This is how we roll
It's been kind of a crazy week in the AmyWrites/JustMatt home.
May is always a month of lunacy, anyway. Like most families with kids, or families who work with kids, or families who see a kid at some point during the week - our life tends to follow the school calendar more strictly than the lunar calendar. Every facet of life crams something in during this fifth month of the year, as if simultaneously we all realize that five months have gone by and we'd better get something done.
So we have fundraisers and parties and last-everythings. Piano evaluations, thank-you events, end of the year recitals. All of these happenings involve some kind of effort: a prepared food item, a gift, a babysitter.
I intentionally keep us as un-busy as possible, but there's a three week stretch here where my calendar looks absurd, with arrows and scribbles and notes and numbers - all indicative of opportunities to be with people I love, celebrating things I'm excited about.
Naturally, it's a time of year when health is required and peripheral distractions are not welcomed.
Naturally, that's not how it works.
Last week's calendar was wiped clean when, naturally, my oldest daughter came down with a fever on Tuesday... and still had it on Friday. Being the seasoned, non-alarmist (cheap) mom that I am, I let the poor kid suffer with the fever and the tuberculosis-sounding cough for four days - playing "you can't have my co-pay" chicken with the childhood illness that should "work itself out" in a few days. Oh, but it's May, and I have a kid with an IgA deficiency, which means that, naturally, by the time we made it into the doc 10 minutes before the weekend, she was like, a day away from pneumonia. (seriously)
So we've been hitting the antibiotics hard, quarantining the family and hiding out at home. For a week.
Hoping to lay low enough to get her back in school today and to make it to a piano lesson before she has to play seven (yes, 7) pieces before a judge tomorrow, we stayed home all day on Sunday, not even venturing out to the pool. It was falling into place until....
Naturally, little sister woke up from her nap with a fever, 10 minutes after we made plans to drop the kids off and go out for a grown-up dinner. Cancel plans, scramble up some dinner at home (naturally, some of the ingredients I was planning to use had spoiled because, again, the quarantine thing. Couldn't make it to the store).
We get the kids in bed at last and start our Sunday evening laundry routine. Naturally, there's water on the laundry room floor. Surely, it's just a fluke - I'd overloaded the washer or something.
Meanwhile, oldest daughter makes her nightly appearance in the kitchen 5 minutes after being tucked in, naturally, tonight, holding a handful of blood that is connected to her nose. Naturally, the bleeding doesn't stop for 10 minutes and we have blood on the carpet, the sheets, about 100 tissues and a rag, which all belong in the washer...
Which, naturally, has now created 2 inches of standing water without even being on. Aha! It's a plumbing problem. Someday I'll tell you how much I love our plumbing company. Really. I think they should run the country.
But as I sit here and think about how crazy these last few days have been, I think about how little control I actually have, and how the curve balls really make life more fun and exciting and maybe it's because I've always been one to jump at a challenge, but I kind of prefer the chaos to the predictable. And I think, God, please, don't let me catch myself whining, because the people in Myanmar and China and Sudan and Haiti and Uganda and...
May is always a month of lunacy, anyway. Like most families with kids, or families who work with kids, or families who see a kid at some point during the week - our life tends to follow the school calendar more strictly than the lunar calendar. Every facet of life crams something in during this fifth month of the year, as if simultaneously we all realize that five months have gone by and we'd better get something done.
So we have fundraisers and parties and last-everythings. Piano evaluations, thank-you events, end of the year recitals. All of these happenings involve some kind of effort: a prepared food item, a gift, a babysitter.
I intentionally keep us as un-busy as possible, but there's a three week stretch here where my calendar looks absurd, with arrows and scribbles and notes and numbers - all indicative of opportunities to be with people I love, celebrating things I'm excited about.
Naturally, it's a time of year when health is required and peripheral distractions are not welcomed.
Naturally, that's not how it works.
Last week's calendar was wiped clean when, naturally, my oldest daughter came down with a fever on Tuesday... and still had it on Friday. Being the seasoned, non-alarmist (cheap) mom that I am, I let the poor kid suffer with the fever and the tuberculosis-sounding cough for four days - playing "you can't have my co-pay" chicken with the childhood illness that should "work itself out" in a few days. Oh, but it's May, and I have a kid with an IgA deficiency, which means that, naturally, by the time we made it into the doc 10 minutes before the weekend, she was like, a day away from pneumonia. (seriously)
So we've been hitting the antibiotics hard, quarantining the family and hiding out at home. For a week.
Hoping to lay low enough to get her back in school today and to make it to a piano lesson before she has to play seven (yes, 7) pieces before a judge tomorrow, we stayed home all day on Sunday, not even venturing out to the pool. It was falling into place until....
Naturally, little sister woke up from her nap with a fever, 10 minutes after we made plans to drop the kids off and go out for a grown-up dinner. Cancel plans, scramble up some dinner at home (naturally, some of the ingredients I was planning to use had spoiled because, again, the quarantine thing. Couldn't make it to the store).
We get the kids in bed at last and start our Sunday evening laundry routine. Naturally, there's water on the laundry room floor. Surely, it's just a fluke - I'd overloaded the washer or something.
Meanwhile, oldest daughter makes her nightly appearance in the kitchen 5 minutes after being tucked in, naturally, tonight, holding a handful of blood that is connected to her nose. Naturally, the bleeding doesn't stop for 10 minutes and we have blood on the carpet, the sheets, about 100 tissues and a rag, which all belong in the washer...
Which, naturally, has now created 2 inches of standing water without even being on. Aha! It's a plumbing problem. Someday I'll tell you how much I love our plumbing company. Really. I think they should run the country.
But as I sit here and think about how crazy these last few days have been, I think about how little control I actually have, and how the curve balls really make life more fun and exciting and maybe it's because I've always been one to jump at a challenge, but I kind of prefer the chaos to the predictable. And I think, God, please, don't let me catch myself whining, because the people in Myanmar and China and Sudan and Haiti and Uganda and...
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