School daze » Hip to be Mom

I can so smell it in the air and feel it in my bones. If you read my tweets, you might’ve heard me say a little craziness is okay but I ended up getting a boatload of it.

It’s the first day of the fall semester for Raine. She only has a 2-hour class and she’s done for the day. So we’re off battling rush hour traffic first thing this morning. We needed to get to college early so she could locate the classroom.

So I drop her off, she manages to locate her classroom and I’m ~~happily~~ on my way home, right? Not so fast! I’m almost home after an hour of inching along in barely moving traffic, my foot numb from hitting the brakes 500 times per minute, and Raine calls me to say… class has been cancelled!

You gotta be kiddin’ me, right? On the first day of school? Well, if you’ve been a mom of 3 for this many school years, you know nothing surprises you anymore. So what else is there to do but to turn around and go back?! Duh! Two whole hours wasted!

The rest of the morning was spent answering questions about the bags we lost flying from Tokyo to San Francisco oh so long ago. No, I do not have those boarding passes, but if and when I do decide to start a collection, I promise you’ll be the first to know .

Because of that, I started lunch late. Dumped the scalloped potatoes in the oven, went out to pick Skye from school, and happily thought we could get down to gobbling lunch right away. But the potatoes weren’t cooked through and had to go right back into the oven while our tummies did cartwheels and drumrolls!

Like the weather, the rest of the afternoon took a turn for the worst when I realized I had to deal with a bunch of unreasonable women (think I’ve mentioned them here before). Yes, the same ones you can’t knock any sense into if you talked yourself blue. I’ll spare you the gory details.

So now I’m home, showered for the third time today. My freshly shampooed hair smells so good. Can’t wait to work some of this stress off tomorrow at the gym. Hope you’re enjoying your Monday/first day of school. Right now, I’m all for happy tales of Monday so please humor me if you’ve got any to share .

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Friday evenings are quite a big doo-dah for us these days. I signed Skye up for Math tutoring for these next couple of months. It’s just to give her more confidence with topics that are haphazardly covered at school.

Late Friday evenings are definitely not the best time to be out if you want to keep your stress level down. But we don’t have a choice as this is the only time schedule available and we like that this tutor explains very well, teaches a structured approach to dealing with questions and doesn’t spoon-feed the kids.

So Friday evenings it is! Granted it’s the hottest time of day when the setting sun is making one last attempt to grill us all to a crisp before calling it a day. Not to mention that driving down the highway with the setting sun directly in my eyes isn’t exactly fun either. So my sun shades are down and my new pair of Ray Bans are on.

The only thing left then is that horrendous Friday evening rush hour traffic. I used to drop Skye off, then head on home, and pick her up later. But it’s gotten to the point where if I do that, I would have to leave again the minute I reach home, which makes no sense whatsoever!

So these days, Raine (who usually comes along for the ride) and I head to the club instead after we drop Skye off. The club is halfway between our home and the tutor’s. So we’re saving time and stress by hanging out at the club’s library till it’s time to pick up Skye.

But not on rainy Fridays though because then, even that shorter distance is undoable. We’ve had to make a U-turn before we even reached the club or we wouldn’t have enough time to go back and pick up Skye. That’s how bad it can get!

So guess what Raine and I did today? We saw how bad traffic was and decided we weren’t going anywhere. We would just camp out in the car outside the tutor’s home with our jar of chocolate chip cookies and a bottle of iced water. Our picnic on a Friday evening!

As soon as I turn the corner to Raine’s college, the scenery changes from this

… to this, a sea of college girls with deuter backpacks and short shorts, some even shorter and tighter than these!

That’s the modern-day college kid for you. They don’t wear very much. Spaghetti and tank tops that can’t seem to keep stuff from spilling out. Skirts so short and tight you can’t even sit down. Times are bad, we need to save on fabric?!

Once my Dad came to pick me up from the college where I was teaching, and he almost flipped at what he saw. Poor Dad! He was going, is this what kids wear to school these days? Shaking his head, he went on, in my day, this is how hookers dress, are these girls here to get an education or what?

Indeed as a mom and teacher, my stand is this – anything that short and tight has no place in the classroom. Colleges may turn a blind eye but what about the parents? Shouldn’t they have a say in what their teens wear to school?

I would assume that most of us go through a thought process when deciding what’s appropriate and what’s not. Most of it is common sense really. Seems like that’s not apparent to everyone though. Worse yet, it seems kids are starting young too these days, according to this article which I totally agree with, by the way.

What do you think?

So Raine had a process analysis presentation to do for her English class. Most of the other groups in her class were demonstrating recipes but Raine chose to demonstrate a craft because well, we love doing creative projects… and paper bead-making was something they learnt from my great aunt when they were little.

This is a really fun craft you can do with your kids – keeps them occupied for hours, you don’t have to spend a cent and it’s such a great way to recycle those old magazines you have lying around the house (so who needs document management solutions, right?)

First tear out a colorful page from an old magazine and measure out long strips like these. Make the wider end about 1″ wide and taper the strip to a sharp point at the other end.

You will also need a wooden skewer. Place the wider end of your paper strip against the skewer and start rolling.

When you reach the last couple of inches of the paper strip, apply a bit of glue and continue rolling till the end sticks on tightly. Leave to dry before removing from your skewer.

Now to string the colorful beads together into whatever fashion accessory you fancy – bracelets, belts, earrings. Raine strung her into a long necklace alternating them with some loose red beads left over from one of our other projects.

Are you into crafts? What are some fun craft projects you’ve done? I’d love to try new ones and I’ll be sharing some more of what I’ve done later.

So we start a new chapter in the Hip Book of Historical Events. Raine, my 17-year-old princess, is officially a college freshman today.

Her Royal Highness doesn’t have a driver’s license yet so she will be riding the Royal Coach to college each morning chauffeured by the Queen herself (that would be me, ahem!).

Lucky me, college is clear across town smack in the middle of the rush-est of rush hour traffic insanity !

I’m not complaining though I can’t say sitting in traffic can be considered a favorite pastime of mine. That said, any commute with my teens is a priceless opportunity for bonding, still lovin’ it after all these years.

And here is my interview with Raine when I picked her up from her first day at college today. Her answers, in her own very words:

Me: So what do you think of college?

Raine: I think I’ll be homesick every day that I’m in college.

Me: Did you meet anyone you know?

Raine: I don’t think they recognize me which is good because I like being under the radar.

Me: What was the� most exciting thing that happened today?

Raine: The fact that I looked at my Chuck and Taylor Converse sneakers and realized that they were the nicest pair of sneakers in the room.

Me: I bet you’re pretty excited about college then, huh?

Raine: Maybe it’s too early to tell but…