Typical Friday
This morning I woke up feeling more rested than I did yesterday morning. We have been sleeping with the windows open at night and the cool morning air pushes me under the covers and the early birds' singing lulls me into that in-between dreaming/awake state making it super hard to get outta bed. J got up and started the coffee. "Welcome to another ... day in paradise."
The boys were out of school today because the teachers have scheduled all their inservice days in August - on all the Mondays and on this Friday. Since both J and I have to work we have to figure out where the boys will be hanging out on days like today. We have to call the baby sitter, and she always generously offers her help, thank goodness. Our older son can go to the Boys and Girls Club which is great because he loves going and spending the day with many of his friends. But I think it is like dumping him into the vat of kid stew with all the other kids whose parents have to work so the kids can't hang out at home with their family and play with the kids on the street. But like I said, the kids actually like spending the day at the Boys and Girls Club because there is so much fun stuff to do there. There are friends, there are game rooms, a gym, basketball, all kinds of balls, fun and engaging counselors/ staff, arts and crafts room, a reading/ TV room, a big swimming hall with a slide and there is a super cool climbing wall. Gah! It still feels uncomfortable leaving him there, but I know it is probably just me resisting one of the many life-stage-let-them-go-phases.
We get the boys up and get ready for the day. After I make W's sack lunch I tidy up teh kitchen. Things are going well, we are on time, and the kids are actually dressed and in good moods.
Then I drop the jar of jelly on the ceramic tile floor and the glas jar full of grape jelly shatters into shards that scatter across the floor in every direction like grape jelly and glass lens flare lines. Fine. Pick up, wipe, up, sweep up.
After I drop off Z at the babysitter I head to the B&G Club which is kind of out of the way on the other side of town. I may be just a couple minutes late for work, which would normally be 8 am.
I make a wrong turn, thinking Porter Road is Wedington Drive - I don't know... I am usually not driving around on this side of town. No matter. We get to the B&G Club. The doors are locked, they don't open until 9:00. Hm. Alright then, W, you are coming to work with me this morning. I have a ton of things to do this morning or I would just call in and apologetically explain that I am taking a personal day. Instead I decide to take W with me.
He sat quietly for a few minutes drawing and playing his game while I took care of the top priorities. Then he becomes bored to death - crawling under my desk, playing with the desk fan, calling me from a vacant cube down the hall, groaning and complaining and asking me every five minutes when we can leave.
All this makes me stress out and ties knots in my neck that shoot fire bolts of pain up into my head, and down my right arm.
We finally cut out around noon. He want to go back to the B&G Club. So I drop him off there.
Suddenly I am not at work, and kid-free. I could play. The weather is beautiful - cool and sunny. Why not go for a walk at the park? Maybe take the watercolors and sketch too?
Nope. I run errands. Grocery shopping. Fill up with gas. Then I pick up Z.
He is laying down on a nap mat in the room with all the young children at the babysitters. He is wide awake. He refuses to nap, naturally, because he is a school-age boy now, and no way no how is he going to lay down and nap with a bunch of babies! He is so happy when I show up and can't get out the door fast enough.
We drop off the groceries at home and then head out again, I have a few more stops to make. Vasa and organic carrots at the natural food coop. At Aldi's I get the dairy and frozen foods. And then we go and pick up W at the B&G Club around 3:30.
The B&G Club is like a living creature, the constantly moving children of every size and color like ants on an ant hill. I am not used to this. I work in a cube. At first I don't see anything but movement, not individual children. Then one of them, a girl I recognize as one of W's classmates from last year, speaks to me. "Do you want me to tell W you are here to pick him up?" I am holding Z's hand tightly, maybe on some level afraid of losing him in the sea of moving children. "Oh Yes!! Would you please?!" She bee-lines to the back door and disappears outside where children are playing on a giant jungle gym, chasing eachother, pouring water on eachother from their water bottles, everyone laughing or yelling or making other noises. I am just amazed. I am so out of touch. I want to take off my shoes and climb on the jungle gym and pour a bottle of water on someone too!
W appears and we are suddenly in the car on our way home.
