Tested

I dressed Patrick yesterday morning in his red rugby-striped shirt.

Generally, he adheres to his public-school open-to-interpretation uniform that it is only loosely followed by the pre-K set. Probably a dozen times, I have let him wear something other than the white (now white-ish) polo topper that fits requirements. On those occasions, he always picks the red-and-white. His favorite.

I dropped him and went on to other things - a breakfast meeting, then proctoring an AP test at the other school. I marveled at the relative calm of the adolescents taking that test. It was the final move of their high school careers - once that last bubble was filled in, stray marks erased, cell phone collected from me - they were gone. Off to the Rest of their Lives. And yet none seemed panicked, or even particularly plussed.

Post-testing, I collected my daughter so we could go run a quick fun errand. We lollygagged, loading our cart with sugar cookie supplies. Then we left to retrieve Patrick, who I felt had lingered too long at after-care.

We got to his school and Annabeth asked if she could go in barefoot. She had stripped off her confining running shoes. I said, well sure. Just into the cafeteria. Just picking up a brother.

I walked in a few beats behind her.

Swarms of adults. A buffet. Little boys in top hats, pastel shirts, black pants, sparkling blue bow ties. Little girls in perfect spring church dresses, floral prints.

I was confused for a flash of a second, two, three. Annabeth, beside me in her bare feet, said, "wow. What's this?"

It had been the show. The Show. The end-of-the year celebration to move them all to kindergarten. Proceeding arm-in-arm. Singing, dancing, acting. Patrick had been, apparently, the Big Bad Wolf.

And I. Had Not. Been. There. Girls in dresses. Boys in ties. Gussied parents taking pictures. Siblings in finery eating from the parent-provided potluck buffet. Patrick in his day-stained red and white rugby, dirty shorts. Running shoes. Annabeth in bare feet. Bare. Feet.

I had received notice of this event. An email. Another. Maybe even another. Each time they would come over my phone I would glance at them, intending to parse later. I thought - since one called it a graduation celebration - it was on the last day of school. Next week. I never slowed down, read. Planned. Scheduled.

Recognizing what had happened, I wandered the small crowd wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Stunned. I snapped at someone, a friend. I blathered, in shock. People intercepted and said things like "he was wonderful!" and "I think I got a picture of him" and "It's OK, someone videoed it."

I left briefly, to cry in my car. I sobbed. Pulled myself together. Returned.

To be absolutely fair to myself, Patrick didn't show any concern. Genuinely. He was bopping around with a blue balloon. He said, "It's OK, mama!" Though he expressed disappointment that he didn't get to wear the sparkly tie.

We numbly ate chicken fingers. People said "let it go." And I felt so --- inadequate.

Things have been lost lately - falling off my radar, or under it. I have been going through the motions, sometimes frantic, always preoccupied. School is out soon - and the month has been a mess of pieces and parts.

I don't do this well. I have committed to things next year - big things. I will learn again, this summer, how to use a calendar (I can't figure out when I stopped, or why the very idea of a calendar intimidates me now.)

I blew up later, at night. For imagined infractions of everyone else. But, of course, it was all about that Show. My error. My disconnect. My absent calendar. My crushing love for my youngest. Missing his last baby moment.

We are right here. At the end of the school year - a year rife with last-minute saves: permission slips, lacrosse games, trumpets, leotards. Dirvishes that whirled. Mornings that were late - and often a surprise (as in, SURPRISE! It's morning!) Right here, I am feeling ill-suited for all of it. Overwhelmed, with holes in my thoughts and holes in my day that allow for neither accomplishing nor resolving.

And before venturing to do this again, I would like, just-for-me, a test. An end of the year AP- equivalent that lets me know that I am suited well enough. That I am as good as the next guy and getting better. I would like to darken my bubbles, erase my stray marks, blow off the dust of the mistakes removed, turn in the test and move on. Matriculate. And find out mid-July if, in fact, I have received the desired four and will, after all of it, get credit for this cobbbled-together year.

And if not, I would like to take the year off. Re-group. Maybe study abroad. Come back when I am feeling more mature, and Ready.

Losing

Last night, Annabeth lost two teeth. (Five minutes after this photo was taken, she pulled the second one.)

To say she 'lost' them is to put a rosy and passive blush onto what was surely an active (and, to judge from the blood loss, somewhat violent) extraction. They were very loose. And she wanted them out. She is almost 8 - and it is a rite of passage she was starting to fear was passing her by entirely. We assisted, at her request, in helping her narrowly dodge that fate.

Her tiny teeth were collected by a fairy. Prior to that offering, I held them up to my teeth. They were a quarter the size. I cannot imagine the her that will emerge with her new giant teeth. How it will change her face. Her between-grins-grin will smile gummily from First Communion photos next month, and from atop her sparkly leotard in her annual gymnastics recital. There is a sweetness in the toothlessness, the loss of baby that exits with the milk teeth.

I remember lost teeth. A palpable loss. You can stick your tongue where there had been a tooth and the raw, yielding gums around space are at once fascinating and somewhat horrifying. You admire your freakish toothless appearance - and, if you are me (which I know for certain you are not. But hear me out...) you are plagued with a lifetime's supply of nightmares and anxiety dreams that perfectly replicate that tongue-to-gap differentness.

