The Chaos of Liquids
Another typical week in paradise
The week started with an excruciating toothache first thing Monday morning. That got me out of bed more than the alarm, having to pee, or the dogs needing to go out. The crescendo of the week was Thursday. Then, the “business” week ended with having two of my teeth extracted.
Monday, instead of immediately calling a dentist, I went ahead with my plans of going to the bar in Fulton with my friend to once again buy some tickets for the Queen of Hearts drawing (I have a piece about halfway done on this, that I will hopefully be done with soon - but, I had to stop working on that one to write this one! Hahaha!) I did unpack priorities with my therapist today (Saturday).
The week gave me some pretty entertaining stories to share with friends on Saturday and Sunday!
Monday - the youngest’s first band concert (6-7). I let the middle son do an aviation club meeting (from 6-8:30). After picking the middle boy up at 8:30 (late for me!) I did some shots of vodka to help dull the tooth pain.
Tuesday - The oldest had a dentist appointment at 9, and I talked to the dentist about extracting my tooth. I was given Azithromycin and made an appointment for extraction on Friday morning. Unfortunately, we discovered that my oldest has the same issue with Novocaine that I do, so they ended up having to do the quarter block numbing about halfway through. (I don’t know what the differences are and what med they use for the quarter block, and don’t know all the correct terminology). I also had a new class start, and my daughter does Dungeons & Dragons on Tuesdays after school.
Wednesday - We were the latest we’ve ever been to school (45 minutes). It was not a good morning. I actually dug out the megaphone and used it a few times, trying to get the kids up.
I went on a 12-mile bike ride that kicked my ass. But, this is one of the reasons I keep going on rides with my friend. She forces me to push myself way farther than I would. She made me do big hills again! On the way back, no less. But, we did stop and grab a beer and lunch at a bar along the bike path.
I was planning on taking the kids out for dinner before I went to Vinyl Night at a brewery (it’s actually called “Wax On Wax Off” at Wake Brewing- people can bring their records in and spin a 20-minute set), but since they were all to blame for being late, I decided that I should not take them out to dinner. Instead, I was going to pick up a take-and-bake lasagna from Hy-Vee for something easy and relatively quick. Of course, they were out of them (out of all family-size take-and-bake meals), so I got a frozen Stouffer’s party size…. I read the directions wrong and thought it took an hour and a half, when it actually took 113 minutes. I read that as one hour and thirty minutes for some reason. I was hoping to put it in right after school, and have dinner done by the time I got back home with the boys who do computer club after school on Wednesdays. But, nope.
Not too long after putting the lasagna in the oven, I managed to drop my phone into the toilet. It was in my hoodie pocket, and I knocked it out while standing up to flush…As my phone has been in the case for like three years now, it took me and two of my kids almost thirty minutes to get the case off! The one kid that has the most experience in removing phone cases was at computer club…
My daughter said, “I can’t believe you did that, Mom! I set my phone down on the tub so I don’t do that.” Yeah, I usually do, too, but since I had my hoodie on, I put it back in my pocket.
Thankfully, not too much toilet water got into the inner case, and my phone is fine! PHEW!!!!!
When the lasagna was done, I dished out some for the kids, put the lid back on, and turned the oven to “Keep Warm,” letting them know they could have seconds, but to put it back in the oven so I could put it away when I got home.
I flew out the door and headed to the brewery vinyl night. It was, as always, a great time with great friends and great music!
I ate when I got home, and left the lasagna out to cool before putting it away…which I totally forgot! So, that was a little under half of a party-size lasagna that went to waste!
Thursday - When my middle son came to the car after school on Thursday, he motioned for me to roll down the window.
He was the last pick-up of the day. My oldest two don’t have a sixth period, so they get out at 2:40 (Fresman can’t leave after fifth period until October 30th, and only if they have parental permission {which I had to take 20 minutes to go through the permissions for earlier that day just prior to signing up for 22-24 PT conferences} - any of them can get assigned to the sixth period help center if they are behind in any class.) The junior high child gets out at 3:07. The sixth period at high school lets out at 3:15.
