Wait. Do I still have a blog here? Well, my God, of course I do. Except when I don’t. But Woodland Elementary School has gone into its usual end-of-school-year posture of standing on my neck and standing on it hard.

California has a legally mandated free school guarantee. Theoretically, my children are meant to attend school for free; due to the fact that Ben is disabled and I’m presently unemployed, they even get a free lunch. (And they say there is no such thing!) But even public schools always have their hand out. At the end of the year, for some reason, they hit us up especially hard.

Today was the Woodland Elementary Jog-A-Thon, where kids run laps for money with nothing to show for it but the free T-shirt. I pledged $25 per child — a pretty typical amount. Just this past Saturday, the Kaiser-Woodland carnival was held, whereby all the kids at both schools were exhorted to eat and drink and play, proceeds to benefit both schools. Last week I shelled out $10 each for two Woodland T-shirts for the boys. Every Friday they have Spirit Day, at which time (surprise!) everyone is expected to wear their Woodland shirts.

Next week is Open House. That will involve the Book Fair, which benefits both Scholastic and the schools, and a burgers ‘n’ chips dinner supplied for free by a local merchant and paid for generously by the parents, proceeds to the schools. Not to mention the end-of-year teacher gifts and the snacks for Jog-A-Thon and so on and on and on.

I’m not really complaining. (Or am I? I believe I’ve just kvetched at length.) We are fortunate to have a world-class school district with extraordinary teachers and maximum 20-child classes. Compare that to LAUSD which has teachers who border on illiteracy and class sizes of 30 or so. Newport-Mesa USD relies largely on local property taxes, which are hefty, meaning that we haven’t been touched by the waves of teacher layoffs that have touched other districts in the county. The fallout is a bit daunting — I had to attend a brief meeting and provide three forms of proof of residency and property ownership last month just to keep our boys in NMUSD schools — but the benefits are considerable.

Still, I’ll be glad when a month has gone by and they stop squeezing us for this year. The last day of school is June 19. For my boys and for my checkbook, it can’t come early enough.

Around the middle of last week, I had a sudden inspiration for the family to take a weekend getaway. It all started with a conversation wherein I mentioned to Matt that he was made in San Diego. More specifically, he was made at the Hacienda Inn in Old Town San Diego, where Ben and I stayed for two nights with 9-month-old Sam while Ben was in town to take depositions. Old Town is quite picturesque and historical, with state-sanctioned California Historical Landmarks every 50 yards or so, and the highest concentration of Mexican restaurants I have ever seen in my life. Shopping is plentiful, with the same blankets, ceramics and Baja hoodies available across the border in Tijuana.

There was nothing for it but to hit several of the Mexican restaurants in search of the ultimate margarita. I’m not sure we found it, but we certainly had a hell of a good time trying. The kids were fairly burned out on flan and tortilla chips with salsa by Saturday afternoon, so I suggested we drive up to La Jolla and hit the mall. Sam narrowed his eyes at me. Is it a MEXICAN mall? he asked, warily. I assured him it was not, and he seemed relieved. Good, he said. Because this place is a little too Mexican for me. He had a point.

The mall wasn’t a big hit, mostly because there were no toy stores. (Whatever happened to toy stores? They used to be everywhere, and now they’re all out of business.) We wound up driving into downtown San Diego, ending up in the Gaslamp Quarter, home to more restaurants per square mile than anywhere I’ve ever seen in my life. Still, the kids enjoyed some dessert at the Rock Bottom Brewery, Ben and I tasted a couple more margaritas, and we probably completely ruined the evening of a couple of hapless tourists to whom we gave completely erroneous directions to Horton Plaza.

This morning we drove back home through a blinding downpour of rain, and are now ensconced in that strange Sunday malaise that comes from having been away from home the whole weekend and knowing the alarm will ring at six-thirty the next morning. I’ve got laundry to catch up, kids to bathe, and the dogs, who are annoyed with me for leaving them, to placate. Still, it was nice to do margarita research and hang out with the kids, and with every margarita we toasted Matt, who finally got to see the place where he was made. He was impressed; Sam wasn’t. Big deal. You and Dad came here and had sex, he said darkly. Childhood isn’t what it used to be.

The kids today at the local pumpkin patch.

Today is the first day of school; Sam started second grade and Matt started kindergarten. And I’ve spent the morning biting my lip and holding my cell phone, because Matt had a rough time.

He’s been excited about school for weeks, but when Sam went off to the bigger kids’ playground and Matt and I went to the kindergarten area, his resolve faded. He wanted his brother. He wanted breakfast, even though he had earlier refused it and it was too late to go buy some. He didn’t want to play on the playground. Instead, he stretched out on one of the benches with his head in my lap.

When it was time to line up and go in, I stood with him in line and he insisted I pick him up. I held him tight right up until it was time to walk into the classroom. When I put him down, his knees buckled; he didn’t want to stay in line. He kept turning around to look at me. The last thing I saw of Matt this morning was his forlorn little back disappearing into Room 9. He didn’t cry. But he wanted Sam and he wanted his mom.

