Another Day in the Life

This is one New York winter I am happy to miss.  While we monitored the storm that’s blasting the east coast of the US today—friends our scheduled to fly out tonight—we enjoyed a beautiful, 60 degree, sunny day here in Barcelona.  If you live in the northeast, I don’t mean to rub it in.  But it’s felt like spring every day since we got back from Sicily.  We have our cold days here, too, but when they are interspersed with days like today, it’s hard to mind. 

After napping much of yesterday and a long night’s sleep, I dragged my sorry, congested self to Spanish this morning, thinking I might leave at the break.  But I stuck it out and persevered.  There is a test every Thursday to see if you make it to the next level.  It does not matter much to me—I care about learning the stuff more than the level, but I suppose passing a test is always good for one’s ego.

Before I got sick, I had planned to spend the afternoon and evening cooking up some good stuff in anticipation of our friends’ arrival.  I had to revise my plan.  Instead, I would come home from Spanish, lie down for an hour, go pick up the kids and make sure they got to their various afterschool activities, pick them up after said activities, and then go home to lie down again.  I asked Alec to get home by the time I arrived so that I could retire to the bed pronto. I made sure C.C. got to ArquiKids and went to Milo’s classroom to get him for soccer.  He came out of the classroom sniffling and teary. 

C.C. is a screecher—for better or worse, we always know EXACTLY what she is feeling. But Milo is a stoic.  In fact, if Milo knew I was writing this about him, he would be very upset.  The other evening, after a particularly low sibling rivalry moment in our living room, we tried to debrief at dinner.  C.C., unable to do this, started screeching.  Milo said, “You know, sometimes I feel like screeching, too, but I just keep it inside my body.”  That’s my boy.  I made a point to talk to him about it the next day, and to tell him how important it is to express our feelings (preferably not by screeching).  I told him that all feelings are okay, we just need to figure out how best to express them.  “Do you know what I mean?” I asked him.  “I don’t like this little chat very much,” he replied.  So I left it at that.

So when I saw that he was upset, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get a straight story out of him.   I knelt down to find out what was wrong and he crawled right up into my lap, curling his head onto his knees. 

“I’m tired,” he said.  “Let’s go.” 

“No soccer?” 

“No.”

If Milo does not want to play soccer, something is really wrong.  As soon as we got outside, he said, “I think I need to puke.”  And he did.  Then, “I need to pee.”  And he did.  He fell asleep sitting on my lap in the car while we waited for C.C. to finish ArquiKids, after which we all went home to lie down.