Episode 30: Move Over Day
Episode 30: Move Over Day
Mimi Schmir, one of the writers from "Grey's Anatomy"
Every so often something happens to remind you time is passing. The bagels that you bought two weeks ago turn moldy; the cable company sends a bill marked, “urgent”; the cute teenage boy at the supermarket check-out calls you “Ma’am.” (For any woman over the age of thirty-five, an especially rough one.) And then, to add insult to injury, if you’re a parent, particularly in touchy feely Southern California, there’s “Move Over Day” at school.
Now, I’m not talking about telling some young stud to “move over” in bed and stop hogging the sheets. Or the John Edwards transition into the afterlife (wait…that’s Crossing Over. There’s no moving involved.) For the uninitiated, “Move Over Day” was the suggestion of some pre-school parent in the last millennium who wanted her kids to meet their new teacher prior to summer vacation. Needless to say, there was a time when pre-school was little more than sandboxes and Ritz crackers, but that was before the whole experience was tantamount to whether or not your blankie carrying, nipple obsessed, three-year-old was going to have a chance in hell of getting into Harvard. I kid you not about the nipples, by the way. Roo, not unlike his father, likes the ladies. More than that, he seems to like a nice “rack.” So when I trot him over to school to meet the sweet young girl with a B.A. in early childhood development who will be his teacher, it doesn’t hurt that she’s also smoking hot. (Translation: big boobs and really skinny.) You would think this wouldn’t matter to a four-year-old. You would be wrong. (Roo is the kid who when let loose in the lingerie department of Bloomingdales, starts caressing the brassieres. I saw him doing this last month when I was there with a return. He was facing a 38 C lacey number that was hanging at eye level and running his hands over the cups in concentric circles with a look of wonder. “Oooooh, soft…” he whispered, like he had just discovered the moon. God help me, he gets the condom conversation next month.)
Anyhoo. “Move Over Day” is supposed to be about getting the kids familiar with a new environment before they go off for their summer vacation (in our instance, this will be two weeks where bad mommy has absolutely nothing planned) but in reality, it is all about the moms. Once in a blue moon a Dad comes to “Move Over Day,” like he has something to prove, usually to his wife, but they always stick to themselves or huddle in the corner with their cell phones. “Move Over Day” allows the mommies to make plans (with each other, natch) which is really important in the social network that is mom world. I mean, Mom bonding, in case you don’t know this, is different than any other kind. It usually involves shoes and purses and price points and rolled eyes when it comes to husbands. Of course, if you don’t have a husband, even if all the other husbands suck, you’re automatically two steps behind.
So when I get to “Move Over Day,” I am truthfully, a little nervous. It’s been a while since I’ve even been to the school and even longer since the birthday party penis debacle with Roo, which, no matter how much I try to forget it, keeps coming up in conversation. (Even the most supportive moms on the planet are more than a little relieved when there’s a concrete example that another mom is more at wits end than they are.) Then, of course, there’s the issue of Jeffrey and how much mom world does or doesn’t know. All in all, I’m dreading the whole thing, so much so I wish I’d taken that Prozac that Annabelle had offered to slip in my early a.m. nonfat latte. My bad.
“Hi, Esme,” I hear chirpily, as I drag myself in the door. (“Move Over Day,” which starts at 8:30 in the morning, is about two hours too early, if you ask me.) “Oh, hello, Violet,” I answer, noting that the mom in question has chopped her hair off and dyed it this startlingly white blonde. “Nice, doo, Vi,” I say (lying through my teeth), “Is it a summer thing?” “Oh, no,” she says, seriously, “I’m getting too old for long hair,” and then she smirks a little, “No offense, I mean you should totally keep yours,” because she knows damn well that my long hair is part and parcel of who I am. (Not that I haven’t thought about cutting it at least twenty times a day since all the Jeffrey stuff started, but that’s never been an age thing, just more like the idea of a symbolic starting over. “No offense taken,” I say, gamely, and then try not to topple over as Roo grabs my hand.
Now here’s another thing. Roo doesn’t like to be left alone. (Birthday party hysteria, case in point.) Meaning, all the other kids might be gathered around Rufus, the turtle (that damn turtle is fifty years old, by the way, older than me and about as sprightly) or drawing or climbing but Roo likes me to watch whatever he does. (Typical man.) I suppose this is a control thing put in place by his father but whatever it comes from, it usually plays out with some whining, followed by stomping, followed by screaming (Wait, maybe that is moi) and then the moms all looking at me with those sympathy eyes. But that’s not going to happen today because I have decided to simply give in and, in the interest of decorum and getting through this with as little humiliation as possible, basically acquiesce to my child. So I’m all prepared for Roo to tell me he needs me to come and stand with him for the next hour or so but instead, he just pulls my face towards his, plants a big, wet kiss on my lips and frolics away.
