Life in a Stinky Shoe

This week during school-at-home, we have encountered semester assessments.  Also known as “GET ME OUT OF HERE!”  We spent the whole day today reviewing history from 1865 through about 1920 . . . and then they had to take the assessment.  One student passed easily with a 96%.  The other, my Reluctant Student, received a 76%, which frankly, is a huge success considering everything.  If he doesn’t get 80%, he is supposed to bring his score up to 100%, so we discussed all his wrong answers and that’s that.  Enough.  Enough. 

I had lunch at 2:00 p.m. and since my case of Diet Coke was in the back of the van (I never brought it in from the store the other night), I was unintentionally caffeine-free.  Not a good thing.  At all.

This afternoon, twelve boys played baseball in my front yard, which is not equipped for baseball games.  Home-plate was right in front of my overgrown boxwood hedge which is right in front of my plate-glass window.  I envisioned the baseball flying through my window and into my head, but it did not.  First base was a hedge.  Then, the player had to jump a three foot rock wall to get to second base, the mailbox.  To reach third base (a spindly tree), the player would jump down the three foot rock wall, cross the ivy and grab the twigs of the tree.

TWELVE BOYS.  I had my fingers ready to dial 9-1-1 knowing that one of them would smack another of them in the head with a metal bat at any moment.  But no one did.

You should see what happened to my daisies though.  The new green growth was pulverized by boy sneakers.  I am the kind mother who pops open the front door and shrieks, “HEY, GET OUT OF MY GARDEN!” to no avail.  All the boys just stare at me as if I have a lilac bush growing out of my forehead.

My daughter insists on being a part of the boy bedlam.  I do not enjoy this at all because that means I have to sit where I can see the front yard and exactly who is cooking dinner while I’m supervising?  No one, that’s who.  (The same person who is doing the laundry:  No One.) 

Anyway, the boys are arguing right now about some imaginary game and I just might lose my mind if I have to listen to this discussion one more second.  So, farewell.  I cannot stay in this room because my precarious mental health is at stake.

(Oh, by the way, my 9-year old son and his 9-year old friend say, “Hey, should we play wall-ball old-school?”  As if they are cynical and weary from their long tenure on this earth.  It never fails to crack me up.  “Old-school” indeed!)