“What are you doing Mom?”
“I’m just trying to think of something to write about for my MamaPop post today.” 
He thought about it for a while.
“Why don’t you just type random letters?”
“Just like 10th grade geography papers?”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
*
There are actually two kinds of BlogHer hangovers. The kind of hangover I wrote about two weeks ago and the kind where you run out of words. Usually when I come home from BlogHer I find that I have mysteriously run out of things to say. It is as if I have told most of you in person and I don’t need to write any posts.
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.
* * *
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.
The funniest joke I heard all day as told by my four year old neighbor, Todd:
(Laurie and Suebob should stop reading now)
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: Diarrhea.
I turned my head as his mother scolded him for that kind of talk at the table because I was laughing and I didn’t want to encourage his behavior. His second joke was “Why did the diarrhea cross the road?”* Then he said – and he said it really loud and we were in a restaurant – “WHAT? YOU DON’T LIKE DIARRHEA?”
I had to hide behind my child so that Todd couldn’t see that I was laughing so hard I was shaking.
I know it is inappropriate lunch conversation. I know that I am a parent and a grown up and it takes a village and I should be throwing him stern glances as his own mother tries to raise him right, but dammit, diarrhea is funny.
Especially when it crosses the road.
We were playing “The Cleaning Game” at my house.
This involves me setting the timer on my iPhone for 10 minutes. For 10 minutes, there is only playing – no cleaning whatsoever. It is important to start with a playing segment. When the alarm rings I start the timer again. For 10 minutes there is fast cleaning. We get as much accomplished as we can in 10 minutes.
Sometimes we do it in 20 minute increments, if the house is really trashed we’ll do 20 minutes clean, 10 minutes play. We do this over and over until either the house is clean or we get distracted.
Generally it is the latter.
Either way, we were playing The Cleaning Game today and I was doing dishes for my 10 minutes when Ian came into the kitchen crying.
“Claudia gets to do all of the fun cleaning.”
“No cleaning is fun.” I said, “I mean, what kind of cleaning is fun cleaning?”
“She gets to clean the bathroom!”
“And you think cleaning the bathroom is fun cleaning?”
He nodded.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said “If you do a really, really good job on the living room and getting all of your toys out of the hallway I will let you clean my bathroom.”
And he said “Yes!” and did that thing with where you make a fist and pull your elbow to your hip – like he just scored a touchdown.
It doesn’t seem to happen that often lately, but for today everybody wins.
Me: Claudia, I think the bathing suit you wore this morning is getting too small for you.
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.
