We just pull into the parking lot, when baby Lucy decides to… how do I say it?… deposit what sounds like a squishy gift into her Pampers. Now Lucy, almost five months, is totally breastfed, and you moms who nurse know how such tiny babies, even those tiny ones who can’t even hold their little bobble heads up yet, can poop with such force. It’s passion pooping. It’s like a baby bomb explosion. It’s likely to blow a hole out of the strongest diaper.
That’s the sound coming from the backseat.
And the next thing I hear is Peter.
Eww, Mom, it’s leaking!
Thus begins our first day back with our homeschool co-op.
Last Fall I found, via the Internet, a group of homeschooling parents meeting together twice a month for classes beyond the basics we taught at home. The moms (and the occassional dad) take turns teaching a different topic. We’ve played with magnets, made butter, drawn with pastels, and learned folk dancing among other things. It’s homeschool moms on a tall Starbucks with a double shot of espresso. (These women are highly motivated to give their children a wide range of experiences, but that’s another post for another day.)
I like our group, I really do. But I think I’d like it a lot more if I left the kids home and went by myself. I could use some child-free socialization.
And it’s not the other kids that make me crazy. It’s my own beautiful cherubs that make me wish for that big yellow bus to stop in front of my house. Bus driver, take them away!
After the leaking diaper, we went through:
Peter and Edmund fighting over a Foosball game. Actually, Peter choking Edmund is more like it. That really got my Irish temper going.
Susan crying because none of the other kids wanted to play a card game with her. I wouldn’t have wanted to play with her either if I were them. They were having way too much fun just running around. Sigh.
Edmund cuts his toe climbing on a wooden jungle gym. Proceeds to scream in agony like it’s been amputated. I swear he thinks he’s a Hobbit; he loves to go bearfoot. Guess what? I can carry a four-month-old in one arm and lug a 40-pound three-year-old in the other.
Lucy, not to be outdone, decides she won’t fall asleep like I hoped she would. In the stroller she squirms out of the straps and it’s way too hot for the Baby Bjorn carrier. Up on her hands and knees on the rug, she’s almost crawling. Another sigh from her mother. Life is so much easier when baby stays in one spot.
And in the car ready to leave it’s like a choir. A whiney choir. The boys wouldn’t let me play in the club house cries Susan. Where’s my juice box complains Peter. I want more juice demands Edmund.
It’s enough to make any homeschool mom doubt why she does this in the first place, but I’m in this for the long haul. It’s going to take a lot more than a diaper explosion, fighting brothers and a supersensitive girl to deter me.
Besides, I’ve got this great co-op to attend. It’s doing my social life a lot of good.
