OH ALL RIGHT

For all my big "I'm over preschool, it's no big deal" talk, this morning was Hard. Very Hard. A whole entire hour of Hard! 

I told Ike he was going to school this morning as I got him dressed, and his entire face lit up at the word and he very literally gasped with delight and clapped his hands. 

"Well," I added, "for an HOUR, anyway. Let's not get ridiculous about it."

I pulled up to the school's drop-off and a teacher calmly collected Ike right from his carseat and carried him up a walkway, towards the classroom door. He and I stared at each other through the windshield. What just happened? Did that just happen? I'm not sure how I feel about what just happened.

I drove home and promptly got ridiculous about it. The rearview reflected nothing but empty carseats and boosters — I'd sent Noah off on the bus carrying a giant posterboard project we completed last night; he refused my offer to drive him to school to protect it because he wanted to show it off to his friends. Next, I dropped Ezra at the curb of the school's primary campus, and he'd bounded off towards the door (with his extraneous backpack and lunchbag, natch) without a look back at me. 

And now my baby, too. 

Ike's entire first hour of toddler-flavor preschool was barely enough time for me to get back home to shower and wipe the breakfast crumbs and syrup residue off my counters, but it was still enough to twinge. My chest felt tight and my arms just felt empty. 

Which: Christ, chill out. Most mornings around this time I'd be handing duties over to a babysitter anyway and plopping down with my laptop and all my other professional-ish (and not-so-professional-ish) duties, but Ike would still be THERE. HERE. Poking his head in my room or downstairs singing. Maybe not in my primary care but still in my...uh...general domain. This was different. Too different. And way too soon. 

(I told you I got ridiculous about it.)

When I arrived back at his school he was sitting at an impossibly tiny table hammering some wooden balls into a tower of ramps. The teacher reported that he did very well, though there were some tears when he first arrived and realized I wasn't coming in with him.

I REPEAT: There were some tears when he first arrived and realized I wasn't coming in with him.

I'm sure this makes me a terrible asshole of a mother, but I was...relieved to hear that. Maybe even a twinge of downright pleased. He noticed. He cared. He gave a rat's ass.

I missed him and he missed me. Good.

He turned towards the door at the sound of my voice and his face lit up for a second time. "Go?" he asked. "Yes?"

"Yes," I said. "Let's go home."

"Yessssss!" he agreed, and ran over to hug me.

Two hours tomorrow. We'll be fine. We can do this. 

Ezra the Collector

This post is sponsored by Citrus Lane.

First of all, I would like to establish OUT LOUD that this is a safe space, and more specifically, this is a safe space where we can open up and admit that yeah, our kids are weirdos.

Even more specifically, Ezra is a weirdo. Like kind of a weird-y weird level weirdo.

I don’t know how to describe this one particular behavior he exhibits (and has exhibited for YEARS) without referring to the name of a popular yet distastefully horrifying reality show on A&E, so maybe this picture will give you an idea of what I’m dancing around:

Hey, Ezra! What have you got in your pocketses today? 

20 minutes later, I think the pile ended up being 27 tiny Lego bricks, studs, berries, croissants, mugs, chalices, various non-Lego thingamajobs and two lint-backed pumpkin stickers that he got around Halloween.

And every single item is a treasure. His preciousesss. And every single item must be checked and accounted for several times a day, until he forgets about the entire collection completely. Which usually happens right around the time he tosses his five-pocket cargo pants into the laundry hamper. Because by that point, he’s moved on to a collection of slightly larger plastic sundries inside a coin purse, empty tissue box, or Ike’s talking plastic picnic basket that no longer contains any of the plastic picnic items, because Ezra has filled it to the brim with even more tiny Legos, three rubber scoops of play ice cream, a spatula, seven toy cars and a handful of broken crayons that he deliberately fished out of the trash when I wasn’t looking and is now guarding with his very life.

Jason just up and flat-out calls him a hoarder. (Affectionately! I swear. It’s not like we’re finding cat carcasses in his bed. Just all the baby books from Ike’s room, a bunch of Smurf figurines and maybe a Happy Meal box.)

I just think the kid likes…containers. Containers full of things. He’s like a pirate with a very DIY aesthetic and original take on the boring-and-done treasure chest. Gold coins? Whatever. Check out these extra stomp rockets and this roll of packing tape! WE’RE GOING TO BE RICH.

(Ezra, pictured here in Oversized Container Full of Tiny Things & Also Ezra Heaven.)

Over Christmas break, he stumbled across a backpack that I’d bought for him to take on long car trips. I guess he thought I’d thrown it out or something (LIKE I DO WITH BROKEN CRAYONS AND PROBABLY EVERYTHING ELSE HE LOVES), and was so, so happy to see it again that he insisted on wearing it nonstop for three days straight. At the dinner table. While playing outside. To restaurants. To bed.

So I wasn’t too surprised when school started back up, he insisted on carrying the backpack. Now, Ezra does not NEED a backpack at his preschool — in fact, backpacks are explicitly listed as something the children are to leave at home. But Ezra really, REALLY wanted to take that backpack to school, like his big brother.

So I let him take the backpack to school. Because I have better things to do in the morning than get locked in a battle of wills over a backpack with a four year old. Like, say, NOT getting locked in a battle of wills over a backback with a four year old. 

Over time, the backpack went from being empty to…well, becoming yet another one of Ezra’s containers of weird. He added a notebook and some pencils...and then some finger puppets, a sandwich cookie cutter and the instruction booklet from our microwave. 

So I realized we maybe needed to curb the backpack habit, especially since I learned he was refusing to take it off once he got to school. And while his teacher was completely understanding and accommodating of the backpack, he was a little less excited about the daily show-and-tell of broken pencils, Legos, empty DVD cases and talking Elmo phones.

