Ronda and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Annoying Day

It has been a very annoying day.  Before I begin ranting about the super-annoying events of my very annoying day, let me offer a disclaimer for those of you who are not well-versed in the children’s literature genre.  The title of this blog entry is a nod to the book “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” so please, no accusations that I’m being overly dramatic.  Not that I’ve ever been accused of that before.

It’s raining today, and it’s not the typical light Seattle drizzle.  This is pouring down rain, the kind where you actually get pretty wet if you go out in it without a hood or an umbrella or one of those clear, plastic head-scarf-things that little old ladies wear.  The rain in and of itself does not annoy me.  I’ve lived in Seattle for nearly two decades now, which means I’ve pretty much earned my “Not Only Can I Handle Rain, But I Actually Really Like It” badge.  The problem for me today is that I didn’t have a jacket with a hood – at least not one that worked with my outfit.  I do not own a clear, plastic head-scarf-thing, because, while I might not be what you’d call a “spring chicken” anymore, I’m not THAT old.  And, while I most definitely own at least a half-dozen understated (read: solid black or grey) adult umbrellas, I could not find a single one of them this morning.  “Do you know where any of the umbrellas are?!” I yelled to Matt as I attempted the near impossible feat of carrying my purse, my gym bag, my lunch and Chester’s backpack to the car, while simultaneously herding Chester toward the door.   Being pressed for time as usual, I didn’t wait for a reply and simply began loading the car.  Just as I finished, Matt, appeared on the porch, triumphantly holding up . . . Chester’s teeny-tiny robot umbrella.  I gave him the “Are you kidding?” look.  He was not.

I can only hope the people who saw me using it today chuckled and thought, “Oh, look at that poor mom who couldn’t find one of her own umbrellas to use this morning as she was frantically rushing her child out the door to make it to school on time.” instead of, “Oh my God.  Look at her.  She thinks she’s being all hip and ironic, carrying a child’s umbrella.  What an idiot” or even worse, “Aw, look at that developmentally disabled woman.  How cute is it that she’s using that little robot umbrella?”

The problem with an itsy-bitsy child’s umbrella (besides the fact that it is emblazoned with primary colored robots, of course) is that it doesn’t provide a lot of coverage.  So, despite looking like a cross between a frazzled mom, a Harajuku girl gone wrong and someone from the neighborhood group home, I still got fairly wet.  See previous description of pouring down rain.  Combine this with the fact that I am WAY overdue for a haircut and it makes for a very, very bad hair day.  I think we can all agree that there isn’t much more annoying than a bad hair day; especially when it involves looking like Tom Petty after a particularly sweaty concert or being submerged in a dunk tank.

Don't get me wrong, I love Tom Petty's music, but his hair is not really the look I'm going for.

I know for a fact that I look like a drowned rat version of Tom Petty today because I had more than enough time to stare at myself in the sun visor mirror of my car.  My commute is typically 25-30 minutes.  Today it took well over an hour thanks to Semi-Truck versus Compact Car.  I’m not sure who won the battle, but I can tell you it was not the hundreds of commuters who sat stranded on the rainy road as the minutes of their morning tortuously ticked by.  Stand-still traffic is almost as annoying as bad hair.

At last, I inched past the fender-bender and traffic began moving again.  I took a deep, cleansing breath and silently, cheerfully promised myself the day would begin looking up.  Sadly, right then, I happened to look up and see a billboard promoting some new TV program starring Zooey Deschanel.  I really don’t know anything about her as an actress, but I find her incredibly annoying and here’s why: Zooey Deschanel is to eyes what Renee Zellweger is to lips.  Renee Zellweger is constantly puckering her lips in photographs and on film, leading us to believe that her lips naturally fall that way.  Well they don’t.  Lips don’t do that unless their owner is puckering them.  Ms. Deschanel displays the same behavior, but with her eyes.  Why does she insist on opening them so freakishly wide when she is photographed?  Seriously, it looks weird.  We get it already; you have great big, pretty, blue eyes; you don’t have to beat us over the head with it.

