Too Busy

Plans to clean house?

Sure. Right. Like that's going to happen on a Friday.

Instead, I met with other homeroom moms at the school at 8 a.m., drove to the gas station to fill up the van, went grocery shopping, got a call from the school nurse, scheduled a visit with the pediatrician, went home to unload groceries and refrigerate or freeze all perishable food items, picked up Clay, and headed to the pediatrician, thinking he had an ear infection.

One exam later, and $20 bucks broker, we left with the diagnosis that it's all just a downhill progression of his allergies, which came back about two weeks ago. Probably right around the time ragweed reared its evil head.

And evidently Claritin isn't cutting it. Which was no real revelation to us.

We'll be trying Zyrtec for the next two weeks and praying for a hard freeze in our area.

What? It could happen!

Clay and I met Bruce for lunch and then we all skipped over to Lowe's to pick up some items for a house we are flipping. (That's a whole other blog entry. One that will likely not be written, because I alternate between excitement and frustration. Enough said.)

Since Friday was payday, I hauled Clay along on a quest to find me something dressy... and cheap. I found a cute skirt on sale at Cato, and then needed to find a matching blouse.

Two stores later, I came home with a shirt that I ended up returning today. I just couldn't justify another beige top in my closet, even if this one was cuter.

Clay told me he would much rather be at school than shopping with me.

I agreed with him. I'd rather be at school than shopping, too!

We got home about ten minutes before Spencer and Allison got off the school bus. Just enough time to put away all the other groceries, which had remained in their Food City bags on the kitchen floor all morning and afternoon.

Spencer's first statement when he came through the door was a repeat of something he said before school.

"Mom, I still have a sore throat."

Then he started crying, and saying, "It really hurts now."

Being the great mom I am, I soothed his tears and then snuggled him under a blanket on the couch and proceeded to ignore him while I went through the after-school-storm that hits my kitchen each day around that time.

An hour later, I came up for air. All lunchboxes emptied of trash, with freezer packs returned to the freezer. All take-home papers viewed and either pitched, filed away or taped to the fridge. All blanks initialed where necessary on notes from teachers, assignment books, and behavior folders.

Then I called Spencer to come do his homework. As I rounded the corner from the kitchen to the den, he stumbled off the couch, fussy, glassy-eyed and flushed.

With a fever of 101.4.

Perfect timing. Thirty minutes before I was supposed to take him and Allison to our church gym for Awanas Mexican Fiesta night.

Instead, I dropped off Allison at the church gym, took Clay to my mother-in-law's house (Why torture myself, I mean him, with a second visit to the doctor in one day?), and picked up a pizza to take over to the Flip House to feed my husband and father-in-law, who were painting the ceiling.

Forty minutes after taking his temperature, poor Spencer was finally en route to the urgent care clinic. One throat culture later, another $20 bucks broker, prescription in hand, we left with the diagnosis of strep throat.

We dropped off the prescription at the pharmacy, picked up Allison, returned to the pharmacy to pick up the meds, picked up Clay and drove home.

8:30 p.m. And 140 miles logged on the van from the time I pumped gas that morning.

I felt like I had run alongside the van for each of the 140 miles.

I was exhausted. And the kids were hungry.

Of course they were.

We all ate a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, and I sent them to bed.

I followed them about an hour later.

The house is still a mess.

Only now it's Saturday afternoon and we've been gone all morning. Back to the pharmacy to have the medicine flavored, and out to the middle school to watch Clay play football and Allison cheer. (Yes, I took Spencer. I'd already sent him to school with strep! How much worse could it be? I figured I could control his proximity to other kids at least).

I did accomplish a couple things in the past 30 hours. The dishwasher got loaded and actually turned on. I took a load of clothes out of the dryer (even though they are still lying on our bed waiting to be folded). And I started another load of laundry.

I feel good.

Well, maybe not good exactly.

But who has time to focus for too long on what's not getting done. We've got to go.

Time to drive Clay to his Awanas Pals fall outing.

There's a reason that my cell phone's ring tone is "The Flight of the Bumblebee."