You know when you have a day where it seems every minute is planned? I had one of those days today. In fact, every day since school began has been those days. I wanted to document just one day in order to remember when I am old, the kids are gone, and I am retired and I declare to my now adult children, "I am so busy!"
4:45 am Alarm goes off. I lie there for a couple of minutes, debating whether I am actually going to get up or not. I do this almost every morning I have to use an alarm clock. I don't know why I do it.
4:48 am Crawl into Ethan's bed to wake him up, secretly hoping he says he can't possibly go to swim practice so I can return to bed.
4: 50 am Throw on work-out clothes and walk to kitchen to discover Ethan has forgotten to pack a lunch so I throw a sandwich, some grapes and a granola bar in a bag. I remembered to have Ethan take all school and swim stuff into the car the night before - score one for me.
5:00 am Head out to swim practice. Notice that my left pinkie, end digit is very sore. Wonder if it is possible to sleep the wrong way on your the end digit of your pinkie. Realize that it is a ridiculous thought and I must be tired if I am spending time on it.
5:05 am Realize Ethan is wearing flip flops and has not packed his tennis shoes in his swim bag, return home because he cannot wear flip flops to school
5:12 am Head back out to swim practice
5:29 am Arrive at practice nearly 15 minutes late. Chat briefly with another swim mom (commiserating, really) and head to the treadmill
6:15 am End work out, head to car to get gas and coffee
6:30 am Sit in lobby of sports center and work on homeschool planning for October in history and science.
7:25 am Ethan finishes practice, showers and we head to school
7:40 am Help Ethan into school with large backpack, lunch in a plastic grocery bag because he forgot his lunch box the day before, trumpet case, and large cardboard box covered in black paper to look like a car for a skit he had later today. We slapped it together last night as that was when I was notified of the need.
8:00 am Return home to find girls in kitchen finishing up breakfast and Jay in the shower. On the way home receive call from my mother reminding me that she would not teach Sadie Latin later today. I laughed at her "reminder" because I hardly remembered our initial conversation. Think to myself that it is probably a good thing that she doesn't have Latin because I can use that extra time to get a lot of things done. That ended up being a misconception that I will note further in the day.
8:15 am Change out laundry, check email, squawk at girls to head upstairs to get dressed and head to the bonus room to being school.
11:15 am Several moments of huffing and puffing/borderline fits and school is done. I realize that although Sadie does not have Latin, they still have piano at 1 pm and I don't have the 3.5 hours I thought until I had to pick up Ethan. I really only have 2.
Tell the girls to finish getting ready, crush their teeth, grab some lunch. I jump into the shower. While half-dressed, I call the vet to see I can drop off our dog, Bobo, our one-eyed, thirteen-year-old, almost deaf mutt. He has about eaten himself up with his annual dermatitis/allergies and needs a steroid shot. I also note in my call history that the Honda place had returned my call from the previous day. I had completely forgotten I made the initial call to drop my van by for some repairs.
11:55 am Throw 2 girls, 2 piano bags, and one mangy looking dog into the van. Start to pull out of the garage when I realize that I need to unload the van as the dealership might have it for several days. Start dumping contents of the trunk of my car (swim bags, etc.) onto the floor of the kitchen.
12:10 pm Arrive at vets. As always in September, I am appalled at the "look" of my dog, Bobo, when I have to take him in. Half the hair on his back is gone and there is always one or two really nasty looking spots. He can accomplish this look in about 3-5 days and the vet assures me that it is ok. While waiting for the vet tech to come collect Bobo for his medicated bath and shot, another man waiting in the lobby said, "Got werms?" in a very southern drawl. I said in a tad of a prideful voice, "Oh no, he just has allergies. We have to come every September to get this done." The man replied, "Well, a wer-em just came outta he-is butt." Sure enough. Indeed, there was a small worm hanging from you know where. Ugh! My dog had tape worms from a flea he ingested somewhere between a month or six months ago. My thoughts raced to the fact that we have had him indoors a lot lately.
12:30 pm Call Honda to make sure a shuttle was available to take us to the office once we dropped off the car. En route to the Honda dealership, some ding dong was riding his bike without a helmet on Westchester Drive. Not only did he not have a helmet, but I think his brakes didn't work. He tried to use his feet as brakes on a steep incline while riding in the gutter and nearly fell off his bike and into my path. I said lots of prayers, slammed on the brakes, and emitted a slight shriek. Thankfully, he recovered control of his bike and then looked at me as if I had done something wrong.
12:40 pm Arrive at Honda. List the myriad of issues with my car. Making sure they noted that the passenger sliding door has still had plenty of problems despite me randomly bringing by and leaving it to their disposal (once for 4 days) to repair. It had never malfunctioned in their care. I was redeemed this time because it didn't open when I pushed the button. Yes! Call Jay to tell him to have the spare car ready at the office. He said he didn't have time because his conference call with the Employment Security Commission was in 10 minutes for a former employee who quit his job and was trying to collect unemployment. Hope for the best as we are shuttled to the office with 2 girls, 2 piano bags, my overloaded pocket book and a booster seat. For once, I remembered to grab the garage door opener!
