Issues of the social and moral variety
Today was Zibbit’s first day of Kindergarten. And because nothing in my life can occur smoothly or without incident, a large bug flew down the front of my dress while I waited with her outside the classroom. While all the other parents hovered around the children, snapping photos and adjusting backpack straps, I stood near the back of the group surreptitiously digging between my breasts and flapping the hem of my purple dress. Eventually I had to duck behind a patch of sunflowers so I could reach in and remove it from my bra, but other than that the morning went really well.
This week also marks my first encounter of the school year with one of the Intense Moms from the elementary school. You know who she is. She is the one who organizes a class play date at the park, complete with juice boxes and chocolate chip cookies, days before school has even started. She’s the one who will bring fresh fruit for the children to enjoy on the first day of school, and then spend every Monday afternoon cutting shapes out of contruction paper to “help the teacher out a bit.” She’ll volunteer in the school library and chaperone every field trip, and when you miss the Fall Carnival because you are working that night she will graciously offer to give you the password for her on-line photo album so you can see the photos she has electronically scrapbooked. I am simultaneously in love with and terrified of the Intense Mom, mostly because she makes me feel like a useless idiot (and don’t we always fall for the ones who make us feel stupid? Haha. Bitterness isn’t funny.). I know that these women are an important part of the elementary school experience (without them, pretty much nothing would ever get done) but I wish it wasn’t so blatantly obvious that I’m not one of them. These mothers dress their daughters in darling, hand-made corduroy dresses with white ruffled socks and unscuffed Mary Janes, while I consider our day a success if the girls have made it to school in anything other than a pajama top and flip-flops. If their hair is brushed I get double points, and if we make it all the way to school without realizing we have left something important at home I pretty much feel like I should be awarded the medal of honor. I am filled with anxiety when dealing with Intense Mom, and I live in constant fear that she will discover that I often make frozen pizza for dinner. But I also really want to be her friend, if for no other reason than she may toss some home-baked zucchini bread my way every now and then. The school year is a difficult time for me, socially-speaking.
In other news, the ants are still dying one by one on my living room floor. I don’t even move them anymore. One dies, and a crowd of three or four will gather around it, pacing back and forth and talking to each other through brief antennae taps, and then the next day they are all gone. I don’t know where they take the dead ones. I feel like I am living on a burial mound. I spoke to the pest people on the phone today, and they told me to leave some food on the floor so I can follow the ants when they carry it away. We can kill them faster if we know exactly where the nest is. This makes me feel a little bit too much like my friend who went deer hunting in Alaska and ended up beating a doe to death with his oar as she swam past his boat.
I bet Intense Mom would have no problem killing these ants herself. And then she would probably pin their bodies to a piece of cardboard and have an impromptu Entomology lesson. I’ll ask her about it tomorrow.
Intense mom! This is great! You can get on her good side by offering to help on your terms - send goodies during parties, or if they do auctions or something for fundraising, offer a girl’s night haircutting party. I found with Noah that the room moms get so disappointed at the lack of response or help from 80% of the parents in the class, so even if you just respond and help where you can, it’ll go a LONG way!
Comment by redheadmomma — September 3, 2009 @ September 3, 2009 at 6:29 pm
That doe thing… was too strong and horrible an image, man. Someone really did that? Why the — it seems so senselessly brutal. At least let the thing get out of the water.. I must have thought about it too much, or visualized it too much, because the visual kind of makes me sick…
On a different note, would you like me to make a little corn-husk god for your ants? It can watch over them and guide their little souls to the afterlife. (Harvested some of the corn today, although most of it isn’t ripe yet.. the few ears that were? Delicious!)
Love you babe.
And, y’know? Intense Mom is never as cool as Real Mom… which is you.
Comment by Sister — September 4, 2009 @ September 4, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Something you should know about intense mom. She acts all clean and proper because she is even more desperate to find her place in the world. She hangs around outside the teacher’s door praying for something to do so she has purpose. She calls the teacher at weird hours just to make sure her child is doing the homework in the right color pen or on a pleasing kind of paper. And she sees how delightfully free and joyful, if unbrushed, your children are and secretly wonders why her kid doesn’t move through the world with as much wonder and joy as yours do. She’ll sew her kid’s name calligraphically into her pencil pouch and new Gap kid sweater more out of fear that she’s somehow parented incorrectly or that she might parent incorrectly some time in the future. And she gives you the password to the online scrap book because she is desperate for you to see her kid and love them the way you love your own. It’s all about currency, baby. Yours is passion and love. Her’s is juice boxes.
But let me tell you this, too. Us teachers? We like the mom of can crack a witty joke with us a hell of a lot more than those construction paper cut outs.
Comment by Christie — September 10, 2009 @ September 10, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Intense mom is secretly insecure. She’s afraid if she doesn’t do everything 110% that everything will be viewed as a failure. She’s unwilling to admit that she actually only wants to be only 85% most of the time.
Comment by Daniel S — September 23, 2009 @ September 23, 2009 at 4:33 pm