It was right around this time that I agreed to do a sponsored blog post for Citrus Lane, which sends out age-appropriate, monthly curated boxes of eco-friendly baby and kid gear, toys, bath products, you name it. They sent me a couple sample boxes. One for Ezra and one for Ike, IN THEORY. In reality, once I opened the boxes, they were both Ezra's. All his. Because they were...containers. Full of…things. Bath toys! Books! Fruit snacks! Monkey dishware! Lotions and bath soaps and AHHHHHH!!!!

As I watched him paw through the assortment of surprises, I suddenly realized that I should have boxed and wrapped all his Christmas presents into a similar single box o' wonder. 

Among the bonanza of items in our boxes was…a Skip Hop elephant lunch bag. Ezra just about passed out. A small…Ezra-sized…container…with a handle…for carrying…for which to put things inside…lunch-y things…omg…

Now, again: Ezra does not need a lunch bag. He eats a school-provided snack mid-morning, then comes home at noon and eats lunch here.  

But some kids in his class stay all day. And these kids do indeed bring lunch bags/boxes, which they deposit into a classroom fridge each morning as they arrive. And it turns out that more than anything — even more than a backpack full of Monopoly pieces, miniature rubber tires and plastic teacups — Ezra wanted to join them. To be like them. 

He didn't actually care about the actually eating lunch at school part, but just the morning ritual of putting lunchboxes inside the refrigerator. This is what makes you "cool," apparently, in today's modern trend-setting with-it-happening Montessori classroom. He even tried to put his backpack in the fridge on several occasions, and then tried to talk his teacher into letting him at least put some random pieces of toy fruit in there instead.

In other words, this lunch bag from Citrus Lane was the greatest gift that never would have occurred to me to buy for him, but there it is. 

(So long, Play-Doh carrying case! We are moving. On. Up.)

Ezra still doesn’t stay at school for lunch, but every morning he packs up his lunch bag. He gets real sippy cup and fills it with water and shovels some Cheerios into a baggie. Then he adds two ice packs and a few extra essentials.

(Essentials like: Toy milk, wooden donut w/back-up icing slab, Lego construction worker, plastic pepperoni slices, felt tomato, some kind of stuffed lettuce pillow thing, sandwich roll and an entire Thanksgiving turkey.)

He takes it to school and puts it in the refrigerator, where it sits untouched (and non-distracting-like) all day. I arrive at noon to collect him and his lunch bag (which before I took these photos had just emerged from a vigorous cleaning after being sent down the playground slide into a mud puddle, because it and Ezra are best pals). Then we go home, where he dutifully unpacks everything and puts it all back in its proper place. 

 

He’s never been happier, the goof. 

***

Want your own box of random inspiration and handy essentials for your own little weirdo? Leave a comment between now and next Wednesday and I will select a random winner for a FREE box of awesome from Citrus Lane. 

"BUT I NEVER WIN." Dude, I know! Me neither! But for us, here's a coupon for 50% off your first box — that's only $12.50! TWELVE FIFTY. After that, monthly boxes of baby-, kid- and mom-approved products and toys start at just $21. Head over to citruslane.com and use coupon code AMALAH50 from now until March 6th.

Fine print: Coupon applies to monthly subscriptions only. Offer valid for new customers only. Subscriptions automatically renew to full retail price.

Sunrise, Sunset, Yeah, Okay, We Get It, Whatever

So it seems like something interesting happens once you embark on parenting your third (3rrrrrd) child while also entering your 10th (TENTH) (TENNNNNNTH) year of blogging: Reruns. 99.9% of your life has happened before, and hot damn, did you already done document it to death.

Friday was Ike's official "first" day of "preschool." But since the school prefers a gradual transition into the program, it basically meant he and I stayed there together for an hour, and then left.

So...not much different from the day we visited the school a couple weeks ago. So...not much to report, no matter how badly I wanted to work my insides into a nostalgic wreck and then vomit said insides all over my blog because my baby. MY BAAAAAAABY.

Instead we came home and I realized that I've written variations on that first-day-of-school entry four or five times already. Probably three times for Noah, twice for Ezra, at least. So that means I am either:

1) Growing as a person and a writer as I no longer feel compelled to wring emotional drama and emotive blog posts out of ONE HOUR at a GLORIFIED HALF-DAY DAYCARE because my kid PLAYED WITH SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT TOYS THAN THE TOYS HE PLAYS WITH AT HOME, or...

2) I dunno. Just kind of over it? It was an hour. He got REALLY excited in the parking lot and said something that sounded like "yes school yes!" He played with a ball tower for awhile and threw a basket of plastic fruit on the floor when it was time to leave. THE END!

This Thursday he goes for an hour by himself. I am kind of tempted to leave him there a little longer, because: Yeah. He's not gonna care, y'all. He's got an independent streak the size of the Grand Canyon and I predict that instead of rushing into my loving joyful arms when I come to collect him he will again hurl plastic fruit and run in the opposite direction because STOP EMBARRASSING ME BY EXISTING, MOMMMM. 

(There's another not-quite-two-year-old boy in the class who spent the entire hour I was there asking for his mommy. I confidently informed the teacher that Ike would NOT do that, mostly because he still refuses to call me by name, or acknowledge that I even HAVE a name other than a sharp poke to my chest when asked where or who is Mommy. SHE'S RIGHT THERE, DUMBASS.)

Good thing he is so cute. Good thing they are all so cute. Good thing they never get tired of me telling them how cute they are, even if I can't muster up the energy to write about it for the squidrillionth time.

How we all keep swapping these cold germs back and forth, I will never know.