Stretched Out

The kids' English is AMAZING.  Oak still has some grammar errors ("Did you saw her?") and vocab gaps that result in a lot of "The thing did the thing to the thing."  But Linden--you'd never guess she isn't a native speaker.  Today I used the word "vulnerable" and she wanted me to define it, then break it down for her a few times so she could practice saying it.

But there are two errors they make that I hope stick around awhile longer.  The first is that they've conflated "join" and "enjoy."  So when Oak is still working on his ice cream after the rest of us have long finished he'll smugly tell us, "I'm enjoining it."  For some reason, I find this so charming that I've started using it as well, which only adds to the confusion.

The other one kills me.  Occasionally Linden will politely say, "Mama, I think you're kind of stretched out, because you're being kind of crabby."  Yes, I am stretched out.  Not in a loose, yoga kind of way, but in a stretched too thin kind of way.  I reply something along the lines of, "Yes, I am feeling kind of stretched out right now.  I'd better take some deep breaths, huh."

School starts next week.  We are broke*, and are waiting for tomorrow's paycheck before we can buy school supplies.  The Winemaker has mono, and although I am theoretically safe, having had it in high school, I came home today with a 102 temperature.  I've been at inservice all week, feeling like crap, and trying to wrap my brain around, coincidentally, about 102 different apps and functions as my school gears up for a one-to-one student iPad initiative.  I am stretched out.



*Of course, when I say "broke," it's middle-class broke, where at least I have a job and the cars are crap but paid off and we've already paid the mortgage this month, but we're down the wire on cash flow.  I know there are scarier kinds of broke to be.  It's hard for us, when we used to have two incomes and live below our means,  to have to be all, "No milk until Friday," and "thank God the kids don't care if their back-to-school clothes come from Goodwill."  But we have plenty, really.