Rainy days and Mondays

Mondays aren’t synonymous with rainy days for me. I enjoy having the house back to myself, restoring order just in time to begin receiving kids through the door at three 0′clock. And for the past four weeks Jack and I have a unique and special date together. The three big boys take the car and go tutor younger children. This means Jack and I ride our bikes together to get him to his tennis lesson on time. He loves this adventure. He tells me after school, “I have so much to tell you, but I’ll save it for our bike ride.” When we get out there he chatters the whole time about his day. He’s good at giving a blow by blow and rarely misses a detail. He also reports on the discipline actions given to everyone on his class. He’s one to avoid trouble at all cost but he secretly revels when others get it. We do have the sweetest ride together making it one of my most favorite times of the week.

Well, there’s a problem, of course. We have a choice of two routes to take.

• we could go through the gatehouse and ride through the grass a ways to get to the light where we cross the busy road that leads to the club. This one is one and a half miles away.
• or, we could go through the back gate through the natural, wild woods onto the paved paths that wind through nice trails and come up to the light the back way. It’s prettier and longer this way. There’s only a small bit of grass to ride through but it’s by the bayou- which means the wild life is abundant.

We have always taken the second more scenic route and he likes it alot. Lately though it’s warming up and the slithering things are abundant. I don’t want to see them nor do I want to have an incident with one while with my Jack.  I don’t want to frighten him so I casually suggest we take the other way,  but he says the bumpy grass ruins the trip for him and we won’t be able to talk very well.

Gulp. Ok. We discuss how to react if we see one, and how to keep an eye out for them. Ok mom. Don’t worry. There’s one wild part though a rough area before we get onto the paved trail that makes me really nervous. Of course Craig calls me just as we are about through it, and what do we see? A big one heading for my front wheel as thick as a bed post and stretched out probably as tall. I screeched, wobbled and hyperventilated into the phone. Craig laughed at my hysterics and let me go. Once we were on the trail again I told Jack maybe next time we should go the other way to get to tennis.  He said, “no way! That was so cool. I like to see them, it’s the best part.”

It doesn’t make you scared? Nope.

This is what it’s like to have boys. The only way I’m getting out of that wildlife passage is to hope for rainy days and mondays…and I’m not sure I want that either.

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