A “typical” day in my life – Thursday, January 15, 2009

4:53 am:  Hit snooze button for the third time.  (I have no recollection of the first two times, but having done the math – much later in the day! – I can only assume this to be true.

5:00 am:  Get out of bed, get dressed, stumble toward kitchen, remember that glasses are in the bedroom…

5:20 am:  Make “travel tea”, take medicine, set out meds for the kids

5:23 am:  Head out to truck to drive hubby to train station.

5:35 am: Arrive at train station and wait for train – convince hubby to check his Blackberry to be sure there are no delays (because, you know, it’s minus two degrees Fahrenheit and I used to experience all sorts of commuter train delays in the cold).

6:01 am: Since the train was due to depart at 5:44 am, hubby decides checking the Blackberry might be a good idea.  There are delays of at least 30 minutes, so decision is made to go to other train station.

6:18 am:  Arrive at other train station, drop hubby off.

6:24 am:  Arrive at home and attempt to wake teenager.  (This step really should have been started at least half an hour ago) – bribe with promise of pancakes WITH chocolate chips.

6:26 am:  Start mixing pancakes and preheating griddle.

6:33 am:  First batch of pancakes plated.  Additional pancakes poured.  Teenager notified of breakfast status.

6:41 am:  Holler in general direction of teenager’s bedroom, “You up yet?”

6:45 am:  More pancakes…  Check on younger child – start poking him to get him upright.  Continue with pancakes…

7: 03 am:  Drive teenager to school.

7:22 am:  Arrive back home and attempt to wake younger child – mention the ready-made pancakes WITH chocolate chips.

7:27 am:  Fight with younger child about getting out of bed – oh, and he never did finish his homework…

7:40 am:  Pack lunch (mine and his), round up saxophone, write note to have him dismissed early from school, supervise taking of meds.

7:55 am:  Attempt to convince younger child to “get a move on”…

8:12 am:  Drive younger child to school.

8:32 am:  Arrive at parking lot down the road from work.  Gather up what-all I need and walk the slippery sidewalk to the office.

8:43 am:  Arrive at work.

8:45 am:  Work – this is the easy part!  Sure, half an hour before I’m due to walk out the door there’s a teensy bit of a “crisis” situation that involves a trip to the emergency room and the cancellation of  7 appointments, and yet, work is my refuge today.

2:00 pm: Leave office.

2:06 pm: Arrive at parking lot.

2:14 pm: Arrive at school to dismiss younger son.

2:19 pm:  Depart school for 2:30 pm appointment – son begs for a pit stop at home to grab the DS.

2:23 pm:  Relent, since I’m driving right be our street, anyway.

2:25 pm:  Run into the house to retrieve DS.

2:29:47 pm:  Arrive for appointment with the “med doc”.

3:17 pm:  Depart doctor’s office, and decide that since its nasty cold, will be nice (for a change) and pick up teenager at school after his drum club practice.

3:24 pm:  Purse falls on floor of truck as we go round a corner.

3:25 pm:  Cell phone rings.  Cell phone is, of course, located in purse.  I’m driving and firmly seatbelted into place, so I’ve not got a prayer of reaching the thing until I park.

3:27 pm:  Cell phone finally stops ringing.

3:28 pm:  “Direct Connect” feature of cell phone starts chirping.

3:29 pm:  Park in front of school and wait for teenager; retrieve purse and cell phone – hubby wants to know:  if he takes an earlier train, can I come to the train station and pick him up?  (This will be my third train station of the day.)

3:30 pm:  Teenager slinks into car.

3:36 pm:  Arrive at home; call dibs on the potty.

3:38 pm:  Head out to the train station for hubby.

3:57 pm:  Arrive at train station and wait for hubby.

4:06 pm:  Hubby arrives at truck.

4:23:  Arrive at CVS to drop off prescriptions (meanwhile, hubby popped to the auto parts store for a little something for the car)

4:36 pm:  Arrive at home; spend a few moments scarfing down some cheese and crackers.

4:49 pm:  Head out with younger son for cooking class.  (Hubby has kindly offered to take elder child to swimming, which starts at 7.  That way, I don’t have to either take him with me now, or make a gazillion trips back and forth.)

4:59 pm:  Arrive at the Y for cooking class, which starts at 5:00 pm.  I have the honor of assisting in the class.  Goodie.

6:00 pm:  Karate for the kid, while I help clean up after cooking.

6:37 pm:  Receive phone call from hubby that car is dead, and that I’ll have to come get other son for swimming.

6:45 pm:  Karate ends – urge younger son to quickly get his socks & sneakers on.

6:57 pm:  Out the door of the Y to go back home to pick up teenager.

7:00 pm:  Call home to make sure he’s waiting to jump into the car the very second I pull into the driveway.

7:07 pm:  We make NASCAR pit crews proud as he boards the vehicle.  I’m not entirely certain I came to a complete stop.

7:16 pm:  Back at the Y, where elder child races into swimming practice.

7:17 pm:  Younger son and I head to the grocery store (not for the first time this week) to pick up food for the weekend visit that daddy and the boys will have up in NH with daddy’s friend, who lives in a log cabin that he built himself – with some assistance from daddy – from trees he’d chopped down right there on his property. 

7:27 pm:  Arrive at discount grocery store.  With no electricity in “Uncle Bill’s cabin”, it’s hard to convince the child that microwave popcorn probably isn’t the best choice for this trip.  (However, if anyone knows of a wood-fired microwave, I’m sure hubby’s friend would find it amusing.  And, yes, I know how to do popcorn the “old fashioned” way, but if the store I was in had any plain popcorn, I couldn’t find it, and I didn’t really have the time to mess around.)  Purchase bottle of soda to drink while driving – this, combined with the cheese and crackers from earlier, will have to do for “supper”.

8:21 pm:  Depart grocery store.

8:30 pm:  Arrive at Y to pick up elder child – no sign of him waiting for us, so I circle the parking lot once or twice.  Decide to live park right in front of the door, so he won’t have far to travel in 7 degrees with wet hair.

8:40 pm:  Still no sign of the boy.  Sure, swimming ends around 8-ish, and he can be a fan of the leisurely shower, but he’s usually done by now, so I send in his brother to see what’s keeping him.

8:41 pm:  Brother has located missing sibling “relaxing” in a chair in the lobby.  Claims he “didn’t see” us…?!?!!?

8:58 pm:  Arrive at home, calling SuperDibs on the potty as we back in.

9:01 pm:  Suddenly remember that I forgot to go to CVS to pick up the prescriptions I’d dropped off hours earlier – panic only slightly (we ABSOLUTELY NEED one of those RIGHT AWAY), and holler for hubby to call the pharmacy to see what time they close.  Am thankful that they’re open until 10.

9:05 pm:  Hubby offers to make trip to CVS – how grateful am I??

9:10 pm:  Supervise “getting ready for bed”.

9:47 pm:  Finally get downstairs to the computer to check email.

10:39 pm:  Start writing rough draft of this post. 

11:16 pm:  Blog is hating me, so decide it’s best to rough it out on Word, then transfer it to the Blog later.

11:43 pm:  Puke…younger son has puked, so guess what I get to do now…

12:28 am:  Come downstairs to find the kid some clean sleepwear.  See that the computer is still on.  Make final note before going back upstairs to finish dealing with pukey-boy..

Will I ever get to get some rest?