At home I unload groceries, we have snack and take it easy. I still have laundry to fold. I don't feel like folding the laundry. So I turn on the computer and update the anti-virus program and scan my computer.
Then I write all this.
It's time to read now. On a Friday evening.
The boys were out of school today because the teachers have scheduled all their inservice days in August - on all the Mondays and on this Friday. Since both J and I have to work we have to figure out where the boys will be hanging out on days like today. We have to call the baby sitter, and she always generously offers her help, thank goodness. Our older son can go to the Boys and Girls Club which is great because he loves going and spending the day with many of his friends. But I think it is like dumping him into the vat of kid stew with all the other kids whose parents have to work so the kids can't hang out at home with their family and play with the kids on the street. But like I said, the kids actually like spending the day at the Boys and Girls Club because there is so much fun stuff to do there. There are friends, there are game rooms, a gym, basketball, all kinds of balls, fun and engaging counselors/ staff, arts and crafts room, a reading/ TV room, a big swimming hall with a slide and there is a super cool climbing wall. Gah! It still feels uncomfortable leaving him there, but I know it is probably just me resisting one of the many life-stage-let-them-go-phases.
We get the boys up and get ready for the day. After I make W's sack lunch I tidy up teh kitchen. Things are going well, we are on time, and the kids are actually dressed and in good moods.
Then I drop the jar of jelly on the ceramic tile floor and the glas jar full of grape jelly shatters into shards that scatter across the floor in every direction like grape jelly and glass lens flare lines. Fine. Pick up, wipe, up, sweep up.
After I drop off Z at the babysitter I head to the B&G Club which is kind of out of the way on the other side of town. I may be just a couple minutes late for work, which would normally be 8 am.
I make a wrong turn, thinking Porter Road is Wedington Drive - I don't know... I am usually not driving around on this side of town. No matter. We get to the B&G Club. The doors are locked, they don't open until 9:00. Hm. Alright then, W, you are coming to work with me this morning. I have a ton of things to do this morning or I would just call in and apologetically explain that I am taking a personal day. Instead I decide to take W with me.
He sat quietly for a few minutes drawing and playing his game while I took care of the top priorities. Then he becomes bored to death - crawling under my desk, playing with the desk fan, calling me from a vacant cube down the hall, groaning and complaining and asking me every five minutes when we can leave.
All this makes me stress out and ties knots in my neck that shoot fire bolts of pain up into my head, and down my right arm.
We finally cut out around noon. He want to go back to the B&G Club. So I drop him off there.
Suddenly I am not at work, and kid-free. I could play. The weather is beautiful - cool and sunny. Why not go for a walk at the park? Maybe take the watercolors and sketch too?
Nope. I run errands. Grocery shopping. Fill up with gas. Then I pick up Z.
He is laying down on a nap mat in the room with all the young children at the babysitters. He is wide awake. He refuses to nap, naturally, because he is a school-age boy now, and no way no how is he going to lay down and nap with a bunch of babies! He is so happy when I show up and can't get out the door fast enough.
We drop off the groceries at home and then head out again, I have a few more stops to make. Vasa and organic carrots at the natural food coop. At Aldi's I get the dairy and frozen foods. And then we go and pick up W at the B&G Club around 3:30.
The B&G Club is like a living creature, the constantly moving children of every size and color like ants on an ant hill. I am not used to this. I work in a cube. At first I don't see anything but movement, not individual children. Then one of them, a girl I recognize as one of W's classmates from last year, speaks to me. "Do you want me to tell W you are here to pick him up?" I am holding Z's hand tightly, maybe on some level afraid of losing him in the sea of moving children. "Oh Yes!! Would you please?!" She bee-lines to the back door and disappears outside where children are playing on a giant jungle gym, chasing eachother, pouring water on eachother from their water bottles, everyone laughing or yelling or making other noises. I am just amazed. I am so out of touch. I want to take off my shoes and climb on the jungle gym and pour a bottle of water on someone too!
W appears and we are suddenly in the car on our way home.
At home I unload groceries, we have snack and take it easy. I still have laundry to fold. I don't feel like folding the laundry. So I turn on the computer and update the anti-virus program and scan my computer.
Then I write all this.
It's time to read now. On a Friday evening.
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