Denying summer's end for one more day

It looks like a zoo out there, boys.

While the crickets drone, the flies squeeze through every crack in the screens, and the frogs jump into the shade, Team Testosterone starts school. It's a whopper of a hot day and Green Girl's heart goes out to the teachers and the students who are suffering. Her toughest job today has been to take out the beer bottles for recycling and clean out the fridge before our next trip to the grocery store. She's swatting at house flies like the Brave Little Tailor in between chores.

After a slovenly weekend, she packed up the backpacks and helped Mr. T make a list of goals for this school year. They typed them out this morning over a breakfast of overnight caramel french toast, added a cool dragon and posted them prominently by the calendar. It's a fresh start for her boy--with a new teacher, new plan of attack in the classroom, and a new focus. He drilled handwriting and math all summer so the kid is ready to roll.

Mr. T's list of goals

Mr. B completed his first assignment of kindergarten: a collage all about him. Easy enough--it took 5 minutes while he wolfed down his lunch before taking his hike across the field to school.

Mr. G had other goals. Mainly to watch TMNT and then go swimming. His mama? Too happy to accommodate because she's blogging on an afternoon schedule now. And then she's got to get her own rear in gear and goal up.

There's the PTA to manage (involving the creation of a website so interested citizens can check in on their own volition instead of e-mailing the masses and dealing with the fall out). Our first meeting is Thursday (yikes!) and she has to create and publicize said site so it's ready to roll. She's got a fall cleaning list the length of Michael Phelps's left arm.



She's got some bones to pick with the school superintendent. Register Mr. G & Mr. B for the fall story hour session, prep for the first night of Cubbies! next Tuesday, clean the pit that her children call their bedrooms. There's a laundry basket full of shoes to sort through, clean and store. Beans & tomatoes require her immediate attention with a pot of boiling water and some freezer bags. A Disney trip to plan, Screw Iowa! website to update, and new chapters to write for her latest project (tentatively titled Kicks Like a Girl). Green Girl has to transplant more baby oaks, help Mr. D kill weeds in the Back Forty and label a tall stack of photos and slip them in the photo album.

Undaunted, she'll go swimming with Mr. G until it's time to retrieve the other children and later on settle in for a long night of signing forms and writing out checks for various school fees. She'll make time for her to-do list tomorrow, when it's cooler out. And then? Green Girl's gotta goal up.

Ready? Set.

Posted in: Lists