This year I thought I avoided that.

I came home from New York and I had plenty to write about.

Then all of the sudden I didn’t. I haven’t written here in a week and my last post was three YouTube videos.

I owe you more than that.

You know that I used to write for the now defunct DC Metro Moms Blog, right? Well, I did, and every once in a while I wrote something worth reading over there. Now that they have closed their doors they are allowing us to cross-post our work on our personal blogs. I wrote this this particular post last summer. It got picked up by several newspapers so it must be decent, right? Anyway, with back to school season upon The Goon Squad this seemed like an appropriate time to share it with you.

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The Class of 2022

My twins turned five this week. Between all of the preschool birthday celebrations and the birthday party (you know the one where I invited every child in both of their classes? Can you even imagine 32 four and five year olds in one room… after eating chocolate cake?) I didn’t have time to think much about kindergarten orientation.

Okay fine. I didn’t know about it until a week before so I didn’t have much time to obsess about it.

I came prepared the way any good blogger would. I had my camera and my iPhone. I figured I could twitter during the boring parts.

The tweeting never happened. First of all, I got stuck in the front row and second of all as soon as the principal started talking I was riveted.

She walked out and said “Welcome to the class of 2022.”

The class of 2022! Let’s pretend for just a second it doesn’t sound like something in a science fiction book. I remember thinking 1984 was futuristic. 2022.

That reminds me of a quick story. My husband and I were shopping for a couch recently and we went into a furniture store that could only be described as “mod”. The stuff in there was very cool, very uncomfortable and very overpriced. The problem is it all had the effect of Tomorrowland. You know, yesterdays idea of the future.

I said to my husband “That looks totally 2001.” The I realized that I had to clarify “Not the year, the space odyssey.”

It seemed so odd that 2001 was eight years ago. Now here I am sitting in a small plastic chair thinking about my babies graduating from high school.

In space suits.

I’ll fly to their graduation with my jet pack. Even that idea is outdated isn’t it?

I’d like to propose a toast to the class of 2022. It will be here sooner than we think.

Her: No it isn’t.

Me: Really, honey, I think it is. Look at this picture.

Her: That isn’t too small! It was just crammed up the hole.

All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others.

- Cyril Connolly

Sarah and Gabe sitting in a tree

k-i-s-s-i-n-g.

First come love,

Second comes marriage,

Then comes Mommy with the BABY CARRIAGE!

Them:

Hahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha!

Me:

Well, yeah, that is pretty much what happened except for the tree part, and it was a double stroller, and the babies were all loud and pooped a lot.

“Sure,” I said “Lots of people probably never drink chocolate milk.”

“You can live without ever ever drinking a single drop of chocolate milk?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Claudia said you can’t live if you don’t drink chocolate milk.”

Then a little voice came from the other room.

“I said you could not live happily without drinking chocolate milk.”

She has a good point.

IAN: Where are his flappy wings?

ME: I don’t know. It doesn’t look like he has any. This robot dragon appears to have arms instead.

IAN: All dragons have arms.

ME: I don’t think that is true.

IAN: Then how do they pick up their utensils?

Then he looks at me like I’m an idiot.

You know, we tried to give our children large vocabularies in order to give them a leg up but instead they just act bizarre.

Since they started Kindergarten I have been sort of neglectful. Their teacher have been doing a great job and they have both been making huge leaps in reading and writing.

Since the weather gods have clearly decided that my children are to be home schooled this month I decided to pull out the HOP box and see how much progress the twins have make in Kindergarten.

It turns out that they are reading really well. They have got the three letter words down pat and they are getting better with sight words (you know, she, what, is, the, etc.) and they are even doing well with the stories.

Then the little book threw us a curve ball.

Or should I say passed us a curve ball?

The sentence was “Tim can pass.”

Ian got the “Tim” and he got the “can’” and then he got stuck.

I said “Sound it out.”

“Paws? Paz? Pahs?”

Against my better judgment I did what I knew would help him.

“What sound does A-S-S make?”

*blank stare*

“What word have I been telling you that you weren’t allowed to spell anymore all week?”

“ASS! PASS!”

He read the word, followed by hysterical laughter and saying the word ass over and over and over until I threatened him with a nap.

And there you have it. The mother of the year award, bring it to me.

Oh yeah, that is his thumb.

They usually only do this when it is the last sound in a word, so stuff becomes stuth, or enough becomes enuth.

It is almost some sort of reversed cockney, but I honestly don’t believe that my five year olds are clever enough to invent their own dialect.

I don’t think they even know what a dialect is. I’m almost certain that they don’t know what Cockney sounds like.

I sort of want to ask their kindergarten teachers if the other kids are doing this too but I don’t want to sound like a lunatic.

I also don’t want to be one of those parents that pester the teachers. I’m sure we will have issues that require me to contact them for a better reason than this.

I’ve been laughing about it for three days.

Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

He swears it says Jack.