That’s when Violet bursts into tears. “Waaahhh,” I hear next to me. “ Waaaahhh….” (I’m not kidding, it sounds like some kind of cartoon baby crying, not the sobs of a forty-plus-year-old woman.) I look around for some help, but there is none. All the other moms are huddled together gossiping about one thing or another, exchanging numbers of nutritionists and contractors and complaining how their husbands are never, ever home and if they had known this is what it takes they never would have insisted on doing that totally out of control remodel in the first place. (I myself have a thing or two to say about remodels, but fittingly, no one comes over to ask me.)
“Waaahhh...gurgle,” I hear again. “Oh, Christ,” I say, unfortunately, out loud. “What’s wrong?” (I’m trying to be compassionate here.) “That...was...so...CUTE,” Violet hiccups, loudly. “What?” I ask her, irritated, looking for a way out. (Sadly, Roo is now totally occupied with a raven haired three-year-old who is lifting up her dress in front of him.) “Your son…” she sobs. “The way he kissed you...sooo darling...” “I guess,” I say, suspiciously. “I suppose it was.” “Oh, it was,” she assures me, putting her tear-stained hand on my arm. “How can you stand it?” she wails. “Doesn’t it just make you want more?!” “Oh, Roo’s a regular George Clooney with the kissing,” I assure her. “There’s plenty more where that came from.” “Not more kisses,” she sniffles. “Doesn’t it make you want more children NOW?!”
So here’s the thing about “Move Over Day.” While in theory it is about the cute little children packing up their blankies and extra clothes and moving from one classroom to another, more than anything else, it makes the moms think about moving over too. You know, time passing, age accruing, years going by, the inevitable ticking clock conundrum. I mean, the OTHER moms. Not me.
“NO!!” I shout out, horrified. “It doesn’t make me think about that at all.” Violet looks at me, confused. “But this is it,” she insists. “It’s now or never.” “What are you talking about?” I say, more than a little annoyed that I’m stuck in the middle of this. Frankly, I’d rather be talking about real estate. “You know,” she says, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “They’re so cute now. But they’re growing up and this is when you, well...have another one, isn’t it? Before it’s too late?” “Too late for what?” I say. I swear, if I could scream, I would. And I guess there must have been something in my eyes, because suddenly, a look of horror crosses Violet’s face. “Oh, Esme, I’m sorry,” she stutters. “I totally forgot about your situation with Jeffrey.” “What situation?” I say, brightly. And she just kind of turns red, says, “Uh…I have to pee,” and slips away.
Well, that just about made my day. Because if I had wondered what the other moms did or didn’t know, I guess I didn’t have to wonder now. And because I’m a glutton for punishment, and sometimes a little mean, I don’t let her off so easily. I follow her.
“No, seriously, Violet,” I say, chasing her down. “I could have more kids if I wanted to. Hell, I’ve still got some of Jeffrey’s sperm.” “You, what?” she says, staring at me like I’m the middle aged freak that in this instance I apparently am. (I may have been speaking a little louder than I realized, because I see a few of the other moms are starting to stare at me too.)
“Well, you may not know this,” I tell her brightly (even without a bleached out dye job, I can be as bright as the best of them), “But Jeffrey had to have his sperm washed before they could even do the job.” “Excuse me?,” says Violet, clearly wishing she had never brought this up in the first place. “Yep,” I tell her. “We had to wash those little swimmers and shoot ‘em up inside me where the sun don’t shine.” Violet looks like she’s about to gag. (I am starting to find this amusing.) “I just got the bill yesterday,” I tell her, confidentially. “Eight hundred dollars a year to keep ‘em in cold storage at the fertility lab.”
Now, I don’t know what it is about me that makes me tell people these things. Like the moms don’t know enough about me already. “You still have your ex-husband’s sperm?” says Violet, now thoroughly confused. “I got it in the settlement,” I tell her, proudly. “You...did?!” says Violet. (She’s unfortunately gullible.) “Well, he’s not technically my ex yet,” I whisper. I see her blue eyes (permanent contacts) widen. “I know, I know, the prostitutes,” I say. “But moving on takes time, if you know what I mean.”
I guess the point of all this, “moving over” isn’t always as easy as it initially seems. I mean, I have to admit to being a little misty-eyed myself when Roo put his extra bag of clothes in his cubby and trotted in to his new classroom. But I’m forty-five for chrissake. Geena Davis notwithstanding, I’m not supposed to be a fifty year-old baby-toting mom. So I can’t really tell you why I’m still holding on to Jeffrey’s spermatozoa (now there’s an image for you) but I can tell you this: we all “move over” in surprising and mysterious ways - letting go of the old, embracing the new, and trying to maintain some sense of decorum in-between. For Roo it was hugging that skinny, sweet teacher hello and saying to me, “See you soon.” For yours truly it’s embracing whatever might be coming my way and appreciating what I already have. Eight hundred bucks worth of frozen Jeffrey included.
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