6:30 am: Hubby's alarm goes off. He hits the snooze button. I return to dying from night sweats (can you say "hello menopause!").
6:50 am: Hubby (who claimed he was going to "get up and head in to work early" today) continues to slumber. I drag my sopping wet self outta the bed and go administer meds to my psychotic youngest children. Screamapillar is "asleep" on the love seat in the living room, her face stuck to the laptop keyboard. It might be interesting to hear her account of a "day in the life" later. Return to bed for "just another minute."
7:05 am: Screamapillar comes and pokes me and asks if I can take her to school "in five minutes." I am fully cognizant that "five minutes" will actually be twenty. I resume reading the book I fell asleep in last night until she might actually be ready to go somewhere.
7:25 am: Awaken Eclair and Luke Skywalker. Threaten to end their lives if they are not ready for school when I return from driving Screamapillar to school (yes, she's actually ready now). Oh, how I adore morning traffic.
7:45 am: Home again, I bellow to make sure people are getting ready for school. I am met with grumbling and moaning. They appear to be clothed, at least.
7:50 am: proceed to shower. Interrupted no fewer than four times by Claire asking ridiculous questions.
8:00 am: Whilst I am standing wet and wrapped in a towel, Luke Skywalker asks through the bathroom door "Mom, is the wagon still missing a tire?" "Yeah, why?" "Just wondering why Thing One just showed up, but that explains it." I proceed to get ready for work, the whole time going over the morning checklist with children through the door: "Are you wearing clean clothes? and underwear? and deodorant? Have you brushed your teeth? is there any homework you need to take with you? Are you even listening to me?"
8:10 am: "Mom, you really need to come see this...." Really? are you sure? because those words are rarely followed by something I would WANT to see...
About four centuries ago, we began a bathroom remodel. After many hours, we have drywall and some plumbing fixtures, but still no tub or potty. This is the picture I took by lowering my phone into the 20 inch deep hole where the bathtub plumbing is located. The cement slab you see is the bathroom floor. The legs are Luke Skywalkers. The shrubbery is a new cherry tree invading the basement from the roots under the foundation. It is already twelve inches high. This apparently grew here in the last week while Gpa and I were in California. I'll bet YOU wish you had a cherry tree growing out of a hole in your basement floor....
8:15 am: plead with Thing One to do something useful with her day before she goes to work, knowing full well that she will sleep on the couch and then be late for work....Gather up the Carmen Miranda dress and sombrero and drive the youngest two to school.
8:25 am: enter the melee that is the elementary school parking lot. It is remarkable the carnage that doesn't occur here on a daily basis. Let Eclair out at the curb with her accessories, and pray she isn't killed by idiot drivers before she reaches the door to the school. Give her five bucks she promises not to lose to put on her lunch account to get her through the next couple days without starving. Verify all of her activities for the day before she walks away.
8:27 am: In transit, call the high school attendance office, excuse Screamapillar absence because she skipped a class to take an e-school test. Call the business office to verify yearbooks were paid for.
8:35 am: arrive at the high school to drop Luke Skywalker. Go through daily checklist of which teachers he will talk to about which assignments, promising not to skip lunch again....Give him check and send him to the business office to pay for forgotten yearbook order.
8:50 am: Oh my gosh, I got to work on time. And got one of the GOOD parking spaces - between two police cars. They NEVER park crooked, and they don't ding your car with their door.
10 am: cell phone rings. Can't answer, I'm on the phone with a customer. Call back, it was Eclair at school - she forgot a snack from Mexico for her presentation today. Hesitantly call Hubby. He's at work can't get away at all. Call Thing Two - he is groggy and driving Thing One to work. Refuses to go buy Mexican cookies and drop them at school. Return to work and hope for the best.
11:40 am: Call Thing Two again. Still groggy. Whines. Actually whines! about my asking him to take cookies to Eclair at school. Get grumpy with the boy and insist he take care of it. Back to work. More customers who don't know who they are or where they live but are firmly convinced they are adult enough to take on the responsibility for a utility account.
12:20 pm: Another call from Eclair on the cell phone. Call her back at the school, she is concerned there will be no cookies. Negotiate with my awesome supervisor to slip away from 1:45 - 2:15 to get cookies and deliver them to the school.
1:00 pm Dad calls my cell phone. On the phone, can't call him back. He calls desk phone. Still on the phone, can't answer that either. Get text from Dad. Carpet guy wants to come over. Today. Dad calls into the main queue, gets lucky and gets me, says carpet guy will be at my house at about 3:30.
