freaky sunday

Last night I had one of those moments when you realize that, despite all your best efforts, you are turning into your parents.

I told S that he should be happy to be a kid. "You don't know how good you've got it," I told him.

I uttered those exact words.

And you know who uttered them before me? Of course you do. My parents to me, my grandparents to my parents, I'm sure my great-grandparents to my grandparents (though in Russian and I don't know how to translate the phrase, but if I did, I would) and so on and so on.

I've joined the ranks of grown-ups who just don't understand anything.

We were celebrating my step-dad's birthday and during pie and ice cream, S declared that he didn't want to go to school because it was just too boring. So B told him he'd gladly trade places with him and he could show up at the architecture firm and B would go to preschool. Their conversation was priceless and couldn't have been better if planned. I wished I'd had a tape recorder, but I may try to get them redo it (though I know it could never be as good). Anyway, S was telling us what his day looked like...

First you have free playtime, then you have to go to circle time where you have to sit still and listen, but then you can sing songs sometimes, but you can't talk whenever you want to or you have to leave the circle. Then you get snack and some outside playtime, which is the best, but you can't take the balls away from the girls or you have to go see the principal (I didn't know the preschool actually had a principal, but I'm thinking that this part was made up after reading the Junie B. Jones books).

Then you come in and have lunch, "and you can't say anything bad about it no matter how gross it is," said S, "because Marianne worked really hard to make it." (I've tried telling him the same thing about the dinners we have at home, but S always gives me an incredulous look like what I've just placed before him just could not have taken that much work.)

Then you have naptime, and you have to hold really still and pretend you're sleeping, but because you're five, you're just too big to nap. And then you wake up and have art, more playtime, more outside time and then you finally, finally get to go home.

Sounds rough. Especially that nap part. So then I said those words. S looked at me like I was crazy (especially since he's pretty sure that I spend my day at work eating tater tots and Cheetos and drinking chocolate milk while playing computer games, which is how he spent the day when he came to work with me last month). B looked shocked, as if he'd seen that I'd gone beyond a certain unsaveable grown-up point. And my mother smirked. I'd joined the ranks.

The next thing you know, I'll be drinking pink wine with ice cubes in it.

(To J, this is what you've got coming to you!)