Yesterday was a big day here in the Venomous Household: the Big-Eyed Boy started kindergarten. At last! Really, I’m not sure who was more excited about it: he, because it represented the birth of his independence, or me, because it represented the resurrection of mine. Of the two of us, he’s the only one who slept soundly the night before. Hence my blogging silence yesterday: I was sleeping.

The thing about my son is that he has continually surprised me with his unflappable nature. While I rushed around packing his lunch, laying out his clothes, fretting whether he was eating an adequate breakfast, he sat in the kitchen rocking chair, yawning and blinking and watching the clock. When we — I — finally had everything together and ready to go, I spent the 20 minute drive to school delivering a pep talk about how much he’s grown up, how much fun he’ll have, how many new friends he’ll make, et cetera. He spent the drive reading his book about dinosaurs.

I consider our family lucky because we got an exemption that allows the Big-Eyed Boy to attend school at Ft. Leavenworth, rather than the school just a few blocks away. Although both are state-funded public schools, the ones on post are so much better equipped, better maintained, and — according to their standardized test results — better at educating children. With a kindergartener capable of counting to 300; who spells, reads and writes at 1st grade level; and who is, well, mine, I want him to receive the best possible education and I’m willing to drive him however far that requires.

Of course, that means I’m waking up much earlier than I’m used to. Pulling my unwashed hair back, shrugging on a sweater over my PJ’s and jumping in the car bare-faced to drop him off at the school door just isn’t an option. I have to walk through the Mommy Mob, you see, and that requires freshly-washed hair, full make-up and clothes that are fashionable yet understated.

That’s the thing about Army wives: all too often they remind me of overgrown cheerleaders bearing babies instead of pompoms. They congregate outside the school doors, strollers stuffed with infants and lined up in an orderly row while they cheerfully talk with each other and covertly check out each other’s hair and figures. They’re friendly enough with each other, but the only way to join in the conversation is by knowing someone already. And I don’t.

I also used to beat up the cheerleaders when I was in school.

So, you can probably guess what my mood is after weaving between their enviably slim figures to lead my little boy to his classroom, then back through the gauntlet of their tanned elbows to jump in my car, light my first cigarette of the day, and drive back home as fast as I can.

It’s going to take a while getting my new routine down, I think. In addition to bathing, dressing and putting on my makeup before helping my son through his morning ablutions, there are chores to be done, email to read, blog entries to write, a workout to do and a novel I’ve been trying to finish writing for a year now. So much to do, so little time.

Thing is, I’m a person of so many quirks. I have to read the paper in the morning or it’s just not worth reading at all. I can’t read the paper anywhere but the kitchen table, so I have to clean it first. I must be wearing sweats to write, unless it’s too hot, so that means changing clothes as soon as I get home. I like blogging from the family computer in the kitchen, but I have to be sitting at my desk in the basement to work on my novel. Both the kitchen and the basement must be clean or I can’t write anything, and once I start cleaning one room I have a tendency to keep cleaning until the whole house is done. I don’t feel comfortable working out if anyone else is home and first feel like I need to get all of my other tasks done, but I need a half-hour time to cool down and clean up once I’m finished. Six hours doesn’t seem like nearly enough time.

So how did these past five years go by so damn fast?