K-9 Mom

Written By: Andrea Angileri
This could be a post about my role as pack leader to my 3 adopted dogs…or even a spin on my ‘Mama Bear’ post…but it’s not. K-9 Mom marks the arrival of my new stage in life where…at the moment…my youngest child is in Kindergarten and my oldest is in 9th. The youngest was clingy in the Kindergarten line at first, but as expected she is thriving.  My oldest is also as expected thriving and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed watching his undefeated freshman soccer team this season.  My middles are in 2nd and 6th. Sixth grade is the ‘new’ middle school…though I can see why when I was a child having sixth grade as a grade school level was a good thing. It was a good thing because as I was one of the youngest in my class it gave me one more year in my comfort zone before I would be thrust on a bus stop corner caring about more important global matters…like Guess jeans and Benetton sweatshirts and what time to wake up and do my hair the next day. Luckily for me, my sixth grader wears a uniform and could give two cacas about brand names…however life would be easier if he remembered to bring the right materials to his assorted classes and hyperfocused on his teachers as much as he does to YouTube.

Even luckier for me one of my kids is in plain regular 2nd grade. With one starting Kindergarten, one starting middle school, and one starting high school….it’s good to just have one starting plain regular 2nd grade. Though it really has been interesting starting the year with two subs before his ‘real’ teacher comes back from maternity leave. God bless subs and teachers coming back from maternity leave. With one job ending a strike, one job delayed for budget cuts, one job postponed due to restructuring training format, and one job between trimesters, I’ve had a little time to volunteer in the kindergarten classroom. I really have enjoyed my 1 hour in the room…but probably most because it is one hour. They are really cute in small doses. I love children and sometimes I love the thought of them…and sometimes I love the thought of them in school.

Looking now at the calendar I can see that the kids have been in school for exactly one month. So…what’s life like for a K-9 mom? How have things ‘changed’?

Every day I have 3 ½ more hours of ‘free time’ than I had last school year. This means I can actually eat, clean, think, work through the 10:40 a.m. preschool pick-up, etc. It’s great…except when it’s totally overrated.
Last week, I declared that I would ‘lose myself’ in the task of cleaning out my car. The dogs were in the backyard (I have mentioned that they are like children..right?) a little whiny , but I pressed on thinking, “Isn’t it nice that I don’t have to pay attention to the time?…I can just totally lose myself in this task.” I stepped away for some reason and spotted not 1 but 2 of my dogs had got loose and were running down the street. Somehow they had pushed open the side garage door and ran right past me! I was able to get Bailey a.k.a ‘Mama’s Boy’ back with ease…but Lucky…well we know how stubborn Beagles can be. So…I leave..mid car clean with a bowl of stirfry and a leash down the street…which leads to a capture…which leads to a walk. I was planning to walk the dogs..just not this way exactly…with a bowl of stirfry and no plastic bags to pick up waste…and one of my car doors left wide open.

September is my birthday/anniversary month. I spent my birthday with a nice lunch date with my sister and ended the night with a complimentary facial. On my anniversary I will do what I typically do an such special occasions…take the kids to school, volunteer for a bridal show set-up, pick kids up, and post a lovey dovey post on Facebook.

On a more serious note September carried some tragic neighborhood news for me. The kind of news that reminds you that though sometimes you can see the signs, tragedy cannot always be prevented…neither is it supposed to. Nothing to do now but to remain as I’ve always been…compassionate for my neighbors. It’s not even that I had considered myself emotionally close to my neighbors…though we do physically practically share a driveway. I’ve always seen the best in them and, as you do sometimes, felt like I was rooting for the at-risk youth in a way that was not naïve, but just hopeful. 

So thus ends an extremely long blog post. It’s ok if you haven’t made it to the end. Trust me, I’ve considered letting my WordPress account lapse and keep the $18 for the year to help me pay for school picture (My God why are they so expensive!). I’ve even considered just journaling and maybe my grandkids would read it, though unlikely because they are probably too busy wearing headphones, and heavy goggles for their cyber-reality video game systems to really care what some old lady had to say. Looking forward to moving on to more K-9 mom insights as we head into month 2.