Well. Yesterday morning was everything I imagined it would be. Complete with crying and real tears over all the tiredness along with an attempt to possibly manufacture a little stomach pain. And it was rough on Caroline, too.
(I totally used that same joke on Twitter earlier. I apologize but I’m struggling for material here.)
But, in the end, I helped her get dressed, put her hair in a ponytail, found her schoolbag, and sent her off to school with a cheery “GOOD NEWS! YOU ONLY HAVE TEN MORE YEARS OF THIS AHEAD OF YOU!” before I crawled back in bed.
Not really. I didn’t go back to bed. Although I seriously considered it for about five minutes. Instead I fixed a cup of hot choffee and listened to some of Passion 2011 online before I finally made myself get dressed and go for the run I’ve been dreading for the last three weeks. Yet I did it because I’d promised myself I would every time I reached for a sugar cookie over the Christmas break. Which means I promised myself about 8,064 times.
I survived the run, but didn’t experience a runner’s high so much as a MOTHER OF PEARL! THE PAIN! THE PAIN!
(I’m using a lot of exclamation points today. I don’t know why!)
After I got home and quit hyperventilating, I decided to run up to Michael’s and look for some picture frames for the living room. They’re currently 50% off with an additional 25% off coupon. (Supplies are limited. Limit one coupon per customer. I promise that Michael’s did not pay me to mention this and I’m just oversharing about the craft store savings.) Anyway, they were out of black frames in large sizes except for one that had a big scratch on it.
I debated driving across town to the other Michael’s but that would have taken at least eight minutes and I was cold and lacking in frame ambition. So I went home. But I still need to find a frame because I finally ordered a vintage Texas map for the living room wall in the hopes that it will offset the large antelope hanging on the opposite wall.
(Just play along with me on that. I realize there is no way to offset an 800 pound animal hanging on your living room wall with horns that make it look like a minion of the devil. But I need to hold on to just a bit of false hope.)
I got back to the house just as P was getting home from having lunch with Caroline. He’d brought sushi up to the school because we are not opposed to food bribery when we’re trying to convince our child that she’ll have a great time being back at school after two weeks of all the fun, all the time.
And so P and I sat down on the couch and spent the rest of the afternoon watching Rudy like we were a couple of kids in college with nothing better to do during the middle of the day than watch a movie that’s almost twenty years old and one of us has seen several times.
(P had never seen Rudy. He didn’t even realize it was a true story. I don’t even know what to say about that. However, he did know that he was supposed to chant, “RUDY, RUDY, RUDY” so at least there’s that.)
I had to leave to pick Caroline up from school right before Rudy actually got in the game. (I’m sorry if I just ruined the ending but it’s twenty years old and I figure if you haven’t seen it then you probably don’t care to.) She walked out of school smiling and holding hands with one of her best friends and they begged to have a play date, so it would seem that she survived the day in spite of the three part Greek tragedy she performed earlier that morning.
Then I opened up her homework folder and the reality of spelling words and word problems hit me squarely in the face and I wished we could go back to Christmas vacation and a world where I don’t have to figure out how many hours Mary was at basketball practice if she got there at 4:00 and left at 10:00 but left for one hour to have a snack. Yes it’s basic math, but it’s still math that involves numbers.
Of course I actually did my own math problem yesterday before she got home from school because when P asked me how much the frames at Michael’s were going to be if they were 50% off with an additional 25% off, I knew the right answer was CHEAP.
Otherwise known as $15.00.