I cannot express to you how happy I am today. There are not
good enough words in the English language to describe it. Did I win the lottery
multi-million dollar jackpot, you ask? No, I’m happier than that.
The boys went back to school yesterday. For the stay-at-home
dad, that’s like heroin.
I am back to having a full six hours per day without kids. I
am about to be the most productive human ever to have lived. Do you know why
Thomas Edison was such a prolific inventor and had over one thousand patents?
Because there were no kids in his workshop.
We had a whirlwind summer full of travel and goofing off,
and we were actually at our own house for only about twenty minutes since
school got out in June. We had a good time, and for the most part the kids were
self-entertaining everywhere we went. Then it all fell apart when we came home
and my wife selfishly went back to work two weeks ago.
There I was. In our unfamiliar home with three boys looking
expectantly at me, asking me questions like, “Where are we going now?” and
“Which one is our room again?” and “Are you sure this is our house?”
“Yes, this is our house. Now go play, I have work to do in
my office.”
“We’re bored. There’s nothing to do here.”
“We have almost all the Legos in North America in our game
room. Go build something.”
“Oh, yeah, we forgot about the game room!”
And so began the most impressive two-week Lego building
extravaganza the world has ever seen. Morning to night, the three little elves
were in their workshop, creating everything imaginable. Everything imaginable,
that is, by my nine, eight, and six-year-old, which seems to consist mostly of castles,
spaceships, and dragons. They built and built until there was an intergalactic feudal
space kingdom plagued by a nasty dragon problem that covered every flat surface
in a room the size of a three-car garage.
There were epic battles, too. Not between Lego figures and
monsters, mind you, but between my three sons. We have approximately two
hundred little Lego men, but everyone only wanted the one guy. We have
approximately nine hundred pounds of Lego bricks, but everyone only wanted the
one piece.
I tried to get work done, but at the end of the two weeks, I
had written about three and a half sentences, and two and a half of them were
crap. I had also broken up at least two hundred fights and refereed two
thousand arguments. Is nine thirty in the morning too early to start drinking?
Not in the final two weeks of summer!
After much wailing, gnashing of teeth, and several trips to
“Daddy’s aisle” at the grocery store, Meet the Teacher Day finally arrived on
Monday. I dragged each boy to his respective classroom and apologized in
advance for the entire school year, begging the teachers to let them stay no
matter what might happen.
“I just need them out of the house,” I told their teachers,
with wild desperation in my eyes.
“We know,” they said, with the gray-white pallor of
impending doom showing on their faces. “We know.”
As I was doing the happy dance at the school drop-off
yesterday, I found that, strangely, many of the moms had a different take on a
childless house than I do. While some of them shared my elation, a lot of the
ladies were outwardly sad that they would be going home to an empty house.
Since I had no possible way of understanding that emotion, I was not able to
comfort them in any way. I was only able to shout, “WoooooHoooo,” and I don’t
think that helped. Sadness about sending the kids off to school is strictly an
emotion of the female gender. At the prospect of time without children, ALL
dads will jump for joy. No exceptions. “I love you kids, but get out. Come back
for dinner.”
After the kids had all gone to class and I had finished my
happy dance, I made my way to the school’s front office. I went in to question
them as to why the elementary school day is only six hours, and what we could
do to bump it up to eight or ten.
They didn’t seem willing to work with me on that. They just
asked me if I thought eight o’clock in the morning was too early for them to
start drinking.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen
Congrats on your sobriety for the next 9 months! My 27 yo finally left for college Sunday, and, wouldn't you know it (me being female and all) there was a moment when I almost wept. I'm swearing it was for joy, though! Have fun being productive :)
ReplyDeleteWhat is it with you females and all the constantly conflicting emotions? Embrace the awesome! And might I just correct you a tad on the sobriety thing... Just because I don't have to start drinking at 9:30 A.M. doesn't mean I won't... Celebration drinking is more fun anyway! Cheers!
ReplyDeleteI'll have a drink to that! Cheers to you, too :)
ReplyDelete