Plotting: My husbands long and painful demise for being out of the state on business right now. Right now and for another three days. It will be a total of 12 days by the end. Normally I can handle this, and it’s not such a big ordeal. HOWEVER, on days that start like today, I curse him and his sense of responsibility and work ethic.
It actually started yesterday. The recovery day from the sleepless night on our mini vacation over the weekend. My daughter’s sniffles turned into full blown chunky cough. I had her nap yesterday and decided to lay down at the same time… in a different room… far from waking sounds. I slept fitfully for 20 minutes at a time over an hour. (emails and phone calls ONLY come in on the days i try and nap) I got up and felt a head hummer coming on. Not the kind husbands dream about, the kind that begin in your brain and end up behind your eyes. Headache. I popped some Motrin and picked up The Sheriff from second grade.
There was an EPIC meltdown at homework time due to driving down our street the same time as the new neighbors. Sheriff was absolutely maddened by the fact he had homework…. you know, because that’s exactly the opposite of after school time for the past SEVEN MONTHS.
Amazingly, my hummer turned into a full blown headache by this time.
Despite the tantrum and the headache, I wrangled some tools from my now over (:( ) parenting class, and we put together an after school plan for him. As we were working out the kinks, this went down:
Me: “So how did you feel when you lost it over homework?”
him: “Bad. Frustrated. I hate homework!”
Me: “I understand. I’m so sorry that you felt that way. How did I act when you were yelling?”
h: “You were yelling, too.”
M: “really? I was?”
h: … puzzled… thinking… looks at me, “Wait a minute. You didn’t yell. Why not?!!”
lol awesome.
M: “because if i had yelled, would that have made you listen to me?”
h: “No.”
M: ” I don’t think yelling helps us find a resolution, either.”
and on and on it went until we had a plan firmly in place. And by “firmly” i mean he ended up giving in and saying “whatever is fine, mom. can i just go outside now?” You’re damned right I took it. We’ll see how it goes.
So after making dinner, eating dinner, off to my last class i went. Driving into the sun made the headache grow. Sitting through the class I had hoped to savor since it was the last, was more an effort not to lay in the middle of the floor and hold my eyelids open with my fingertips. I managed not to sit and rock in the corner, so it was a win in my mind.
The drive home with all the headlights blaring into my eyeballs did not help matters. I got home and just crawled into bed after popping more motrin. (which i know doesn’t help a migraine, but it was all i had)
Usually sleep eliminates them. But I woke up at 7 with half of my head still throbbing like a Gallagher watermelon victim and shaking like a junkee.
Crawl into the shower. hot. sadly leave shower to lay down on bed with cloth over face while 3 year old ipads away. After a bit, we hunch down the hallway to make sure Sheriff is ready for school… ha. ha hahahahaaa. He is not. He is hanging off his bed with his head over the side reading a book. (at least he’s reading, right?) I get my daughter dressed when son goes charging into the bathroom yelling “NOSEBLEEEEED!!!!!!!”
of course.
He manages it as best he can on his own because his useless lump of a mom has now just fallen atop the toddler bed with her arm thrown over her eyes and shaking.
Bleeding: My son’s nosebleed results in random strips of toilet paper with bright red blood splotches in one little corner left willy nilly all over the bathroom. Sinks, floor, toilet seat, (not actually IN toilet) drawers. It was like Chucky TP’d our bathroom.
The bloodbath ends, and my daughter and I head downstairs. I manage to hold back my barf enough to shoot some nasal spray, take more motrin, and choke down three bites of peanut butter on bread before my daughter nabs it from me. Fine by me. Less prep i’ve got to do.
She then puts down the sandwich and goes into the bathroom. I’m trying not to actually snort my coffee when i hear a high pitched squeal from the bathroom
Peeing: She didn’t make it to the toilet. “squeeEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! I peeeeeeeeeed!!!”
ohmygod.
But since bloody Bruce was still upstairs, i was able to send her up to get her new dry undies.
The moral, I didn’t actually have to DO anything to solve the morning’s problems other than concentrate on not actually throwing up. (and mopping the bathroom floor) I had to direct the kids on how to solve their own problems so I’m gonna look at it as teaching independence. The hard part was driving ten miles each way with both kids out in the light of day to school and back. I’m sure i was a menace on the road, but half of it was hindered by traffic, so that was a plus today. My kid was “only” 10 minutes late for school. I also had to cancel the pre school tour for my daughter due to her chunky cough and my impression of a white walker.
But the good news is the day was only half over by the time the caffeine, motrin, and snoozing kicked in and my daughter helped set up our table umbrellas outside and had a wonderful sun-drenched lunch outdoors this afternoon.
Now i’m gonna lay back down and imagine all the wonderful jobs the husband will do when he gets back to make up for this horrendous morning. Dishes… laundry.. back rub.. flowers
Sarcasmica 