Dog Days

Summer vacation isn’t nearly as fun as it used to be.  Now that I have children, long, lazy days with no beginning or end have lost most of their appeal. Summer for them rarely begins much before 10 (and for some as late as noon) and the list of chores I leave in the morning are really little more than suggestions for filling the lingering spaces between the hours of 9 and 4.  

I find myself oscillating between wanting a maid or a drill sergeant--the crux of many working mothers.  We are capable of doing it all but fail miserably at delegating.  And our children, somehow unforeseen to us, are quite comfortable in letting us do for them.  I can’t tell you how many times my kids have mindlessly picked up their feet as I vacuumed around them completely intent on what was happening on the video screen yet oblivious to my silent seething.

For everyone but Max, all summer routines have fallen to the side.  Each morning as I wrangle him to daycare, he balks.  

“Daycare’s hard,” he moans as I buckle him in his car seat.  

“So is being a grownup,” I return before promising him a chocolate bar as a reward for a day well served.

I’m mindful of how complex the balance of the world of work and the world of unrest can be.   Even my lunch breaks are booked.  With precise regularity, my phone will ring just before noon with requests from the residents of Morgan Street.

“We’re out of milk.”

“We have no food.”

“Can we go somewhere after you get home?”

When I think back to my own childhood summers, I don’t remember being so demanding.  But then my childhood occurred a long time ago before whole house air conditioning and pizza rolls.  And although I’m sure my siblings and I must have had our moments, my older brothers at least knew the repercussions of not completing their chores, because they did an impeccable job of coercing me into completing theirs for them. 

Lucky—or unlucky—for me, my kids haven’t resorted to threats of burning their siblings’ prized possessions—unlike my own brothers—because I often come home to a sink full of dishes, a couch full of granola bar wrappers, and an empty refrigerator.

But alas, summer can’t last forever.  As recompense, I think I’ll take my own summer staycation sometime in September, well after the kids are nestled back in school.  

And maybe I’ll share a day or two with Max.  We could share a bag of chocolate and shove the wrappers in between the couch cushions.  

The Sanitize Cycle

I’m on the other side of a three-day weekend. 

It was rough.  Seriously.  For the third time this season, a ubiquitous stomach bug has swept through the house.  My washing machine hates me.  I sense it.  It recoils at my appearance.   The steady diet of soiled bedding has it rocking off its pedestal.  I hate to break it to it, but these viruses tend to travel in pairs, if not paces (pace-defined-a collection of asses…aka my family). 

Stomach flu has always been this mother’s Achilles’ heel.  In my earlier days, it sent me to the gas station in search of a pack of cigarettes.  If my kids needed me and I couldn’t be located inside, there was a good chance they could find me hot boxing a smoke behind the shed.

Now older and cheaper, I’ve given up standing out back.  I can buy a decent bottle of wine with what a single pack of cigarettes now cost.  And though I’m sure there was some mental benefit from removing myself from my less-than-sterile environment, smoking is something I think I’ve finally outgrown.

My demeanor is such that a few months ago when John came down with a stomach malady at work, he phoned to say he wouldn’t be coming home.  His office, equipped with a couch and a bathroom, seemed more appealing to him than the comfort of his own home and his Lysol-wielding wife. 

I should have been ashamed of myself.  Surely, a husband who fears his wife in times of sickness puts my soul at risk for an eternity of caring for my family while infected with the stomach flu. 

Kenny’s latest bout was, if nothing else, interesting.  For two days his skill at hiding his sweatpants (as he still abhors wearing underwear), was so advanced, he even fooled himself.

“Come on, Kenny,” I coaxed.  “I won’t be mad.  I know you couldn’t help it, but you have to show me where you hid the evidence.”

Before my new front-loading, music-playing washing machine, I might have just thrown those soiled casualties away.  But with a sanitizing cycle, I figured my HG was up to the challenge.

But like something out of the Twilight Zone, I think I heard my machine threaten me from the basement Friday night.  Like Talking Tina, it informed me in no uncertain terms, if I kept feeding it shit it was going to find a way to get even.

Thankfully this morning, Kenny for the first time in a few days eagerly ate his breakfast of French toast. 

I’d love to relay his answer when I asked him how he was feeling, but John recommends that some responses are better left undocumented.

As for the dejected machine in my basement, I hope to have at least a couple days of reprieve before I have to test its limits again.  After all, there are still two people (myself included), who have not yet experienced the pleasure of the flu this season.  

I wonder,  might the sanitize cycle work on people too?