Let me tell you how the last week has been. I need to do this so you won't ask me how my new found freedom (with three kids in school for the first time ever) is going. If you ask, I will cry. On Thursday (the first day of school) I ended up with grandma for four of the six hours of freedom. Grandma does not equal freedom. On Friday (the best day yet) I did have coffee with wildmom and lunch with the rest of my babes. So Friday did not disappoint.
On Monday we awoke to the sound of devil dog trying to break out of her crate to discover much to the offense our noses and our own personal horror that she had been sick from both ends and was covered in the forementioned sickness. So, I have no choice but to first do the school drop offs followed by a vet run. I am riddled with guilt having given the devil a particularly large bone. The devil is clearly in some sort of abdominal distress, the vet claims that the devil is nauseaus because she licks her lips when her abdomen is touched. I go along with it. I am not a vet. They take the devil for an x-ray. Twenty minutes later the vet comes back and announces that in true Monday fashion the x-ray machine is not working and asks if I can leave the excrement covered dog with her for observation while they wait for the x-ray machine repairman. I say YES to that and swing by the pet store for diet dog food, dog shampoo, and that magical stuff that gets the smell out.
Once home I am greeted by my folks who tend to roll out of bed between 10:30 and noon each day. I can not start the laundry because they are about to shower. I manage to waste a couple of hours doing nothing at all productive. I call the vet, x-rays have just been completed, so I dash back over with my fingers crossed that the devil does not need surgery to remove the veal bone I tossed her the night before. I have my fingers crossed that she is merely sick from all the people food I saw grandma slipping under the table.
As luck would have it the devil is just plain old sick. I have to give her pepsid ac (???) and some prescription for a few days. Yahoo . I have just enough time to race home, drag the devil into my stall shower and clean her up before gettting the kids. She loved that, NOT. This is how I spent the free part of my day.
Tuesday I thought I would do a bit of theraputic shopping. Then I wondered where on the world I had left my purse. Then it occurred to me where I had last seen it. It was in the back of the husband's car right where I left it when I used his car to drop Matt off at school in the wee hours of the morning before I can remember to do stuff like take my purse out of a car that is about to be driven into the city. But there was hope for shopping still. I have a credit card that use for Internet ordering. I was delayed almost an hour by my mom, who thought she might like to join me. Then dad thought that shopping sounded like a good idea, which ... ummm .... wasn't. But then mom, in an angel of mercy act told me she'd go out with dad and I should go on my own. I grabbed the extra card and whatever dollars I found lying around and headed for the mall. What sweet victory I found there! I shopped like I gave never shopped before. It was empowering and envigorating. Walking out of the mall I felt like my luck had turned. If I could shop like I had just shopped, well, then I could do anything. I felt great. So I stopped by whole foods on my home, which was the usual WF delight until I tried to pay with the credit card and it had been blocked. Aaarrrgh! The manager ( who sees me there every other day) said he could hold the food so I went home, borrowed cash from my folks, picked up Josh and Ev, dropped Josh back at the house with Matt, hauled Evan over to WF got the food for dinner, stopped by the bucks so I'd make it through tip dinner, dashed over to religious school and after feeling so proud that we were early (it would most likely be the one and only time we would be earl) and was informed that religious school starts next week. I went home and had about 15 minutes to "relax" before preparing the previously unpaid for but retrieved an hour and half later with actual cash food.
I was totally looking forward to today. Today was going to be MY day! I thought and schemed for all the things I'd be able to do that I can't really do when mom and dad are around. Mom had her chemo scheduled and I was going to have the house all to myself. The thought gives me goose bumps. There were so many domestic cleaning opportunities for me here, and also, a chance to run around naked, and even watch a show of my choosing at a volume that does not make the windows vibrate! Then last night dad began doing everything that the devil did on the morning of her vet visit, except he wasn't in a cage and can get himself to the bathroom. (thank dog for the little things) There was no way dad was going to be able to take mom in for her chemo appt, and there is no way mom is capable of driving in on her own. She is on way too many painkillers to get behind the wheel. I am not sure I'd let her operate a stapler right now. So, I brought her in. I had to. The woman needs her chemo. And as it seems to happen for my mom, one department didn't know what the other department was doing despite the fact that we got there at 8:30 this morning we didn't drag our tired asses out of the hospital until 5:30 this evening. Luckily for me I made a few (absolutely panicked) hectic phone calls and managed to get in touch with B who picked up my little ones from school, delivered them safely home to Matt and my sick dad (I totally owe you one B), and a neighbor who drove Josh to his first ever piano lesson that he was totally stoked for and I would have cried if he missed it.
This all adds to up 5 days of potential "freedom" (the first in 14 1/2 years here!) down the toilet with the brief exception of my babes lunch last Friday. So don't ask.
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