5:50am Wake up to NPR, unfortunately it's Fall Fundraising Pledge Drive, hit snooze
6:02am Brian comes up with my coffee, every joint is stiff and sore, rheumatoid arthritis sucks and mine is in a major flare that my meds are not handling, dr. appointment 9 days away. Drag my defective body out of bed anyway and get in the shower.
6:20am Kids are up, everyone needs mom to find them something or do their hair or answer random questions about why it's still dark outside, why it's cold, how cold it is, when will it snow, and can we please have eggs for breakfast. Answer all questions while doing my hair and makeup.
6:50am Brian vetoed eggs, but got everyone cereal. Minimal arguing and whining.
7:00am Brian leaves early for a meeting with a client.
7:05am Kids brush teeth, get eye drops and allergy meds, shoes on, coats on, backpacks, lunches, snacks, out the door, in the car. Meredith forgot something(s), go back, hunt around, minor yelling, return to car. Phone is dying, grab the charger, my lunch, my coat, my bag, my keys, driving away.
7:15am Drop off Solomon, Meredith, Tinsaye at latchkey at school.
7:25am Drop Thomas off at a friend's house to be driven in later for WLE news crew.
7:45am Department meeting at school
8:17am Meeting ends, kids in the building
8:27am MEAP testing at school, schedule is completely jacked, running around for 2 hours facilitating/problem solving/sorting test documents, whatever needs doing
10:40am shortened classes, kids are nuts from over testing and being forced to sit still and be silent for two hours.
3:09pm kids leave. Debrief w/ student teacher, answer emails, return phone calls, install software (unsuccessfully), copy and email some midi files for a colleague, sort cheesecake fundraiser orders, count money, plan tomorrow, freak out about how close the concert is getting and how crappy my choirs sound right now
3:59pm walk out the door, drive away, turn off NPR due to annoying Fall Fundraiser (again!)
4:15pm arrive at home, get mail, dump my stuff, turn on the computer
4:20pm kids come in from the bus. Solomon is happy, shows me his latest green note (good behavior), Thomas is angry about some rotten kids on the bus, Tinsaye is crying and Meredith is kind of teary too and they both go up to their room. Emotional triage: I ignore the girls temporarily. Solomon gets a hug and snack and I get him started on his homework packet. Then Thomas gets my full attention while he explains the bus situation. We troubleshoot, I reassure, check his backpack for homework (none) and he's out the door to play football with friends. Then I go to the girls room and assess the damage: Mere got hit in the face with some kid's backpack on the bus. She's fine and is now playing with her stuffed animals. Tinsaye was still stewing about some ridiculous non-event that happened about an hour and a half ago that she figured she could milk for some drama to get more of my attention. Unfortunately since I put her last on the triage list, she couldn't quite even remember what she was pretending to be upset about, so it lost a lot of it's dramatic impact. I reassure her that everything is fine and tell her to deal with it and go do her homework. She is fine and happily complies.
5:05pm I sit down with Meredith to help her with reading. We finish her book and I check Tinsaye and Solomon's homework.
5:15pm I call Brian to tell him we have to go out for dinner since I am too tired to cook anything and nothing magically appeared in the crockpot tonight.
5:20pm Go through mail and emails, pick up the breakfast dishes left in the kitchen from our early departure.
5:45pm Pile in the car to meet Brian for dinner at a nearby coney island.
7pm Home from dinner, supervise showers, pack up backpacks for tomorrow. Brian goes to the basement to work on a Riveting Media project that is due to the client tomorrow.
7:30pm Kids help me pack lunches. Part way through Solomon does something to annoy Thomas and Thomas flips out. He's clearly really stressed about some things, so I stop making lunches and take him up to his room to let him vent. He's got a list a mile long of stuff that's been bothering him at school and at home. We troubleshoot, I reassure him, he feels better. Meanwhile, Brian is getting the other kids finished with lunches and snacks.
8:15pm Teeth brushing, bathroom, eye drops, prayers, clothes laid out for the morning, more random questions.
8:40pm Lights out for the kids. I go back to finish making sandwiches and pick up the house.
8:55pm I realize that Meredith never did her homework!
8:56pm Send an email to Thomas's teacher alerting her to his meltdown and stress level.
9:15pm Start typing this blog post to vent and document my day. I am certain that there will come a day, many, many years in the future, when I will not be working this hard and will find it difficult to even imagine that I ever did this much in a day. Realize that this was actually a relatively easy day since I didn't make dinner, one kid didn't have homework and one kid neglected her homework, no one had to be anywhere in the evening, there were no doctors to call or see, no emergency calls midday from WLE telling me that someone was sick/injured, no family or friends in crisis, and we didn't run out of milk, bread, bananas, or avocados.
9:55pm going up to bed... starting all over in 8 hours.
