Monday, July 19, 2010

When you have no one to call in sick to


Ever have one of those days you wish you could start over?

It used to be, you know, days before kids, you had options when you woke up on the wrong side of the bed. If a workday, you could call in sick and stay in bed all day or go shopping or go to the gym or do whatever it is that you used to do to shake the crabbies away. If a weekend, you could just pull the covers over your head and go back to bed.

I tried calling in sick, but my 'bosses' don't have phones. Well, they do, but they don't take incoming calls. Actually, just as I was trying to 'call in sick' Little Mr. Man was using his 'phone' as a drum on Little Miss' head. So, calling in sick was not in the cards for me today.

Instead, we had a lovely playdate at a friend's where we ate a ridiculous chocolate cake with 700g of Lindt dark chocolate and a few other ingredients (thanks Donna Hay - can't find recipe online, but can add if anyone likes). Plus coffee. You'd think this would be a great way to shake those crabbies, eh?! Not for someone with caffeine sensitivities.

Sure, I was 'perked' up, but I was also ready to pounce. It was like I had taken really bad speed. I mean really bad. I should add, it's not like I ate the whole freaking cake by myself. I only had one teeny tiny little piece, but that was clearly more caffeine than I needed (ok, the cake also had 1/3 cup of coffee and I had a cup of tea and a coffee...maybe I should've turned down the coffee, eh?!). Needless to say, instead of shaking the crabbies, i turned into a giant CRAB monster!

Now of course a one and three year old don't understand that all they really needed to do was STAY AWAY and/or be REALLY QUIET and all would be OK. Instead, on the 30 minute car ride home Little Miss screeched as loud as she could - she was tired and wanted to make sure I knew she knew she missed her morning nap. And Little Mr. Man thought it was HILARIOUS so copy Little Miss' screeches at even higher decibels intermixed with a sing-song whine of "I'm hungry".

It was only 12:30 when we walked in the door. There's a whole lotta day left at 12:30. And by this time the speed of the caffeine was wearing off and somehow the irritability factor increased. Who knew that was possible.

I tried calling in sick again, but to no avail. So I did what anyone in position would. Put the baby to sleep and curled up on the couch with the little guy and watched Sesame Street. Best 30 minutes ever!!! And then, as with all good things, the show came to an end and I was faced with that feeling of dread. It was now just coming up on 1:30 and I had NO plan.

We managed to make it through the rest of the afternoon. We didn't destroy the house or each other. In fact, I think we may have even had an enjoyable afternoon. LMM on his bike, LM on her trike. Bliss.

I even had a bit of bliss with a lovely chat with my very good looking (and very gay neighbour) who was telling me about his recent trip to Europe. The chat came to a bitter end when LMM got off his bike and I realized that his pants were soaking wet. At first I was wondering when did he jump in a puddle, until I realized that there were no puddles and the wet was top-down and not down-up. I said a sheepish goodbye to my pretend gay boyfriend and hurried across the street to our house.

For some reason I felt horribly guilty that LMM had such a huge accident...but as my DH pointed out, it's not like I have control over the little guy's bladder. And he does have words and knows how to tell me if he needs to use the bathroom. But as a mother that was having a grown up conversation and momentarily lost herself, fantasizing that it was she that was just returning from a whirlwind European holiday that did not involve children, it was hard to shake the guilt.

The moral of the story: if you don't have a boss to call in sick to, have a temp on speed dial (ie: dial-a-nanny!!)...and as the tittle suggests, maybe tomorrow I'll be a better mother...just maybe.

2 comments:

  1. Aww you poor thing. Sounds like you need a relief or understudy to help you in times of need! :)

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  2. Thanks Lorraine. It's not all bad though. The hugs and kisses at the end of the day make up for EVERYTHING!!!

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