Young Simba has returned to live with me. It’s an adjustment for all but we are all starting to fall into a new rhythm.
Three weeks
Three weeks ago, I wondered how I’d ever adjust to having BoBo home for a so long. I was excited to have him come home but equally worried about him distracting YaYa from his studies, and keeping me up at night. I have a difficult time getting to sleep and sleep über light.
There was an adjustment period. He had to adapt to my excessive need order and I had to lighten up a bit on everything being just so. There was a lot of X-Box, a lot of movies, a lot of dirty dishes, and an few over-the-top moments of brotherly teasing. But there were also a lot of bonding moments, family dinners that actually felt like “family”, and some big brother coaching on baseball.
And now…
Early arrival
The new year is off to a good start… for once, YaYa arrived at school early. A whole DAY early!
Not Martha… or Mom
One of my fond memories from childhood is decorating and EATING gingerbread men. If memories serves me, our cast of characters always resembled a cheerier side of the holidays. 
This year, for the first time, I decided to share this joyful experience with me son. We looked up a recipe and went to the store to purchase all of the necessary items to create yummy masterpieces to give to teachers, and good neighbors. Sadly, the opportunity for a mother-son bonding to mix up the ingredients was just not happening. YaYa’s studies were just not lightening up. The eve of the last day of school before the break, I finally decided to mix it all up on my own while YaYa finished off his studies.
This was when I discovered that the cookie dough needs to chill for quite some time before you can roll and cut the cookies. *sigh* No cookies for the teachers this year.
The following night, YaYa and I donned our aprons to roll and cut out the men. We baked up the hearty crew and watched as they seemed to rise to the occasion. The bulk of them actually rose so much that I jokingly commented that they need a good personal trainer. Ah, but they taste so good – even without the candy decorations.
We let them cool a bit and then began our task of prettying them up. Unfortunately, the results were not pretty. After we each did a couple, I blamed the frosting for the failure to bring out their cheery side. We abandoned the task until I could get another kind of frosting.
The next day, we tried again. The outcome was no better but we stuck with it, hearts set in delivering a few good men to three fantastic neighbors. We sure did laugh a lot during the process.
Later in the evening, we humbly delivered our best attempt at spreading holiday cheer with a most apologetic message. “They taste much better than they look. I promise. Merry Christmas!” I know these guys look pretty sad, but honestly…
with fingers and toes crossed
I’m bordering on obsessive compulsive, checking my son’s online grade viewer every 30 minutes or so. A big part of me wonders if I made the wrong decision in sending him to school sick — with a critical test on the line. The other part of me knows that I had no choice. The grading period is ending and he needs to “show up” everyday, no matter what.
Since football has ended, he’s managed to recover all but one of his grades. In this last class, his grade goes up by several points…only to drop back down a test or two later. It’s frustrating for me. It’s most certainly discouraging for him.
This test grade means everything. There are three other assignments whose grades have yet to be posted as well, but their weight on his grade amount to nothing with this last test on the line. I wait, however impatiently, and say a prayer or two or three — with fingers and toes crossed…