At this point, my only hope for recovery was the hot, creamy perfection that is my morning chai latte.  My prospects for saving the day seemed promising as I approached the Starbucks near my office.  I could see through the windows that only two people were in line.  “Yes!”  I thought, “My luck is turning around."  Unfortunately, I was mistaken.  The first person in line turned out to be a former employee and wasn’t so much ordering as she was having “old home week” at the counter. 

“Oh my GOD!  I haven’t seen you in FOREVER!” one of the baristas shrieked.

“I know, right?!  How ARE you?!” she replied.

Another current employee emerges from the back room and more shrieks of delight ensue.

“Hey you!  You better get over here and give me a hug right this every second!”

More screaming, giggling and lots of hugging happen.

The current employees shower the former employee with compliments, “Oh my GOD! You look fantastic!”

I was trying to be patient, I really was, but all I wanted to do was say, “Oh my GOD!  I’d hate to see how fat your ass was before if you look fantastic now.”  That and perhaps strangle her.

Next up was a couple, a perfect example of what I like to call “Starbucks Shoppers.”  These people don’t have any idea what they want to order and they don’t give it any thought until they are at the counter.  Never mind that they’ve likely spent at least two or three minutes in line, staring straight at the drink menus and pastry case.  When the cashier inquires “What can I get started for you?” they seem surprised, caught off guard even. 

“Oh my goodness, this nice young lady wants to take our order, Bill.”

“Hmmm . . . well, let’s see . . . what do they have.”

They absent-mindedly peruse the pastry case.

“Um, I guess I’ll have a  . . . I’ll take an old fashioned donut,” the woman says (I’ll call her Jill) "and then maybe . . . . A vanilla latte.”

“What size would you like,” asks the barista.

“What size?!” Jill ponders,  “Oh boy, what size?  Hmmm . . . ”

“Uh . . . well . . . um . . . make it a tall, I suppose.”

“You always wish you had more,” reminds Bill.

“Actually, you know what, let’s go with a grande.  Can I get a grande?”

“Sure, a grande vanilla latte and an old fashioned donut.  Will that be all?” asks the unbelievably patient barista.

“Um, yeah, but . . . actually, forget about the donut, I’ll get a coffee cake instead.  And do you have sugar-free vanilla?  Can you make that a sugar free vanilla latte?”

You get the idea.  By the time they were done ordering, it was all I could do to keep myself from beating them senseless with my tiny robot umbrella. 

I finally arrived in the office, cranky and desperately needing to pee.  “Please don’t sneeze, please don’t sneeze,” I silently begged myself as I raced to the bathroom, where I made the next annoying discovery of the day.  My pants are missing their button.  This was not the case when I put them on at my house.  I distinctly remember buttoning my pants, which were too loose, causing me to add a belt.  How does a button that is fastening loose pants and that is held in place by a belt just randomly jump ship?  Where did we go our separate ways?  At Chester’s school?  In my car?  As I squirmed in line at Starbucks?  I will never know.  All I do know is that fussing with button-less pants all day is . . . you guessed it, annoying.