I’ve been thinking of him all morning, hoping his day has brightened up. He won’t see Sam during the day, as the kindergarteners and the bigger kids have separate lunch benches and separate playgrounds. Poor little guy, I hope he’s okay. This is one of those heartbreaking mom moments: they have to face something on their own, and you can’t be there to protect them.

Ever since summer vacation started, the kids and I have been sleeping in on weekdays. Since my hours are flexible and I sometimes work from home, I don’t have to be anywhere at any particular time, so I wait until the kids wake themselves up instead of prying them out of bed at 7:15 like I do during the school year. It is SO nice, and it will be SO hard to get used to keeping regular hours when school starts again.

This morning, though, I had to get up early; I had to be at the courthouse by 9 a.m. to sit in on a hearing and take notes. Which meant that I had to have the kids up and at ‘em at the usual schoolday time, and boy, did they not like it.

Sam and Matt had been up half the night. Ben and I have a recurring problem with keeping them in bed, their lights turned off, and their door open. They wait until we fall asleep, then shut the door, turn the light back on, turn up the T.V., and proceed to stay up till all hours watching Cartoon Network. We catch them sometimes and make them stop, but in the morning we often find the door shut again and the light on, and them sound asleep. We have trouble staying up later than they do.

Last night was the worst. I came in at half past midnight and told them to get their asses to sleep, then went back to bed. Again, they outlasted me. I think they probably stayed up until 2 a.m. judging by their general sleepiness and crankiness this morning.

This was a tougher Monday than most. They probably napped all morning at day care, and here I am yawning and reviewing medical records. Little boogers.

When I was in college, Quaaludes were in vogue. Does anyone remember those? They produced a high of very questionable value, in that generally you either completely fell asleep or were so out of it as to (1) tend to walk into walls and (2) not remember a fucking thing afterward. Well, shit, isn’t that why God made Kamikazes? I mean, it could require several rounds, but it will get you to the same place. I never saw much use for ‘Ludes.

Yesterday, though, Matt had dental surgery for which he required general anesthesia, and his reaction to the sedation immediately put me in mind of someone on Quaaludes. Within three minutes after they administered the shot his eyes were all sleepy and crazy, his head lolling, his body limp as a potato sack. They carried him into the back room to work on him, and three hours later they called me back in to sit with him while he came to.

His speech, when he came out of it, was so slurred that it took a good half-hour before I could understand him. It was about two hours after that until he could walk unassisted without holding onto furniture. His teeth look awesome, although you could have bought a brand-new Toyota Tercel in 1981 for what I paid to have them fixed. And I wish I’d had a camera for Matt’s sedation. Because you want to know how many people I saw walking around like that in the late ’70s and early ’80s? Tons. You notice ‘Ludes aren’t in vogue anymore; Matt, yesterday, reminded me why that is so.

Matt knows how to write his name, but he steadfastly refuses to write his ABCs. Still, somehow he has learned to write. The other day we found the following note, unsigned but obviously authored by Matt, as Sam’s handwriting is of course much better than that. And he knows enough to write this:

I don’t know who it is, but clearly someone is a doo doo. (Sam believes it’s directed at him.) Just what you’d expect from a Crumpacker kid.

Oh shit, enough about rain. In other news:

Yesterday I brought the boys home in my van when Matt announced he urgently had to pee. As we’ve allowed him to do this in the past, he ran over to a nearby streetside tree and proceeded to pee on that. Sam must’ve thought it looked like fun, because the next thing I knew he had run over and was also peeing on the tree. So here I am in the middle of the street with my arms full of packages and my two male offspring marking their territory like dogs.

Did I punish them? I did not. What I did was tell them You know, if you pee on a tree, you might accidentally pee on a BEE, and then the bee will fly over and sting you on the peepee.

Without further ado, they agreed that peeing was better done indoors. Psychology: It really works.

Yesterday we took the kids for a late afternoon walk in a local park (Tewinkle Park, which we of course call Pee-Tinkle Park) featuring paths and bridges around a peaceful duck pond. Well, not so peaceful once my boys arrived; they rolled down hills and ran about chasing some visiting seagulls. About halfway ’round the lake, there was a little wooden bench on a turnout in the path. On it, a young couple was sitting with their arms around each other, admiring the water and the golden light, and occasionally kissing a little.

Upon rounding the corner and seeing them, Matt hunkered down like a pointer dog and his index finger shot straight out at them. They’re having SEX! he cried.

I explained to him calmly, There is rather a large continuum between having sex and what those people are doing, and they are NOT having sex. Matt became distracted by a group of honking geese and dropped the subject, but when I turned to walk on, the couple on the bench were laughing like hell. Sorry, I told them, shrugging. They just smiled and giggled.

Is there any doubt whatsoever that these are Ben’s sons? I mean, honestly. Both of my boys, but Matt in particular, have that feel for theatre, that knack for the showstopping remark.