“Hey, can I go meet my friends in the park?”
“I’m sorry, but no,” I said.
“Why not?” He asked through the window.
“Because that means another trip out here and gas costs money.”
“How much money?”
“What? Just get in the car! Also, your sister has therapy tonight!”
“No, how much money does each trip cost?” He asked, as if I was going to do that math right there and then. I mean, I did do that math towards the end of last year when I threatened to leave a slow child and come back to get them in order to get the others there on time. I was going to charge that child the cost of the extra trip. I never went through with that plan because I really didn’t want to have to make an extra trip. Plus, the only way my kids could earn money was by being ready for school on time…
And that’s when I remembered my thoughts the previous night while taking out the garbage and the can to the curb - after telling that child, who’s job is garbage, several times (for several days! And at least 5 times immediately before I left that night. He actually yelled at me to stop telling him because he already knew) to take the garbage out and the can to the curb. The next time that kid asks me to do something for him, the answer will be NO!
“You know what? Last night, when I took out the garbage and the can to the curb, I told myself that the next time you asked me for something, the answer was going to be NO!”
His head went down, and he finally opened the back passenger door and got in. “But mom, I had a headache, and was going to do it, but laid down and fell asleep because I had a headache.”
That got me. “Do you know what?! I’ve had an excrutiating toothache since MONDAY. I still went to your brother’s band concert and let you do the aviation club! Do you know how many trips I took out here on Monday? With an awful freaking toothache? Once back and forth to take you guys to school, another one to pick you guys up, one to drop you at aviation club and take your brother to the band concert, then back home, and then I came BACK out to pick you up at 8:30! I took FOUR trips back and forth out here on Monday with a horrible toothache! It’s not only the gas, but the TIME. It’s a 12-15 minute trip each way.”
And then I asked him what his responsibility was.
“Garbage.”
“What am I responsible for?”
“Taking us to school…feeding us.” He responded.
“I’m responsible for waking you guys up, getting your clothes - I did your laundry this week even though YOU are supposed to be doing it…”
“I was going to do it, though.”
“But, you weren’t doing it, and it takes 3 hours to finish a load. You didn’t have clean clothes on Monday.”
It went on like this for a while. I explained to him the physical load as well as the mental load of everything involved in running a household. Maybe not everything, but a LOT of it.
I also explained that I had spent an hour that day registering for their PT conferences. For the three high school kids, I made a spreadsheet of who has which teacher; I had to select all the teachers from the main screen of the site they use, then say how many kids it was for, list their names, and then name which child had which teacher. Then, I had to sign up for 7-minute conference slots for 22 teachers (some of the conferences will be double-ups because two of the kids have a few of the same teachers) between the hours of 3:30 and 7 p.m. I generally make sure I have a blank between each conference to give myself enough time to get to the next one, but this time, I had to book some back-to-back and hope to get through them in five minutes. Towards the end of the whole sign-up process, my eyes were starting to well up. Then I did actually cry when I went to find the email from the Jr High to sign up for the fourth child… The conferences are on the same day, so I had to pick the “email communication only” option, and I was very sad about that! Had I registered the day before, I may have been able to schedule in-person conferences for that night (they cut off the night before) and reschedule the therapy session. I really prefer to talk to people in person! Also, I usually sign up for PT conferences immediately when I get the emails. But, last year, it took two hours for two high school kids (because they had gone to using Google Calendars, which was much more challenging to navigate) and one Junior High kid. I’m glad they went back to the previous program that is more streamlined (and all on one screen), but still, I procrastinated because I knew it would take a while and organization up front.
At some point, on our ride home from school, my middle son, from the passenger side of the backseat, said, “The floor is wet!” (This may have been to derail the conversation about responsibilities, which succeeded).
Of course, my mind went right to wetting the car on the way home the night before. I flashed back to the point where I could hear my pee raining onto the floor mat underneath my seat.