I went to the gym at lunch.  This is usually a highlight of my day, despite my gym having the dumbest women’s locker room in the world.  The genius who designed this thing created tiny cubicles, only big enough for two people to stand in, and then lined them with rows and rows of lockers.  In the middle of each pod of lockers is an itty-bitty bench, probably only two feet long.  Now, I said two people can stand in each area – that is assuming they are both fairly small people and that they are close enough friends to not care about being in extremely close proximity to each other while getting naked.  I followed my friend Dea into the locker room today and paused at the mirror to gawk at my Tom Petty hair.  Finally, unable to bear the horror any longer, I tore myself away and headed to the first locker pod.  There was a nearly naked woman there.  Upon noticing what looked like Dea’s hair and a tattoo on the same shoulder that Dea has a tattoo, I began to squeeze in next to the panty-only-clad woman.  Just as my hip brushed hers, I noticed that her tattoo was a cluster of stars, while Dea’s is a butterfly.  Star girl gave me an annoyed look (now I’m even passing my annoying day onto unsuspecting, innocent others) as I scurried to the next pod, muttering my apologies.  There I found the actual Dea and began the annoying process of getting undressed and redressed within the confines of a small box shared with another person and a useless little bench.  I know the dimensions of this ridiculous space well and have developed an uncanny knack for functioning within it.  Much like Houdini escaping from a locked box while bound in chains, I can magically move within the space.  But today there was an unexpected obstacle for which I was unprepared: someone had left a locker door open.  I pulled my shirt off and felt a sharp crack as the back of my head smacked into it.  Was I seriously injured?  No.  Was I at a whole new level of annoyance?  Yes. 

The annoying just kept coming all day long.  No serious problems; nothing truly distressing or awful, just annoying, annoying and more annoying.  Each time, I tried to remain positive.  I tried to acknowledge the annoyance bubbling up inside me and let it go.  I thought I could de-sour and maybe even sweeten, but after the locker incident, it was over.  My day was officially annoying.  “Ronda and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Annoying Day.”

Can you spare me the change?

My son started kindergarten last week.  Kindergarten!  I have no idea how this could have happened already, but it has.  It isn’t like it crept up on me.  I spent a lot of time preparing for it.  Hours were invested in researching schools, visiting schools, applying to schools, building cost-comparison spreadsheets for schools, and finally, choosing a school.  Then, in the weeks leading up to the fateful first day, I fretted about how Chester would handle the transition.  I did plenty of worrying about Chester (because I’m his mom and that’s what moms do), but I didn’t worry about myself and apparently that was an error.  I completely failed to realize what a difficult transition kindergarten was going to be FOR ME. 

Chester on his first day of kindergarten. 

Me on Chester's first day of kindergarten.

I expected leaving Chester’s preschool to be difficult and it was.  He has been going there since he was three months old and it has been a special place for our whole family.  Chester went through each classroom at the center, so we knew practically every one.  When we walked through the halls, everybody said hello.  When I pulled into the parking lot each day, it felt like I was home.  As we said goodbye on Chester’s final day, I felt a sense of loss and grief for the chapter we were closing.  A couple of slices of pizza and a scoop of ice cream later, I was feeling like I was through the worst of it.  Closing a chapter would be much more difficult than the adventure of beginning a new one, right?  Wrong.

The past week has been surprisingly angst-filled, emotional and downright exhausting for me.  I’ve felt like that awkward person at the party who doesn’t know anyone.  I’ve wracked my brain wondering what Chester is doing and how he is feeling at every minute of every day.  I’ve worried that his new teachers don’t know him yet and might pigeon-hole him into a persona that he is not.  I’ve gotten lost in daydreams of Chester as a baby and snapped out of them into stereotypical “My baby is growing up!” tears.  I’ve longed for the familiarity of my old commute and have been absent-mindedly taking the carpool lanes even though Chester is no longer my commuting companion. 

I like to think of myself as an adventurous and spontaneous person, but the last week has made me wonder if I’m not actually more of a hardcore creature of habit and stability junky.   Compared to many of my peers who have undertaken cross country moves, launched new careers, bought second houses and had second and even third kids, my life seems like a bastion of stability. 

