It’s 11:00 am, our homeschooling day has not yet begun.  Why?  Husband can’t find my tripod.  I’m not sure he really needs it, but when he gets an idea in his head, well, that pretty much takes over the day.  And now – it’s a treasure hunt.  For a boy who gets to spend too few hours with his father; how can I deny him this adventure?  As they hunt for this treasure; they find other treasures along the way. Tomorrow is Halloween, and of course Husband neglected to mention that he needed to show up at the courts in a costume.  So as we hunt he discovers things that were there all a long.  An old smoking jacket I purchased in my 20’s to wear to a costume party, the long blond wig I bought him for his surprise 70’s themed birthday party. 

Isaiah gets so excited, he finds one of his many hats (given to him by grandpa Don, who was an actor and accumulated many hats) to add to the costume.  Now we are deciding, should I be Bjorn Borg?  Or Arthur Ash?  Or should I just be a hobo?  If you have read any of my “married to him” posts, you will know that this type of operation is not unusual for my husband.  I remind him he’s looking for the tripod, and take over the search myself.  I can’t find it. Of course he had it last, and his filing system is a mystery to me.  As I search I hear him say, from some other floor, now I need one of those old terry sweat bands. He’s rummaging, not looking for the tripod.  Now we’re looking for a sweat band, “wait look what I found!”  Me, “Did you find the tripod?” Him, “No, but these old tennis racquets will be perfect for my costume!” Me again,”OK, but let’s find the tripod.”  Isaiah is sure it’s in the attic, he finds the prospect of going into the attic very exciting; he explains how Mommy can go, or Poppy can go, or we both can go, but he’ll stay downstairs.  We don’t keep anything in the attic.  Never have.  He is just trying to get us to go there because it’s so exciting.  I’m watching the clock.  I’m thinking, we have missed a main lesson and our morning walk.  I turn around, Husband is gone. Isaiah says he’s going to search on his own.  I try to encourage him to let go of the search,and then, wait for it….. Husband remembers it’s at my sister’s house.  Yes, typical. Isaiah starts to put his jacket on. Trying to hide my frustration I remind him that we still have work to do.  His Poppy can go get the tripod on the way to work.  And you know what he says?  He says,  “Mommy, the tripod is for me!”  What??!!

And this is what married to ADD looks like.   I want to be angry about Isaiah missing almost a whole day of home school.  I want to ask my husband why he didn’t tell Isaiah we would wait until later to look for the tripod.  But I can’t.  I can’t because Isaiah treasured every moment of their adventure together, and I won’t take that from him.  Isn’t that why we home school?  We home school so we can be flexible.  So if something comes up, like a festival or a holiday we can celebrate without worrying about missing a day?  So this is like a holiday, a holiday treasure hunt with Poppy.  What more worth it holiday could there be?

Bjorn Borg