Other losses tend to be less tangible. Something was here, now it's gone - and maybe something will replace it. I missed, oddly, babies in my belly for the first weeks after each was born. They seemed safer there. I miss places I've moved from, people that used to be in my life. The memories are foggy, though. There is no muscle memory that can replicate my grandfather's giant hand - with leathery back, crooked strong fingers, and calloused palms; the smell of the ocean after hours at the end of a hot day; the first voices of each of my children.

I lost my job. I can't even grasp that one yet. And I really, truly care so much less than I am supposed to. I know I should look. But at the moment, I am so grateful for the spaces in which I can organize other spaces. I like this in-between place, with no clear sense of what is next. Oddly, I am afraid I like it a bit much.

Yesterday, I had jury duty - which I approach with the heavy sense of responsibility - a Pollyanna-ish belief that this is my Duty. That this is Democracy. Jobless, it was no hardship. I thought of Denise, who is a judge. Robin and Agatha who work for judges. I served, though I was never called. Six hours later, I got up from my seat and left Gavin's Kindle behind. A new toy I was just getting used to, a novel I had 18% completed (per the measure below and to the left of the text.) Gone.

On the way home, Gav called me. Oblivious, as yet, to the missing Kindle, he was warning me about the drive - which route to take. Atlanta traffic, the hassle of here-to-there - the plotting of alternatives. And then? I never saw my phone again. It's here. Though I have torn apart the car, the couch, the garage, bookshelves. I have offered cash prizes to household members. And I can't believe I am being kept from several active Scrabble games.

The organized, fantasy me would have one spot for all those baby teeth. They would be labled with dates. They would be in tiny pill bottles, specific to each child. That me would never leave a Kindle behind, would know where my phone is, would have current calendars up and would have begun the real spring cleaning I vaguely imagine. That me would have a fat savings account from years of careful attention. That me would be called on that phone by friends who would say "wow! I don't know how you stay so organized! So disciplined! You make it look so easy!"

This me needs to look for the phone, get the job, replace the Kindle, do the laundry, make the new calendars and get started with dinner. And every bit of it is much easier than I will manage to make it look. (Well, except for the job bit. But I can blame the economy for that one.)

So. Annabeth lost teeth. I lost, a few weeks back, a consistent paycheck. Yesterday I lost a Kindle. And an iPhone.

Tomorrow, I think I will work on gaining.

Prepared

Feeling anxious lately - in a general way. It happens sometimes - these stretches where sleep is elusive and I get lost in self-navigating: do this, then do that, then do that. Mental checklists for even the simplest things.

It's nice when it's all more automatic. When the days flow, and nothing is a surprise. When there is order and predictability, a clean kitchen, no clutter, and a properly annotated calendar looked at days ahead of events, hours ahead of meetings. When plenty of sleep was had the night before, and the day started with fruit, and maybe egg whites.

It's fictional, mostly. Days like that. I have heard of them, and their Type A bearers. I crave them, even. I imagine them to be easier - a kind of mental blue sky bliss where there are clear routines, and some outcomes, at least, are predictable.

Wednesday, last week, I laid out Annabeth's Thursday clothes. That much, I do. It is me striving for order (and me harkening to a childhood full of paper dolls - and never knowing quite what you were supposed to do with Barbie after she had tried on every clothing combination in her mini wardrobe).

It happened that Daisies were on Thursday, so with her clothes I also laid out the mini IHOP apron with the unfinished flower ironed on in the middle. The flower center she got when her troop memorized the abridged version of the Girl Scout Promise. Nothing in there about being prepared - but it is implicit. Daisies are an add-on, an introductory troop. Pre-brownies, they are bright blue and optimistic. They earn their badges - flower petals - as a group.

The apron tunic thingy was rumpled because she had only just taken it out of her bookbag from the week before. This made me angry. I scolded her. Harshly. Responsibility and keeping things nice and a uniform and putting things away and blah and blah and she looked wounded.

"A lot of girls don't wear theirs. So I took it off."

"No. Not an option for you. It is a Uniform. You wear yours. I don't want to hear anything else about it."

The next morning, she put it on. Pressed. Over a pressed light blue shirt. Khaki bermuda shorts. Plaid tennies.

In the afternoon, I picked her up. At her request, I had let her go to after care after Daisies. She ran up to me. Apron-less.

"Annabeth...?" With a raised eyebrow.

"Mom, Daisies weren't today. Or last week either. Can't I just not wear it on Thursdays when there is no Daisies? No one else has to."

Uhmmm...

oooops.

Two weeks in a row, I sent her to school in her irrelevant Daisy uniform. Twice, she had to save face alone. Feeling, no doubt, a little silly.

Like I felt, hearing it.

Daisies, I then learned (and no doubt had been explicitly told before - in person, via email, and on some printed something or another by the far more organized Daisy moms) are on the FIRST THURSDAY of every month.

And next Thursday? I will Be Prepared.

On my honor, I will try...