Despite the fact that I’ve been in the same house, in the same city, with the same job for a decade, and even longer in some cases, I don’t think I’m THAT change averse.  I’ve been through some major changes in my life.  I went to kindergarten myself once upon a time, after all.  I don’t remember it being so dramatic when it was me.  I honestly don’t even remember my first day of kindergarten and I only have a couple of clear memories of the whole year.  Both of which, on a side note, are amazingly indicative of how the rest of my academic life would progress.  I remember the thrill of learning to read.  Figuring out that I could put the letters of the alphabet together in different combinations to make an unlimited number of words was an exciting discovery, and it was the beginning of my enduring love for school.  On the flip side, I also remember my very first encounter with the severe stress that school had the ability to inflict on me.  During some sort of standardized test, I came across a question I couldn’t answer and became so distraught that I began to cry.  Somewhere in my five year old brain I knew that my stress-induced reaction far exceeded what the situation called for and I was embarrassed by that.  When my teacher asked me what was wrong, I didn’t want to admit the truth, so I told her I was upset because my uncle died.  My little white lie worked like a charm, except I spent the rest of the year living in constant fear that my teacher would talk to my mom and express her sympathy for the passing of my mom’s brother when he was, in fact, very much alive and well.

Lest anyone think kindergarten was the last major transition in my life, I can identify some others.  My family moved to a different state in 6^th grade.  That was huge and although I recall some apprehension, I was mostly thrilled with the adventure of it all.  Leaving home for college was certainly a significant change, but again, I approached it with eager anticipation.  I couldn’t wait to move to the heart of a major city right out of college even though I had previously only lived in rural towns.  And there certainly have been other changes and adventures in my personal and professional life – graduate school, getting married and becoming a parent to name a few.  In general, I think I’ve handled most of these transitions, even the big ones, better than sending my child to kindergarten. 

So I’ve been pondering, what’s going on with this particular transition?  My current conclusion is that two things are at play.  The first is pretty straightforward: change is hard.  Even if the change at hand is wonderful and exciting, it still involves, well . . . change.  Change brings newness, unfamiliarity, uncertainty and, worst of all, loss of control.  I know, I know, I’ve heard all the lectures about how control is an illusion, but it’s an illusion I thoroughly enjoy and therefore choose to embrace, thank you very much.  With kindergarten, Chester’s world just expanded a little further beyond the one he shares with me.  That’s a good thing, but it makes the control freak part of my brain scream “Loss of control!  Red alert!  Loss of control!  Danger!  Loss of control!”

For example, I no longer know the exact classroom schedule like I did when Chester was in pre-school and because they don’t send home a detailed daily report in kindergarten, I have to rely on a five year old boy for my information.  This experience ranges from confusing to completely hopeless.  It goes one of two ways.  Like this:

“How was your day?” I ask.

“Good,” Chester replies flatly. 

“What did you do?” I inquire.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“Did you do anything fun?” I persist.

“I can’t remember, Mom.”

Or, like this:

“How was your day?” I ask.

“It was good.  We played dirty yard in P.E. and the balls were garbage like if you had a party at your house and there was garbage and you had to throw it in the other person’s yard.  It was a party where there were helicopters.  Not big helicopters but littler ones.  And there were like a hundred million and six of them and they all landed on our porch and then they exploded “KABOOM!”  And I rided them but then they started shooting poisonous and they bruke, I mean broke.  Then there was Luke, he’s in after-care with me, but not in my same class, he’s in the other after-care, but I was still reading with him and he was at the party too.  And I don’t have to ask to go to the bathroom because I was signed out all day because I wasn’t signed in, but I just have to find a buddy to go with first.  Oh and mommy, I want those brown, crunchy crackers in my lunch – the ones that Eleanor has.”

I’m either left completely in the dark with zero information or overloaded with a confusing jumble of possibly real information mixed with crazy fantasy.  As if those two scenarios weren’t bad enough, Chester came up with a new response that nearly stopped my poor, frazzled mommy heart:

“How was your day?” I asked.

“TERRIBLE!” he groaned like he was about to cry.

I stopped in my tracks.  “Oh no, Chester, what happened?”

Long pause.

“Ah ha ha, just kidding!”

Chester the comedian.  Hilarious.

