March 30, 2012

Brick By Brick

Second day in a row and here I am typing out another post.  Miracles never cease.

Yesterday was a frustrating and unusually unlucky day.  I don't know who placed that black rain-cloud over my head but I hope they release it from it's duty today.  I've had a large amount of things on my plate lately.  Getting ready for two back to back trips, thinking up what I can do for T for our anniversary.  (No pressure there, it's just 20 years right?), visiting teaching (will I never learn to do it earlier in the month?), field trip volunteering, laundry, food, etc, etc.  On top of this I had play tickets for Little Girl and I at the Olney Theater.  Little Red Riding hood, one hour, just the 5 yr old and me.  It was her official 'date night' (only it was day). The date night where we take one kid at a time out on a date each weekend.  In a family my size it's pretty darn special and so she was requiring a smoothy from me afterwards.  But first I had to do major grocery shopping.  The play started at 10:00 am, so you can imagine my rush to the car from the grocery store at 9 something, making the decision not to take the food home before the play and betting that the chilly morning weather would protect my hamburger meat and low-fat milk.

I must have not been paying close enough attention to detail as I pressed forward to the van and noticed, too late, that a car was backing up right into my daughter.  Luckily the hasty man's windows were down a crack and despite his blue tooth conversation he was having he heard my screams.  He was obviously in a hurry too, parked askew in the handicapped spot, not displaying any handicap that I saw (except the inability to look behind you before bolting out of your parking spot).  He stopped just short of hitting her.  I felt an instant lump in my throat.  When I got safely to the other side of his car I stated in my firm voice "you just about ran over my 5 year old."  He heard me.  I was visibly shaken, and he did stop to apologize. I told him I appreciated his apology and then did my best not to have a crying breakdown in front of my daughter in the car.  I thought about all the 'things' on my mind that just about didn't matter one bit any more.  A seriously injured 5 year old is not what I wanted to get for T for our anniversary.

The rest of the days chaos included going to three places in search of smoothies, losing a cell phone, tripping up stairs and hurting my wrists, forgetting hash browns from the grocery store, getting a call from T insisting that we get the brakes on the van serviced before our trip in two days, about 5 loads of laundry, a toilet overflowing, spilled shampoo all over the bathroom floor, a ruined (new) roll of toilet paper caused by a non shower-curtain-closer, a broken lawn mower, a late night trip to Home Depot, and a fixed lawn mover, a very large and somewhat unexpected bill from our landscaper who refused repeatedly to give me a ball park figure (THAT's what we are now getting each other for our anniversary), a tick on the dog, guilt over not giving the dog her monthly frontline meds, judgmental stares from the vet receptionist, a call to my vet sister, and omelets for dinner.  One silver lining?  I got Little Boy to and from lacrosse practice on TIME!  No waiting in the car with his coach.  With all that was on my calendar and all that came up that day that is nothing short of amazing.  Another amazing thing was this awesome dixie up Wall of China that Little Girl made on the sly all by herself.  I'm so glad she was alive to do it! And so glad I got her those 200 Dixie cups at the store that day. And I'm pretty sure she did this one cup at a time just like I am going to get through all that I have to do today- one step at a time.  Looking very cautiously before I step.

Pretty Darn Amazing

1 comment:

Teachinfourth said...

Sometimes, we all wish we had 200 cups. Hope the cloud goes-and stays-away.