so after reading the Code of Conduct book, I am rest assured that at least for the next week, my kids can misbehave, act up, even plagiarize or bully without recrimination from the school. Of course, they’ll have to deal with terrors of mom and dad, which can likely be more frightening and minimally I’ll have to take back their 1^st day of school bribes.

After reading this evening’s post, for those of you that think my kids are really mean and naughty, they are. I mean, they aren’t. They’re actually good kids. Most of the time.