I said, “I seriously doubt my pee made it all the way back there on that side!”
“What??” He asked.
“Oh. Yeah, I wet the car on the way home last night. I kind of had to pee when I left Wake, but I thought I could make it home. I didn’t want to go to the bathroom before I left because there was someone right outside the bathroom that I didn’t want to talk to.”
Apparently, I am so nonconfrontational that I will wet the car before entering a potential drama situation. If you know me and my family - this tracks. (Side note: I sent my youngest sister a screenshot of the BritBox show “Avoidance,” with the message: “They made a show about our family!!” — now pretend I can put an end parenthesis after the image).
I hadn’t told my kids about wetting the car. But, I did text my friend to say, “The next time I tell you I think I can make it home, tell me NOPE!”
So, now admitting to my kids…I had to tell the whole story. There is really no place to go in between the brewery and home - until I get about 3/4 of the way home. The brewery is about seven and a half miles from my house. A 17-minute drive. The Kwik Star is two miles from my house. At about the halfway mark, I had to go BAD!! I tried so hard to hold it until I got to Kwik Star, but just as I was about to pull in there, I could tell it was inevitable, and if I stood up, I would just let loose and not make it into the bathroom. So, I clicked off the turn signal and did what I had to do. It ended up being one of the longest pees I have ever done!! I peed for an entire eight or nine blocks! (From Kimberly all the way to the turn on 53rd for locals). It was an Austin Powers pee!! The kids were laughing along with me as I told them about it.
When I got home, not only were my pants soaked, but I had also gotten the bottom of my shirt and hoodie wet! I changed downstairs in the laundry room and took two towels to the car before going upstairs (one for the seat and one for the floor). I had to swap out the seat towel Thursday morning when I took kids to school, and then again after I got home from taking them (as well as change my pants again).
When we got home from school on Thursday, I got out and investigated the back passenger seat - there was a HUGE puddle in which my youngest’s backpack was submerged.
“What the hell???? Where did all this water come from???” I pulled out the backpack and started emptying it, assessing what did and didn’t get wet.
“Maybe my water bottle leaked.” The youngest said. His water bottle was attached to his backpack with a carabiner. The lid was intact.
“I purposely got you a LEAK PROOF water bottle!”
That’s when my daughter leans down and picks up…her empty water bottle. “Mom! My water spilled!”
It took me pretty much until it was time to leave for her therapy session to get everything from the backpack out and dried off and the backpack over one of the heat registers to dry.
Friday - I didn’t think I was going to make it until Friday. Kid drop-off day, and tooth extraction day. I will save the tooth extraction story for its own post. Because it has taken me since Thursday to compose this rundown of the week!
Saturday - I went with a group of friends to see My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult at Wildwood in Iowa City. We met up with a ton of other friends (most of these people we go back with all the way to our high school years!) It was such a great night!!
Here’s a taste of the band (and one of the songs we danced to on alternative nights at bars in the early 90s).
Sunday - The week finished out among good friends. Some of them that went to the concert, but also quite a few of our good friends that weren’t there on Saturday. We had a potluck at the brewery for our weekly Sunday Bloody Mary Sunday (SBMS) get-together.
I can’t tell you how much this group - these people - have meant to me over the past year and a half (or longer). They help me keep going. They all listened to all of my stories from the week. Some even two or three times. They are the BEST!!!
If you made it to the end - bless you!! And I PROMISE you I will never do another weekly rundown again! #1 It took FOREVER! #2 It’s a LOT. #3 Just know how completely typical of a week this was!! Hahahahaha!!!
I plan on finishing the piece I’m writing about The Queen of Hearts drawing by tomorrow! Then, I’m going to try really hard to get myself organized and work on some of the bigger essay-type drafts I have been chipping away at here and there. Big subjects…and the one about my tooth extraction. I need to look for a bit more humor in that situation because it’s not quite as funny as I would like. It’s getting there though!
Thank you all for your love and support!