My Almost Perfect Day

When you have 2 kids in half day afternoon kindergarten, life sucks. Mornings are spent cleaning up crumbs after them. Feeding them. Cleaning them and everything they touch and of course driving them to school mid day. My morning is shot. I crank the tunes in the car leaving the parking lot at 12:15pm and I realize that I have just about enough time to run to Costco and then get home to greet the kids off the bus.

Then the teacher says, “Don’t forget to send the kids to school first thing in the morning!”

OMG, I had totally forgotten the following day was the glorious and much anticipated, kindergarten full day field trip!

What? You mean I get a whole day to myself? You mean i get an appetizer of what life will be like next year when all 4 kids are in full day school? Sa-Weet!

I made sure to clean the whole kitchen the night before this glorious day because the last thing I want to do on a “free” day is clean. I scrubbed the floors, made 4 lunches, packed 4 back packs, set out 4 cereal bowls and 4 spoons.

Locked and loaded!

My alarm went off at 6:25am and unlike most days where I lay in bed trying to negotiate with myself to get up and start my day, I jumped out of bed and helped the kids get ready and out the door to the bus stop for 7:40!

Bye girls! Have a great day! I love you! Don’t let the door to the bus hit your ass on the way on!

Cue the angel choir singing in the perfect blue sky.

I walked in the house and my mind was buzzing with possibilities with so many hours ahead of me and NO KIDS around. I ate my breakfast, alone. I pee’d, alone. I went for a refreshing 8k run (and walk because lazy). I laid out my supplies and mixed my at-home hair colour kit and set up my Netflix to watch West Wing aaaaaannnnndddd,

my phone rang.

The teeny tiny voice on the other end said, “mommy? I don’t feel good. My tummy hurts.”

(insert F1 race car screeching from 150-0km in 3.2 seconds)

“Ok my love, I’ll be right there.” however my internal voice was saying, f%ck, sh*t, dang nabbit, WHY GOD WHY??!!

The rest of my day was spent sitting with my poor barfy kid watching 5 hours, (yes, I said FIVE) of Netflix. I let her pick a show and then I picked a show and we continued back and forth until I put her to bed. Sigh. Although I missed out on my almost perfect day alone I did enjoy sharing with her some of the shows I watched when I was laid up on the couch sick when I was younger.

 

 

First we started with Fresh Prince of Bel Aire. Love me some Will Smith and seriously, who can’t sing the opening song word for word?

Her pick was Honey, I Shrunk The Kids which selfishly I encouraged her to pick and of course, she loved! I knew she was feeling better when she laughed out loud. A sure sign we were over the worst of the illness.

Then I picked Diff’rent Strokes…what chu talkin’ bout Willis? Did you know that Mrs. Garrett went on to be the house mother on The Facts Of Life?? Yeah, me neither.

We finished the marathon off with Smurfs after she asked for some toast and jam. Victory! La, la, la-la-la-la, la, la, la, la, laaaaah.

 

 

Sick kids break my heart more than me missing my day of freedom and alone-ness. I’m so happy that she’s feeling better and should be off to school again tomorrow. I know I’ll have all 4 kids in full day school before I can blink an eye and I’ll long for the days when we had lazy mornings to colour and snuggle and play and grocery shop together but darn it all if I wasn’t soooo close to tasting that freedom today.

And yes, I did give up my perfect day but I gave it up to feel like a perfect mom doing the perfect thing for my sick but perfect kid.

 

(The Dirty Girl is a member of the #StreamTeam with Netflix but her views and spelling mistakes are all her own.)

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