The Daily Grind: To School And Back

School here started three weeks ago, and we are just getting the hang of our little routine. I decided a while ago that I would drive to and from school most days, so we would still get to spend time with Daddy. Also, I’m not sure how exactly I was convinced that 35 miles was too far of a commute—it’s really not that bad. The better we get at our morning routine, the easier the commute becomes. Silly.

So, three days a week, H-Bomb, Sawed Off and I drive back and forth from the ranch to school. We leave the ranch at 10:AM, so we’re in town by 11:AM. We stop at the town house (which H-Bomb and Sawed Off call “the new house”), eat a quick lunch and exchange the van for the bike and bike trailer. We bike the five whopping blocks to school, uphill all the way, to drop off H-Bomb. (although it's not much, hauling a bike trailer with 60-70 pounds of boys in it definitely increases the exercise factor--and it adds up to at least 20 blocks per day! I am already feeling more, um, toned.)

Sawed Off and I bike back, stopping at the post office to get the mail and running any additional errands. At the new house, Sawed Off gets into all of H-Bomb’s art supplies and I follow him around with baby wipes. Why exactly is it that baby wipes clean marker off of everything from walls to leather chairs, but will not clean "washable" marker off skin?

I’ve since put the markers up, but it seems like there is always a stray, and Sawed Off always manages to find it.

I do some work on other projects, but I never seem to get very much accomplished all at once. I think this is a typical situation in motherhood…a short three hours later, we get on the bike again and go pick up H-Bomb. Sawed Off misses his big brother so much; there are always some nice hugs in the afternoon.

We spend the night in town one night a week, because every Friday H-Bomb has two hours of school instead of three hours (everyone else in school has a half day). In addition, school on Fridays starts 45 minutes earlier for the afternoon session. Although I’m sure we could make it here 45 minutes earlier, the logistics of our routine begin to break down: no time for a snack before school, things like that. We just spend the night because we can, and it makes Friday mornings just a bit easier.

Spending the night in town, we make some kind of dinner in the toaster oven, talk about the day, read books, create art. It is nice without a television. We do have one here, but of course there are no stations since we don’t have a satellite dish or cable. It’s just here for looks, I suppose, until I unhook our extra DVD player at the ranch and haul it in here.

The boys, used to quiet ranch living, complain about the noises in town. The traffic. The street lights. The head lights. The people walking by, talking. I complain about these things too. Man it’s hard to sleep here. We bring Mia to town when we’re spending the night so she doesn’t get too lonely. She is also our protector, especially when Daddy isn’t around. I don’t want to spend more than one night a week in town, or I fear I would be even more exhausted than I perpetually am.

The main thing I dislike about the town house? Besides the noisy and the lights, of course…The lack of Internet service! The house is just a block from the visitor center, so I was really hoping to pick up their free wireless signal, but no such luck. We are going to have to address this issue very soon. Occasionally my computer will pick up a random wireless signal, probably from one of the neighbors, but they’re either not strong enough or password protected. I thought of befriending some of the neighbors, but then my Real Simple magazine suggested it was “too tacky” to ask a neighbor for their wireless password. So I guess we’ll just buy our own, if we can ever get an Internet company to recognize our address: which, if there happens to be an Internet company reading this post, HAS BEEN EXACTLY THE SAME SINCE THE HOUSE WAS BUILT IN 1935. There, I said it. I’ll say this, too: You guys are dumb. Can’t locate the house?! Just because it doesn’t come up on your computer, does not mean the address does not exist. Sheesh.

We’re also adding another item to our agenda for the next six weeks: Soccer! H-Bomb was so excited, he wanted to play soccer. The first practice was on Saturday, which meant ANOTHER trip to town. Ugh. I asked the coach to schedule practices after school, any day but Saturday. Luckily the soccer “games” are on Tuesdays, so that’s not an issue. What I don’t understand, though, there is one “practice” on Saturday, and then on the very next Tuesday, there is a “game.” Huh? This oughta be fun to see—a bunch of five- and six-year-olds, running around after a ball, not knowing the first thing about what to do with it. I’ll be sure to bring the video camera.

H-Bomb has come down with another cold, number two in a string of many, I’m sure. He didn’t feel like going to his very first soccer practice, but we went anyway to get the schedule. He ended up making it through the whole practice! Although he really felt like laying down and taking a nap, he said he had fun. And, at least he wasn’t the only kid sitting down in the middle of the field near the end—the “fat kid” was sitting down as well, and for the record, that kid sat down first!

Unfortunately for us, practices have been scheduled for Thursdays and…Saturdays. I guess H-Bomb will just miss several of them as we already have plans. At least Thursday is our regular stay-the-night-in-town night, so it will be perfect.

Now that the house is somewhat in order, I’m finding I have more time to work on other things, like the two necklace orders I currently have. I’m hoping to get enough jewelry made to start selling some online, so stay tuned for that. Hopefully soon...