I also felt a great sense of comfort and control at Chester’s daycare/preschool because of the bond I had developed with many of the other parents.  I reminded myself that it took time to create those relationships and it would simply take time again.  I was doing great with that mantra until it occurred to me that one important thing I had in common with all the other moms at Chester’s daycare might not be the case at his new school:  We all worked; that’s why our kids were in daycare.  I had a mild panic attack when I received a group email from a mom at Chester’s new school letting everyone know that she was organizing an ADO (that’s “after drop-off”) workout group.  “After drop-off workout group,” I groaned.  “Who are these people and don’t they WORK?!”  Thus began visions of every other mom spending hours in the classroom each day, developing the kind of deep relationships with teachers that I could never hope to cultivate.  Well, I must sheepishly confess that I had a little lesson in making assumptions when I found out the ADO workout organizer not only works, but is a doctor.  So I’m not the only “working” mom, whew. 

In addition to all the plain old newness and uncertainty I’m dealing with, there is another dynamic: the uniquely emotional nature of parenting.  Of all the challenges of parenting, I was, and continue to be, least prepared for the emotional exhaustion.  When I was pregnant, I had myself all psyched up for the physical exhaustion.  Of course I never could have imagined how bad the physical exhaustion was going to be, but I had some sense that it was coming.  What nobody warned me about, probably because it’s impossible to describe without experiencing it, is just how emotional it is being a parent.  I had no idea how much I would care, how profoundly I would worry and how deeply I would love.  Change involving Chester really is much, much harder than change that simply impacts me.  Sending Chester to kindergarten has been much more harrowing than going to kindergarten myself.  Thinking of Chester having a bad day is far more awful than having my own bad day.

When Chester was a baby and I was overcome with the intensity of emotion I was feeling, I told myself that surely it would fade a bit as he got older.  I was very wrong and now, more than ever, I realize that the overwhelming emotions of parenting will never go away.  As I fought back my tears dropping off Chester at kindergarten, I thought of a friend who admitted to crying after sending her daughter off for the first day of high school.  “Oh my God,” I said as it dawned on me, “this is never going to end.”  I’m going to be emotionally strung-out for the rest of my life – fraught with worry, bursting with happiness, battered by the bitter-sweetness of constant change.  That’s parenthood, I guess. 

I’m excited about Chester’s new school.  I really think it’s going to be great for him and a wonderful place for our family, but the newness is still hard.  I feel like I’m being exposed to sunlight for the first time – everything is too bright, too loud and too fast.  I remember feeling this way when I brought Chester home from the hospital after he was born.  Every nerve feels over-stimulated and raw.  Nothing is on auto-pilot and it’s exhausting.  The good news is that it’s getting better already.  We are meeting wonderful families and teachers and administrators who are going out of their way to make us feel welcomed.  The new routine is starting to feel “routine,” and, as a result, I’m finding myself able to think more rationally, accept the challenge of change and, dare I say, even enjoy it.

When we arrived to pick Chester up from the after school program at the end of the first day of kindergarten, the kids were outside on the playground.  I searched the play structure and didn’t see Chester.  I scanned the whole play yard and didn’t see Chester.  Just as I was beginning to shift into irrational panic (“Oh my God, I knew this was going to happen!  They lost my child on the first day!”), I spotted him.  He was way off in a corner of the chain link fence, playing with an older boy.  They were bent down, concentrating intently on something.  Chester’s new friend was a third grader, but in my mind he was definitely shaving and driving.  As I walked toward them, my thoughts raced: What is my baby doing with that big, grown-up kid?  Are they playing poker?  Smoking pot?  Looking at porn magazines?  It turns out they were playing an innocent game with a tennis ball and two cones, and, judging by Chester’s smile, he was having a great time. 

Finally Chester saw me and I got that smile I’ve been getting since he was a baby – the “Hey, there’s my mommy!” smile that makes my heart fill up and overflow and feel like it’s going to explode – followed by the running leap into my arms.  The smile and hug that say, in a world of constant change, there really are some things (the most important things) that always stay the same.