Back to normal

For some of us, it was business as usual today. For example, my middle son told me at 8 a.m. that he had homework.

"Whaddaya mean you have homework? Homework from when!?" I asked. We haven't had school in two days! Come to find out, he had saved this homework since Monday night.

I suggested -- strongly -- that he sit himself down and get started while eating (he could not afford the luxury of monotasking this morning) while I went upstairs to drag the kids' summer clothes out of the attic, since the temperature was supposed to be 70+ degrees.

I had an offsite appointment at 9:00, so that necessitated that the Bigs take the bus. I had packed their lunches and delivered their clothes and told them I'd be right back, I was going up to get dressed. But I got sidetracked with their younger brother trying to find the D.S. games (that I had confiscated, because while I can tolerate Nerf gun bullets and the like all over the couches and floor, I do not like finding $30 DS games).

When I came back downstairs and flew out the door, they were gone. I felt kind of bad about that because I normally wait with them, or at least usher them out the door as the bus is rounding the corner of our street. No matter what, waving goodbye is part of the deal. But today, a day when the town was still in an uproar about roads being closed to all but the buses, it was not. I consoled myself with the thought that certainly even though there were reports of fish swimming across the roads, that the buses would drive safely over them and deliver the kids to school, as they do every other day.

For the others of us, it was not business as usual. My youngest could not go to preschool because the roads were still closed until later in the morning, but I was booked pretty much solid with calls from 10:00 to 1:00 (I guess that part is usual) so unless I wanted to bring him in right in the middle of naptime, what was the point? I wasn't going to risk another end-of-day fiasco.

He was my constant companion all day: he accompanied me to my appointment and was by my side during all five of my conference calls. At one time, shortly after he had come over to me to ask me which of the five construction machines on his shirt was my favorite (I chose the bull dozer), I had to explain to one of my colleagues that he was "still learning how to respect Mommy's job," while giving him the eye. He nodded silently. I realized that the disadvantage of having just one at home is that he doesn't have anyone else but me to hang around with.

Hanging around with one or more of my kids is a heck of a lot more fun when I'm not trying to hang around with my colleagues at the same time!

When The Bigs got off the school bus, I asked our bus driver how were the roads. "Awful," she said. My middle son told me that he'd had to hold the bus for his brother this morning; that indeed the bus driver was early, and about the unusual route they'd had to take to get to school. Then I sent them all out to play in the backyard (and asked them yet again, to make sure they picked up all their toys -- the ones that are still there from Tuesday night!). Of course they were in my office within minutes (and the toys are still on the lawn. My middle son looked at me with angelic blue eyes after he took his shower, "do you want me to go get them now, mom?" knowing full well I wouldn't make him do it in the dark!) (Is this like reverse emotional blackmail?)

There's always tomorrow... when I expect we'll all be back to normal! Routine is good!