12:54 pm Arrive at Jay's office. Note the spare car out front. Yay for Jay! Run into to collect keys. Have girls dump all things into the car. Realize that the last person to use the radio was listening to a rap station. The radio is slow to respond to the controls, and I was afraid we were going to have to listen to it for the remainder of our drives. However, it finally responded to my repeated turning of the volume and power switch.
12:55 pm Run to piano, knowing we will be about 5 minutes late. Lily works on her piano theory while we wait and I eat chocolate dusted almonds. I realize it was the first thing I have eaten all day. I have had 2 VERY large cups of coffee, however. Receive text from a friend who inquires if I want to get botox with her.
1:30 pm Sadie returns to the car and Lily goes in. I think I have enough time to run to Staples to pick-up Ethan's student council poster. He was willing to pay the $8 for the print-out with his own money. I uploaded it last night. As I leave the piano teacher's house, I receive a call from Staples that they had problems all morning with their computers and had not printed the poster. However, they wanted to confirm one thing before they did. I told them I was on my way and they said they would have it ready.
1:42 pm Arrive at Staples. Sadie runs to the bathroom. I collect the poster and am happy to hear they will not charge me the standard $5 rush fee since I requested to have it completed prior to 24 hours. I didn't know about the fee, so their computer glitch turned out to be a blessing. By this time Sadie arrived at the print counter with some more mechanical pencils. I told her no. She retreated and returned with the lead refills. That purchase made us late to return to the piano teacher's house and I was irritated.
2:05 pm Arrive at piano teacher's house to see Lily sitting on the front porch. I see her mouthing the words, "Why are you late?" Before she gets in the car, I tell Sadie she has to tell her why. When Lily hops in the car, Sadie offers her some Sour Patch Candy straws as a peace offering. She also offers Lily 2 candy dots. Lily offers her the sucker she has just picked from the goodie box at piano. After Lily gets the 2 candy dots, she reneges on the sucker. An ensuing tiff begins in the back seat. In the end, Lily takes one lick of the sucker and gives it to Sadie who happily finishes it.
2:30 pm Arrive at school to pick-up Ethan. Have poster in hand. Ethan takes it to show his class mates in the pick-up line and is thrilled with it. We take it upstairs to his homeroom so it is ready to hang. I make Ethan look for the Student Council application in his locker which he hasn't been able to locate. We don't find it, so we grab another copy from his teacher's desk. I connect with the Language teacher who prints out a final make-up quiz Ethan needs to take. Then I connect with the Spanish teacher as we are leaving who indicates Ethan will have a make-up quiz on Friday on material he knows nothing about. Great.
3:00 pm Leave the school, calling to see if Bobo is ready for pick-up and most importantly, if he has been de-wormed. He is ready. Also note that I have once again missed the call from Honda. Returning their call, I learned that they have discovered my problem with the door is a latch issue. They also said the terrible rattling in my steering wheel when braking is from warped rotators. I need a brake job. Ka-ching. I turn down the 90,000 mile service checks as most had either been done or to me could wait. They did say that I needed a steering wheel flush/change and something else I can't recall. I opted for those two as they never offer me services like that. Finally, and the best of all...they are going to shampoo my carpets for me...FOR FREE!!!! I don't care if it was out of pity - as I am sure it was - I feel so blessed! The car will probably be ready late Friday or Monday, depending on parts.
3:15 pm Pick-up Bobo, pay $74. One more medicine dose and the worms are history. Listen to the kids crack up about the "wer-ems in your butt" story the entire way home and finally banished that line altogether for the rest of the day.
4:00 pm Arrive home, Ethan begins homework. Chores doled out and I decide to lie down for just 30 minutes because I cannot think straight. Check email, and return several. Five minutes after I am settled into bed, I hear Jay is home. Decide to nap anyway even though it is already 4:30 pm
5:15 pm Wake-up in a complete pool of drool. Realize that I don't have the motivation or time to make stuffed peppers. I have never made that recipe before, nor have I ever eaten them. I just have a TON of green peppers from my garden and need to do something with them. Decide to make a quick, homemade soup instead and beg forgiveness.
6:00 pm Eat dinner, clean-up kitchen, start dishwasher, check-in with Ethan who is working on his Student Council application. Change out laundry. Fold laundry while sitting with family while watching River Monsters. Totally didn't like that show. Jay sends Lily to take a shower. I dole out the final "clean-up your rooms, stairs, and shoes" warnings. I end up having to help Lily with her shower and brush her hair.
7: 30 pm Last details of clean-up chore gets done. Lily requests a desert and a little tv time. Sadie still puttering around upstairs. Ethan is done and has some computer time.
8:15 pm Everyone sent to bed. Ethan begs for some more time as he is in 6th grade. Jay indulges and tells him he must be in bed by 9 pm - his responsibility to keep up with the time and there are consequences if he isn't in bed by then. Jay asks me if he should go ahead and give him his punishment now.
8:30 pm I am in bed writing this blog. I am reminded about my sore pinkie. I ask Jay what he thinks. He comes up with some ridiculous response and I realize that asking him was about as stupid as thinking about it this morning at 5:00 am.
Is this a normal day for most moms? I mean...this is every day for me. How to stop this out of control train?
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