Dummy up – close only counts in horse shoes and shit fights

I swear to God it was just July - like last week- maybe two weeks ago at the most. This last six months has been the fastest in my life. 

In September the kids started kindergarten. They were so excited that first day – everything was new. They were excited to ride the bus, excited to fill their backpack, excited to meet all the kids and excited to actually go to school. That first week, they would get themselves up, get themselves dressed, and happily wait patiently for the bus. Now, four months in, Anders and I have a running daily fight about who the unlucky bastard is who has to get them up, dressed, fed, wiped, brushed, tucked and finally onto the bus. The winner (lucky bastard) gets to get up, shower, dress, eat and drink coffee in peace before slipping ever so quietly out the door before the kids wake up.

Since the first glorious week of school when they had joy and enthusiasm, weekday mornings at our house have officially become a full-on nightmare.

I picked the short straw today and was on wake-up patrol. Although any day during the week is bad – Monday’s are especially horrible since the twins are usually overtired and not thrilled to hop back into the weekday routine. Here are some highlights from this morning’s shit show:
 

·         Physically shoving their little arms and legs into clothes. They are four and a half – and I still dress them. If there was a font for shame - this would be typed in “shame bold”. I find the fight of standing there and yelling at them to get dressed to be more than my sanity can take – so I cave and just dress them like they are four months-old rather than four years-old.

·         Threatening to give their breakfast to the dogs if they didn’t move their asses PRONTO to the table.

·         Threatening to tell Tomte (our elf on the shelf) what maniacs they were being and that maybe Santa should just send some dart guns and animal tranquilizer for Christmas.

·         Then – when Max argued one too many times about whether he needs to wear his snow pants (we got 10 cm of snow last night and it was minus five degrees Celsius) I threatened to leave him with the dogs all day and a list of chores.

My neighbors must love to overhear this daily shit show, as I have confirmed with Anders that his mornings do not go any more smoothly.

I was talking to a co-worker about school and kids and the whole mess in the mornings, when I mentioned that I found myself telling Max to “dummy up!” When Maxey looked up at me with a confused little face, I couldn’t clarify since I don’t really know what the hell it means.

My dad used to say it to me - it was usually preceded by a “Jesus Christ!” and was always after I had done something pretty dumb. What I don’t get is why he couldn’t just say “smarten up” like the other dads? Why dummy up? And what the hell does that even mean? Get dumber? Stop being dumb? I was always too scared to ask him though as a.) he was always really pissed at me when he said it, and b.) in this situation, I had always done something which proved that I was just shy of village idiot status, so should I really be pointing out that I don’t fully understand what he just said?

My co-worker didn’t get it either and thought it was probably best to just not ask him – but to for sure carry on the tradition and leave my kids just as confused as I had been. He then told me that when his dad was pissed that he hadn’t quite made the grade - his dad used to say that “close only counts in horse shoes and shit fights.” He was left to wonder what the hell kind of childhood his dad had. He said his dad grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan, but are shit fights really a thing? And how does close count in one? You either hit someone with shit or you don’t – there are no “close- esies” in a shit fight in my book. And –how mad do you have to be at someone to actually throw shit at them? You would have to touch it with your hands…so really you are also being getting hit with shit, and this ends with a shower and strong soap all the way around the table.

Anyway, the twins really do love school though – and everyday they amaze me with what they have learned and how they are growing. 

At our first parent/teacher interview in October we were a bit shocked at the teacher’s feedback. To preface this a bit, back on the twin's first day of school, we had to fill in a sheet with particular information on each kid. Things like what did they like, what are their interests, are they shy or outgoing, etc. So naturally we put that Molly will probably grow up to be a fascist dictator or possibly a CEO of some sort, and that Max is just the happiest, nicest guy you can meet – and will probably be Molly’s second in command. She will use him as a good PR front to try and convince people she is a nice benevolent leader before cutting pensions and taking away casual Fridays.

The teacher told us that she was shocked by information sheet as the twins are the exact opposite of what we claimed. Max was actually the outgoing one and she felt that he was the clear leader of the twosome. She said that Molly was extremely introverted and seemed to prefer watching the kids rather than joining in. We looked at each other – looked over at the kids playing in the corner and were both like…"Bitch - you must be crazy! You mean to tell me that Molly – the one who is currently riding Max like a rental mule and telling the grade two kid what to do – is introverted?”

But then, I figured it out. She isn’t introverted, but she sure as shit is watching the crowd. Watching the crowd to look for weaknesses and analyzing the social hierarchy. She isn’t being quiet - she is strategizing and God help you all when she launches her plan.

We went back for our second interview in late November and it was all starting to come together. The teacher let us know that Max was still good – he is well-liked and he plays really well with all the kids. And big surprise – our little Molly seems to have done a total 180 and is now the leader of girls and always sets the games and the play. No shit. She does the same at home, so really we weren’t surprised and knew it was inevitable. I would have explained all of this to Miss S, but Molly was watching us so I was scared to say too much.

Some other enjoyable highlights from school…

The first day of school. Anders just told the kids that the school bus that was driving by as I snapped this was their school bus, and since they missed it, they would have to stay home. They didn't think it was funny.

   

This is how Anders dresses them for school. When I am lucky enough to be on pick-up, I just have to look for the children who look the most like rumpled hobos and yup, those are my kids.

Note - the pants are on backwards. I can only assume he had them like that all day.



"Hi - Abi is it? I am not sure what kind of unicorns you have seen, but I am pretty sure that isn't a horn on your unicorn's head." This little gem was on the wall outside of kindergarten while we were waiting for our parent teacher interview. I got really inappropriate and was laughing so hard I may have peed myself just a smidge. Anders moved down a few seats and pretended he didn't know me.