Here we are, a little more than a week into the new regime, and I am exhausted. Bone weary, tired, spent, and wrung out.
What with kindergarten and all, I mapped out my schedule (and the girlie’s) as follows:
M – W – F
We get up and out of the house by 7:30, so I can drop her at before-school and make it to the train that gets me to the office by 9:00-ish. I run out of the office at 4:20, to get home and pick her up at after-school around 5:45.
Tu – Th
We sleep a tiny bit later; she gets on the bus to school at 8:50. I run down the hill to the 9:09 train, and get to the office around 10:20. Grandma picks her up at the bus in the afternoon, and keeps her until I get home. I work until 6:00, and the train pulls into my town at 7:15.
It sounds kind of, sort of doable, right?
Wrong.
Last week, the first full week of the school year, W. was out of town all day Monday and Tuesday (he just started a new job; he's had to drink the Kool-Aid and have the chip implanted in his head, and that's why he's really not factored into the day-to-day child pick-up and delivery). Wednesday night, I had a board meeting for an extracurricular non-profit board that I sit on. M. had a tantrum of staggering proportion getting on the bus on Thursday. The nurse called me early afternoon on Friday to tell me that M. was running a fever, so I ran out of the office and managed to pick her up at about 2:45. We left the house at 6:45 on Saturday morning to spend the weekend at my mother’s house, and didn’t get home until 7:15 Sunday evening.
This week, W. is out of town Tuesday & Wednesday, his parents are away and not available for the Tuesday afternoon shift, I’m under work pressure prepping for a Thursday meeting (among other things), and the kid didn’t want to get out of bed this morning.
Oh, and to add insult to injury, there was a note in the backpack on Friday afternoon that a child in her kindergarten class had LICE.
I want to run away and live in the woods, and home-school my child, and not ever have to get in the car again.
Because I’m tired and I feel like all the coffee in the world won't do a damned thing.
15 September 2008
Exhausted, part two
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33 comments:
That is one full plate my dear. I remember those lice scares. Luckily we escaped them. I wish you luck...and some time to put your feet up.
Working and raising children is SO.FREAKIN'.HARD, precisely for all those reasons. Nothing ever runs smoothly and nobody ever estimates how many obstacles can occur, and it seems like nobody in your working world ever sympathizes with them either. Ugh! I've so been there and I so understand. This is why I have a hard time understanding Sarah Palin for VP. Sorry for the footnote.
Hang in there!
I wish I could bring you a coffee for you to enjoy while I ran a few errands and took even a few minutes of the load off for you, Magpie. Thinking of you.
But...but...she looked so cute and happy on the first day. Let's rewind.
I'm hoping that there are no other shoes to drop or that you've already got your multiple of three. I hope something opens up and clears your way a bit. I was sure part two was going to be this, but I'm sorry to hear it nevertheless.
Oh man. I so know how you feel! If it's any consolation I've found that 1) the beginning of the school year is alwaysalwaysalways the most chaotic part and 2) it goes in waves. Just gotta ride this out without drowning.
Wish we were close to each other... I'm home I could help you out!
I know those days. They pass. Somehow - they pass.
It sounds very, very hard. I hope things get easier as everyone adapts to the routine.
That does sound difficult. I don't know how you do it but you better take your vitamins.
I totally get the "I can't drive one more freakin' mile in this car" thing but I'm pretty sure after a few days of homeschooling you'll be itching for your gas guzzler again. Just sayin'
Yes, that sounds very, very tough.
But new routines are the hardest to deal with the first 3 weeks. It'll get easier, and soon will be old hat.
Hang in there.
Here's what they never tell you:
Well mapped out routines are lovely, and they can work like choreography. When there are no kids involved. When kids are involved, Murphy's law applies.
Sounds like you are dealing with this first hand.
What everyone else said - LICE ALREADY?? When we lived in Florida (where my girls were in daycare from 6 weeks old on up to the age of kindergarten when we moved) we never even one time had a lice scare. Since I've been in Indiana it seems like they are at least a monthly scare. I didn't even know what they were UNTIL I FOUND MYSELF NITPICKING - still makes me angry and it really isn't anything to get angry about...
Anyway. Weary. I understand about all of that. Except the train, I've never taken the train to work. I think I'd like that.
kim
Wow. That's tough.
Oh Man - I really, really feel this post.
And I so wish I could do something to make things just a little easier for you.
Wow...rough week. And it's doubly rough when hubby can't help.
Hang in there and it will work itself out. I promise. :)
And lice? Ugh. We had them this summer. It was a huge problem at our old school. I'm hoping not so much at the new school.
honey, that sounds terrible. i mean, really. i'm sorry.
this superhero thing only gets us so far.
The same thing happened to us last year, w/ the lice! My kid didn't get it, luckily. We've been using Rosemary Repel shampoo.
It sucks now but eventually you will both adjust, you will.
You have made me very afraid.
Wow, same boat!
Yeah, total hell.
A way to avoid RID
(1) Comb with lice comb cetaphil through the hair and then blow dry the hair
See this:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/34895.php
You have to comb with a lice comb periodically and start using tea tree oil (desert essence) shampoo and conditioner. I have more tips on this, if ya want them. I was saving them up for my blog because ya know, lice is soooo interesting.
I'm sorry! Our life is exhausting HELL right now. And our schedule remarkably like yours. So I sympathize more than you know.
how about a hug?
Know how you feel ... not waving but drowning. Keep on paddling, we'll get there!
Last I checked, lice live in the woods, too. Just sayin'.
Gah - I can sympathize. I couldn't do it alone. No one can. One shouldn't have to. I think, though, things will shake out to a normalcy that will usually work. I was told that lice was found in Red's classroom yesterday and they're recommending that all girls wear ponytails. I've done the lice shampoo before. Ain't fun but it's better than stomach flu as far as I'm concerned. Hang in there.
i'm sorry for all the fatigue and the lice. Yikes! Getting used to a new routine is so hard. I hope it gets easier soon!
Oh, sugar...breathe!
Remember, oxygen is your friend.
Things will sort themselves out - you'll find your stride,your youngling will steady in the traces, and the lice? Well, OK, so they may require a little vigilance and a few cuss-words, but they aren't the end of the world.
Oh, my, I remember when lice invaded the boarding school...whew, we did some crazy laundry that week! Still, we survived, and you will, too.
Shade and Sweetwater,
K
Here's a award for you: http://freshhell.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/freshhell-award-ceremony/
It won't relieve all the stress but maybe a little bit of it.
Part one & two create a poignant elegy. I think this feeling gave birth to "Sigh" and then sat there, rocking it back it forth.
Mwah!
Sometimes we just try to take a day or two to break from the car.
Hope you get to decompress!
you need a drink... holy crap that schedule is tough!
OH YEAH!
i wish I could come over and help watch M for a while, and cook a meal, and maybe, if I knew how to make a martini, make you one. I could take you out for one.
if only I lived a wee bit closer...
Hang in there. I hope it gets easier!
Sometimes I look back at the absolutely crazy schedule I kept when my youngest was in preschool and my oldest was in Kindergarten and I was working and I think, "How in the world did I do that?" But I did. And we survived! Now they are both in the same school and I've cut back my hours and life feels like a vacation...
Dude, this is why nannies rock.
Seriously, think about getting someone close by to pick her up early, or, do what we did which is one person goes to work early, like before the kid gets up, and then leaves work early and does pickup early, and the other person does dropoff and goes to work late and works late evenings then comes home later.
Shift work in other words. That way the kid spends as little time as possible in daycare school.
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