Monday was Teacher’s Day. Why, oh why, is there not a school calendar? As soon as I arrived at the school gate
in the afternoon, vaguely wondering why there seemed to be so many flowers
around, the girls accosted me, notified me of the holiday, and demanded to know
why they had not been prepared with gifts for their teachers, as their friends
had been.
One of my problems as a mom is that I lack the ability to
formulate a plan and not tell the girls about it, which then means, that, as
far as they are concerned, said plan is etched in stone. The other problem is that I so readily
come up with unrealistic plans.
And so, while trying to simultaneously shoulder the Rooster’s backpack,
make sure the Princess wasn’t lacerating ankles with her rolling bag, field the
girls’ clamor for a snack, and navigate the crush of grandma’s, parents, SUV’s
and motor-scooters that surround the school gate at pick-up time, I muttered
something about how maybe we could make brownies that night and the girls could
belatedly hand them out in the morning.
It’s not even worth going through the number of things I had
to forget to make that plan seem reasonable, if only for an instant. Suffice it to say that, after cajoling
and pleading my way through the three solid hours of homework that I’ve come to
know as the Monday Special (during which time I barely allowed the girls to
stop long enough to enjoy the fresh pork-buns the ayi had made at the Princess’ request), making cocoa
substitute for baking chocolate and caffeine for sleep, the morning found me
tying silver ribbon around little saran wrapped brownies, the dainty packages
kind of losing their charm when squeezed amid elbowed-aside dirty dishes and
set to a soundtrack of me shrieking ablution instructions (“don’t forget your
Coochie and Booteeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyy!”).
I was still naked in my room when I told the girls to push
the elevator button, which is why they were
