Today started with me going nuclear in the kitchen, and ended with me defeatedly reading a stream of emails from work… at 10pm.
W came home from work yesterday feeling dreadful and went straight to bed. I arrived home and after dumping my bike helmet and bags in the study, and after not finding her downstairs or getting a reply to a shout of “HELLO?” aimed towards anywhere that might answer, I wandered over to the playpark where one of our children was hanging upside down from a climbing frame.
Ah look - there’s our lovely friend from across the green. I bet W’s talking to her. Only she wasn’t. While catching up with pretty blonde haired lady (she’ll kill me for giving her such a pseudonym, should she ever read this, which she probably will…), our eldest appeared on the end of our drive in the distance looking uncertain.
“I better go and find out what’s going on”.
It turned out W was indeed in bed, and feeling pretty rotten. Suddenly the evening was not my own any more, and tomorrow (today) was going to be fun too. I have one thing to say about last night - the game where our younger children are only nice if they know the other is in trouble is getting really old now. Being nice does notamplify the bad of the other child.
This morning just turned into an angry rant fest. While I charged back and forth attempting to make breakfasts and lunches, the kids all became daydreaming imbeciles. W appeared at one point in her pyjamas, and asked what the big problem was.
“I HAVE to be at work at 9 for a webex”
It went down like a lead balloon, and the short conversation ended with me shouting “GO BACK TO BED!”. In the end, a succession of wonderful friends - including pretty blonde lady - emerged genie like from the internet ether, and took our children with theirs.
After calling home at lunchtime, W was really very ill indeed, so we started talking about immediate doctors appointments. She called me back having secured an appointment right in the middle of our kids coming out of school and/or after school activities. Some kind of plan had been put in place for them to stay together until I could arrive and bring them all home (via the supermarket to buy food for dinner).
Arriving at school to pick the kids up was fun. While I saw in the sunshine outside the school hall - where the local dance teacher dived around in front of a hall full of frenetic children - a succession of parents I kind of know arrived, and we passed the time of day. After so many weeks buried in the internet both at work and at home it was a timely reminder that the real world doesexist, and the people in it are without exception fantastic. Of course pretty blonde lady arrived too - and witnessed the beginning of the evening falling apart at the seems.
I had presumedour eldest was in the school hall, watching the dance class. That would be wrong. So where was she? This is where you realise that asking a seven year old is completely and utterly futile.
“When did you last see her?”
“Why did she not stay here?”
“Where did she go?”
I called home and got W out of bed. I also panicked pretty blonde lady, who also started thinking outside the box. In my head the list of things to do was heading very quickly down to a bottom line of “call the police”. Thankfully I didn’t have to.
While half running back to the infant school where she had last been seen, my mobile rang. She had gone home with another family. I don’t think furious would quite be the word for my initial reaction. I considered buying her a mobile phone right there and then purely so we can find out if she has followed simple instructions in the future… you know, like “stay with your seven year old sister”.
After a short trip to the supermarket to buy food for dinner, the rest of the evening went on autopilot. I even managed to build the new chicken run, and get the kids to bed without too much argument.
I say “good evening” guardedly, because at just after 9:30 when I finally sat down, I checked my work mobile, and discovered everything I have been working on for the last several weeks went straight up the wall the moment I left the office, so guess who’s going to stress about that all night, and have a fantastic day tomorrow…