1:45 pm: Dash from the office to the grocery store. Find cookies. They are cheap, hooray. Run to deli because I realize I have only had three crackers from my desk drawer to eat today. Girl in front of me wants to chat with deli-girl. Deli-girl appreciates the length of the line and tries to hurry her along. Then the miserable woman tries to pay using only pocket change. Smoke starts coming out of my ears....Get two chicken strips, eat them before arriving at the school and then take this awesome photo:
Momma saves the day for sombrero girl.
2:15 back to work, crappy parking spot next to public works truck who parks crooked and over the line....grrrr.
3:05 pm: off work, scurry over to high school to pick up Luke Skywalker from Seminary. Wait fifteen minutes........Dash to elementary school because I promised to pick up Eclair. She is no where to be found. Fearing that I'm just making it worse, send Luke Skywalker into the school to look for her. He returns 10 minutes later - we forgot she has afterschool play practice, needs to be picked up at five pm. Phone rings: Dad. Ferando the carpet guy is at the house, where am I? THREE MINUTES AWAY. Okay?
3:40 pm: Shake hands with Fernando the carpet guy and proceed to give him a tour of the ground zero that is my house. Yes, we are in the middle of a remodel, but who cares? I have never been so humiliated in my life as I have to let him in to EVERY room in my wreck of a house so he can make sure the estimate he gave us is correct. Agree that neither of us wants to move the baby grand piano, knowing full well that we will be the ones moving it at this price. Date of carpet install has to be moved forward. We are five days away, folks, not sure how in heck we are going to be ready in time.
4:10 pm: Humiliation complete, I sit down at my computer and play Farmville for ten minutes. This is all the downtime I'm going to get today, give me a break. Negotiate with Thing One and Hubby to see which one is going to pick up Eclair from play practice because I have to be somewhere else. Try to call Girls Camp leader to tell her we have a conflict and can't make the parent meeting this evening at seven. Get voice mail and leave a message.
4:25 pm: Luke Skywalker and I leave for doctor appointment in American Fork. Again, may I say how much I love traffic? After spending a week with my sister in LA, I find myself driving VERY.....more aggressively than usual.
4:59: pm: Arrive at doctor's office and wait 25 minutes to be seen. Luke Skywalker has lost six pounds since January - probably because he skips lunch. Discover he skipped lunch today because he had to dissect a frog in science immediately before lunch. After the appointment, hurry back home to take Eclair shopping for a dress for graduation (which is tomorrow).
6:15 pm: Pick up Eclair and head to Kmart - make Luke Skywalker promise that he will only do homework until I get home. Yeah, right, like that's gonna work. Kmart clothing is completely unacceptable. Go to mall: JC Penny tween dresses are all backless for some strange reason. Hit the jackpot at Sears on the clearance rack of all places:
From the moment I picked her up, Eclair has been complaining of underarm pain - as she is trying on dresses, I discover that her lymph glands on one side are extremely swollen. Eclair refuses to put her arm down because of the pain for the entire shopping trip. Now that just makes my day.
6:45 pm: Gma calls. She is at the high school saving us seats for Screamapillar's concert. How soon might I get there? As soon as I feed a grumpy Eclair. Drive thru dinner: person in front of us had apparently never used a drive through before, and pulled up so far from the window that the poor girl was hanging out the drive up window all the way to her waist trying to deliver a fruit smoothie to the first-timer. Eclair is unhappy that there is no time to drive her back to the house. She has no desire to attend the choir concert. Feeling slightly better after eating, we go to join Gma.
7:08 pm: Get to the auditorium and haven't missed the beginning of the show yet, thank goodness. Gma is glad to see us. Eclair is grumpy. Then the show starts and strange things happen:
Yes, I'm sorry, those are men in tights.
Halfway through the show, Eclair is weeping from the pain in her glands, and I duck out to see if we can get an appointment - nothing available until 9:50.
9:15 pm: finally drag Screamapillar away from her friends so we can go home. Spend ten minutes talking to Hubby, then off to the doctor in Orem.
9:45 pm: On our way to the doctor, I observe through someones' front window a Christmas tree. In their living room. Still decorated. And my thought is, "boy, I'm glad we got our tree down!"
10:00 pm. Seeing the doctor. He says the swelling is a reaction to the immunizations Eclair had yesterday. Up to six weeks of possible swelling, accompanied by "mild pain."
10:25 pm Home again. Set up Eclair with a heating pad, she's out like a light in just a few minutes. Gma calls to check on her, everything will be fine. Luke Skywalker is off to bed. Screamapillar (who should be working on homework) falls asleep next to Eclair. Only me still up to report on the day.
Be glad it wasn't yours.
Tomorrow, a play at 9 am and again at 7 pm, 6th grade graduation at 1:30, and somewhere in between, the slaughter of a small cherry tree...
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