Possumblog

Of Frustration and Melancholy

Well, I got all finished up yesterday and thought that TODAY I would be able to finally play, and I'd come in early and hit the ol' keyboard hard and do some catching up with all that's gone on lately.

Shoulda known better.

Got up this morning and rousted the kids. Since Reba had to go in early, I had to take the younger three to school, which is usually not that bad as long as we leave at 10 til 7. Yesterday, we managed fine. This morning? Well, they took a bit longer to get downstairs, and they had Things to Do. Which they needed done while I was trying to fix them some breakfast. Seems Boy needed a base to hang his pipecleaner DNA model on. I had to go find that. Managed to find a narrow shoebox, stuck a hole in the top, pushed in a bent paperclip as a hook, and hung the twisted fuzzy things in there neatly. Done. But then he needed tape. Tape is supposed to be in THIS cabinet. It was, but there was no dispenser, so I needed the scissors, which Boy had to go retrieve from some other part of the house. Cut two pieces so he could tape on his description.

"Daddy, I need you to fix this."

It was Catherine, who'd remembered she wanted to take another one of her little homemade pizzas to school today just like she did yesterday. Only, yesterday, she'd already had it made and we only had to heat it in the oven.

Today?

She had to make it AND get it hot. And it was time to go. Grr. Heated up the oven, cleaned up the mess from breakfast, told everyone to get their backpacks and get ready to go, told Cat to put away her video game so she'd be ready to go, waited, waited, took the pizza out as soon as the cheese looked more or less melted, wrapped it in foil, slung it in her lunchbox, yelled upstairs to Oldest to have a good day (which got the usual frosty silence in response), and hit the garage door running about five minutes behind schedule.

Middle Two to middle school, Cat and I on to the intermediate school, pulled into the drop-off and sat for a moment to see if the doors had been unlocked yet.

"Daddy, do we have time to go back home?"

::sigh::

"Why, Catherine?"

Although I knew.

"I forgot my backpack I'M SORRY DADDY!!"

"Well, you might be late, and I know I will be, but whatever."

Back home, pick up backpack, back to school, where she got out with plenty of time to spare--not the least bit late. And then it was time for me to go to work. It was 7:40.

I got here at 9:00. A wreck at the 31st Street exit, which stopped traffic and contributed to a wreck after the Tallapoosa Street exit, both of which backed up traffic all the way to Trussville. By the time I actually GOT to the 31st Street exit, there was no wreck there anymore.

SO, now I'm here, and I'm not in a pleasant state, and to make it worse, Halloween was quite the bummer. Jonathan and Rebecca both had homework, and neither one was really that excited about going trickertreating, which at first I thought was good, and I congratulated them for being mature enough to realize that if they did go out, they knew they'd have to get their homework done first. Catherine was QUITE ready to go, however, and got on her witch costume and grabbed her plastic pumpkin and we headed out.

It was warm--didn't even need a jacket, and I probably would have been more comfortable in a tee shirt instead of my dress shirt. And it was light out--there were scattered low clouds that bounced the lights from the main highway. And for some reason, there just weren't nearly so many kids out this year.

And the worst thing? I only had one with me.

I think she noticed the loneliness of it all, too. The first house she was excited, but after that one, I think she missed not having a couple of other kids to run with her and try to get to the doorbell first. She usually is chattering like a spider monkey on crack, but she was very quiet this year.

And it made me sad.

How many more years will it be before she decides she's too old for dressing up and asking for candy? To make it worse, when we got back, Jonathan had finished his homework and was all excited and wanted to go out, too. I dropped Cat off and Boy and I started walking.

He felt the same vibe, too. Not very many kids out, and a certain sense that he was a bit too old to be dressing up. We went to the few houses on the street behind us, and when I pointed out some more houses up the way, he suddenly just said he wanted to go home. "I'm hot."

This from the kid who'd played football for three hours with a bunch of rowdy boys on Sunday afternoon in the big field where we camped. He was hot.

I really don't think that was it, and I have to tell you it makes me miss all those times when there was no such thing as getting too hot or too tired or too old to run around the neighborhood after dark, when having to go to the bathroom didn't mean going home, but finding a conveniently dark clump of bushes.

For once, I'm kinda glad everyone's putting up Christmas decorations early.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at November 1, 2006 10:50 AM