Hiccups

Strudel’s dad was hiccuping strenuously, as he does.

“What are hiccups FOR,” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said, only half-listening, and making a grocery list.

“I think they are the FRIENDS OF COUGHS,” she declared, and then fell over laughing.

Uncomfortable

I was trying to work and Strudel was in the hallway, parading around front of the full-length mirror that hangs there, just outside the door of my room. I glanced over and saw that she was pulling her pants down and trying to catch a glimpse of herself. Her underwear was bunched up and completely up her butt in the most atomic wedgie that ever detonated.

“MOM is this how you wear your underwear?” she yelled.

“WHAT,” I said.

“This is how you wear your underwear, up your butt!!” she screamed.

“Okay, first of all, they are thongs, and…never mind.”

“This is really uncomfortable, Mom. You are DOING IT WRONG.”

Loose Tooth

“I HAVE TWO LOOSE TOOTHS!!”

Love Letter

“Mom, I am going to write you a note while you are making dinner, okay?”

“Okay!”

A few minutes later I was handed a tiny folded piece of paper. Delighted, I opened it and read it aloud:

“Do…you…know…what…CHICKEN BUTT.”

I looked at her and the excited frozen anticipation on her face cracked into hilarity. Strudel was destroyed and fell onto the floor, kicking her feet and screaming with laughter.

Wow, not just an insult comic, but a PROP insult comic. The grandparents would be so proud. Later I got another note that read, “A bird poopd on yor hed.”

NEHAW

Orientation

Tomorrow Strudel starts kindergarten. She is starting at a completely different school than I thought she was two weeks ago, because this is the year Seattle decided that you should actually, you know, attend the school in your neighborhood, and not choose to bus your kid way the fuck across town. Information on the website lead me to believe that my girls would be grandfathered into Franny’s school for the fourth grade. I was half right.

I got a notice from the transportation department that said Franny’s bus stop would be in front of our old place. She did not need the bus there because it was walkable even in the worst weather, but she would certainly need it from our new house. I called them to see if they could shift it to our new address. I knew they had our new address, which I had diligently sent notice about, because the transportation notice saying the bus stop was 40 blocks south of our new house was sent to the new address.

“Ohh,” said the woman when I finally got her on the line. “Yes, there’s been some kind of mistake. Your older daughter can stay in her old school, but your kindergartener must start school in your new district.”

“Is there no way to keep them together?” I asked.

“Well, you could apply for an exception for your kindergartener for next year,” she said.

“Oh. Well, my older daughter will be on to middle school by then.”

So we learned we had a new school for both girls, and yes, they would send the cheese on over for them to ride. Except I had to drive my kindergartener on the first day, but the older one HAD to be at the bus stop, or it would mess up the bus driver’s headcounts, okay? Okay.

I called the school itself, now that they were placed.

“Can you tell me their teachers’ names?” I asked.

“Oh, let’s see…you have a kindergartener!”

“I do.”

“Can you come to orientation today? It’s at 3:15 to 4.”

So I went to orientation, which completely overflowed the library. There were three kindergartens and three teachers standing in a clump, and one was pregnant. Please please please let her not get the pregnant one, to whom she will get all attached and sad when a harried, indifferent sub comes in in the spring.

The teachers were introduced and Strudel’s teacher looked thin, happy, and well-rested, so not pregnant at all. The librarian and music teachers seem cool as fuck, and there is a heavy emphasis on English Language Learner education, which is good, because Strudel is fluent in Feral Snarl and less so in the art of gentlewomanly behavior and speech. The principal talked at us.

“Wow! We are really excited this year! This is the largest enrollment our school has ever seen!” He said some more things, but what I got out of that was, now that you cannot choose where your child goes, you are stuck here, ha ha!

Tomorrow is it, and I can go back to working from home without having to dump a bucket of ice water over fisticuffs by 10 a.m. Also, there will be running and continued stuffing of animal parts into other animals, etc. Woot!