Fulfilling? Quite.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm pretty idealistic.  A daydreamer, if you will.  (Dreeeeeeam weeeaver...sorry).  When I was first able to move in with Eric and the kids become a SAHM after being in the workforce for 16 years, I  thought "Whew! Now I'll get to do all of those things I didn't have time to do because I was at work!"

Um. No.  None of those things are getting done.  In fact, less of the things I wanted to get done are getting done.  I am taking five classes this semester instead of my usual four.  "Sure," I thought, "this will be a snap with all of this extra time!"  How is it that I now have LESS time to do things than I did before?  The answer is, of course, that the little dudes are MORE than a full-time job.  Before I would work my 40 hours, go to school, and if I needed time to do my homework, I'd just tell Eric I couldn't come over today to visit.  I was still there a few days a week, but now I live here.  My day with the kids starts promptly at 7:30 in the morning, and it does not end until 12.5 hours later, if I'm lucky and they go to bed at 8 without a fight or without being so loud for an hour after bedtime that we have to go in there and remove toys.  Eric gets home between 4:30 and 5, and boy, does that help, but I still don't have any time to get my work done!  If I leave the house, I feel guilty that Eric is there doing it alone after working all day; if I DON'T leave the house, I get no homework done!  I can go in our room and try to work, but it goes a little like this:

*trying to read and absorb what I'm reading* SHRIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKK!!!! AAAAAAAAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!  I AM GOING TO GET YOU!!! STOP LOOKING AT ME!! SHRIIIIEEEEEEK!  KAREEEEEEN, DAAAAAAAADDDY, HE IS NOT LETTING ME HAVE THE BAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLL!!!!  and again, if I may emphasize little man's favorite noise, SHRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKK!!!!  I cannot believe a boy can get his voice that high.  I'm going to enter him into a Mariah Carey impersonator contest.  I almost want them to hit puberty so that their voices deepen and I never have to hear SHRIIIIIIIEEEEEK again.

That is really not true.  I have been a MESS lately because they are growing up.  I miss Big Man during the day when he is at school badly.  Little Man will be in kindergarten in a few months.  It is devastating.  They turn 5 and 7 in 3 short months; 5,7 and 3 can go to Hades.  They are no longer allowed in my number line.  DOWN WITH THE FIRST THREE ODD PRIME NUMBERS!!!

I did get to go see Big Man at school today, and it was one of the most fulfilling experiences I've ever had.  One of my little "daydreams" was that I'd have all sorts of time to go to PTA meetings and be involved in school and go on field trips all of the time.  They don't let little brothers on field trips, and the one PTA meeting I went to was AWFUL.  The women with 4th graders that had been there for a few years completely dominated and had no respect for the opinions of any new parents.  Many wonderful solutions to the many problems the PTA proposed were given by new members, and all of them were shot down or blatantly ignored.  I felt that I was in a room full of children instead of adults.

Anyway, today Big Man's teacher allowed parents to come in during their Writer's Workshop so that the kids could share stories they had written and techniques they had used to write them, and little brothers were allowed!  Little Man and I were very excited to go see Big Man during the day, even though he had nothing to read.  He's had a nasty flu and has been out of school for a while, so he wasn't there to write a story.  However, he did share with me a book that he did not write, which was awesome.  Also, I got to meet two other little kids who shared their stories with me since their parents couldn't come.  They were darling.  One of them was a very shy little boy who wrote a story about baby ducks and kept writing "Quack! Quack!"  He then showed me all of the sound words in another book.  The other little girl wrote a story about chicks (they hatched them in class), and she had a book full of sound words, too.  Big Man showed me the use of ellipses in a book and dashes and what they meant.  Then the little girl told me, "When my little brother eats, he poops a LOT!!"  She also told me all about wrestling and her little brother, who likes to fight when he watches wrestling.  This is when Little Man piped up, in a crowded room of parents and children that had just gotten silenced by the teacher, "Me and my brother fight, and I punch him in the face!!" as though it was his proudest moment.

Awesome.  He acted like he'd never get disciplined for that, too.  Aside from that, I really enjoyed myself, even though I know more about someone's little brother's bowel movements.  I was quite surprised at the behavior of some of the other parents.  Two of them were texting throughout the entire exercise, and one of them even made a phone call while the kids were sharing.  I found it exceptionally rude.  *Judge, judge, judge*.  Eh, I'll think they're rude, and they'll think I allow my kids to punch one another in the face without prejudice.  We're even.