Manners

Dean and I are going out today to have lunch, at a restaurant, with my friend Marilyn. Marilyn does not have kids, Dean is 8. Now, that's not as overwhelming as, say, "Marilyn does not have kids, Dean is 4," but still, I worry. Will Dean be his charming, well-mannered, eat-what-he-ordered and occupy himself appropriately while grown-ups are talking self, or will he be his ants in the pants, I'm not hungry/this doesn't really taste good, there's nothing to do self? I think, doting mother that I am, that he's usually pretty good, but to see children's behavior through the lens of someone who has specifically decided not to be a parent can be another thing all together. Well, I can always hold the Toys R Us chip over his head -- restaurant is riiiight across the street....

School vacation week is winding down and we're back to it on Monday. How is it still that a week's vacation, looming ahead, seems so long and promising and overrun with opportunities to get a million things done, and then becomes just this blip of time that's over before you can believe it during which you've gotten about exactly nothing on your list done? How old am I going to be before this truth sinks in? One chore I MUST do is to iron out about 15 pounds of wax from the cloth Dean batiked at school since it is due back on Monday and on Tuesday I work with his class to begin sewing the fabric into African ceremonial coats (dashiki, if I'm not mistaken). For some reason, either the nature of the wax used or the fabric, it doesn't seem possible to scrape any of the wax off so I'm going to have to use up about 10 rolls of paper towels to absorb all the wax. I see myself getting the wax all over everything -- the iron, the ironing board, etc. -- even though I'll be trying very hard NOT to. I just can feel trouble ahead. But tomorrow's the day. For sure.