The kids had been in school for less than a week when The Girl came down with strep throat and has been home sick from school for two days. Today, 24 hours after first taking her antibiotics, she's still feeling poorly. She's developed a strep-related rash, isn’t eating much, complains of pain in her throat and the rest of us in the Picket Fence Post family are crossing our fingers that we’ll be spared.
It’s simply too early in the season to get sick. I felt like I was sick for most of last fall/winter (including that bout with the swine flu). Seriously. I'm hoping this isn't a bad omen.
Broken Bulb
During a family barbecue over Labor Day weekend at the Picket Fence Post home, the good intentions of the environmentally conscious wreaked havoc in The Eldest Boy’s bedroom. He and one of his cousins were in his room when the clip-on lamp that had been secured to the top bunk of his bunk bed fell down and that curlicue light bulb (otherwise known as a compact fluorescent bulb) broke. Pieces fell onto his bed and his rug.
This led to panic among some of the folks at the event after The Spouse looked up the EPA’s guidelines for picking up a busted CFL because those bulbs contain mercury, albeit less than 1/100th of the amount of mercury in those old glass thermometers, according to the EPA. After The Spouse cleaned up the debris and opened the windows, we decided to throw out the old comforter upon which much of the debris landed. (I went out this week and bought a new one, as well as new sheets.)
This leads me to wonder what’s going to happen when regular, incandescent bulbs are no longer available. When you have kids in the house, lamps are going to get knocked over. It’s a part of life. And light bulbs often break. If we have to fret about whether we should call a Haz-Mat team every time a bulb breaks, I’m going to have to start doing lots more yoga.
Calendar Chaos
I knew it. I knew it. I knew it!
I spent a good hour or so on Tuesday morning working on coordinating all the disparate calendars under my purview (school calendars for two schools, two different soccer calendars and a hockey calendar . . . not including my yoga or work calendar) and inputting all the appointments into the online calendar I share with The Spouse as well as writing them down on the paper calendar we keep in the kitchen.
It was bad enough that for Saturday we already had on the youth sports schedule: The Youngest Boy’s 7 a.m. hockey practice, The Girl’s soccer game two hours later and The Eldest Boy’s game in the afternoon, plus The Youngest Boy’s 6 a.m. game on Sunday morning (we'd have to be there by 5:30) followed by the starting of the church year and my religious education teacher training session at 9 (I’m going to be a teacher for The Youngest Boy’s church school classes for half the year).
But, just this afternoon, we received an e-mail scheduling a new hockey game, in less than 48 hours, for Saturday morning, meaning that instead of the Saturday practice, we will have to get The Youngest Boy to the ice rink by 6 a.m. meaning we'll have to leave our house by 5:30 a.m. Calgon, take me away, please!
So, I’ve decided that I'm not going to maintain any more illusions that the family calendar is manageable. It’s not. It just isn't. And it’s not my fault. It's an uncontrollable hot mess that's beyond my control. I’m just going to have to roll with it, buy cups of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and try my best to get to where I need to go. If I don’t make stuff, if I'm late, it won’t be the end of the world. We can’t do everything . . . at least that’s what I keep telling myself.
Image credits: Mamas Health, Calendar Clip Art.
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