Today was a no good, very bad day, just like the kids’ book says. Working at Jen’s Daycare—aka, Zen Bootcamp—gave the day a spiritual dimension. Not that this made it better. Or easier. Just more spiritual, for whatever that is worth!
Last night was my second night of sleep interrupted by bouts of pain. For the past decade and a half my uterus has picked up this habit of treating me to rounds of faux labor pains with contractions and all. The pain lasts about 20 minutes (although low-grade pain can linger for hours) and the rounds come every 4-6 hours. That means that I woke up in pain twice the last two nights and was up for half an hour each time. The bouts leave me exhausted and the middle of the night interruptions leave me sleep deprived.
I woke up late and by the time I was awake enough to do my morning stretches, another round of pain struck, sucking up all of my morning prep time. I spent my stretches time writhing in pain and panting in the already heavy heat of the day. I didn’t get a shower, coffee, or even have time to wash my face. I just pulled on clothes and loaded myself into my car (still entering from the passenger side and climbing over the stick shift because I can’t afford to fix the broken driver’s side door). When I got to Jen’s I realized that I had forgotten my Bert’s Bees Wax chapstick and my lips were already dry.
I could see that it might be the start of a no good, very bad day. But, I didn’t want to curse myself, so I focused on the idea of a happy day instead.
I was met at the door by loud barking dogs. Not unusual, but they do tend to be less energetically vocal first thing in the morning, so the barrage was an unpleasant morning bonus. The kitchen looked about usual—all the cupboards and drawers in various stages of openness and all of the counters in various stages of dishes and food prep. The floor, however, was in the unusual state of looking somewhat like the barn floor. There had clearly been a mishap in feeding the guinea pigs their hay.
It certainly looked like a no good, very bad day in the making….
I rolled up my sleeves (metaphorically, as I wore a tank top today) and got started. I thought that some good, hard housework might distract me from pain and crankiness. Air conditioning would help too. It was only 9am and the house was stuffy and hot. Since the air conditioning was already on, I just had to close all of the doors and windows. (Closing the doors is easy; keeping them closed is a huge challenge, what with all the two-year olds and ADD!) After 45 minutes of hot sweaty dish washing and counter scrubbing, I realized that the air conditioner was NOT broken, it was just set at 85 degrees. I turned it down to 78 and things got much more comfortable. The hot dishwashing and counter cleaning and floor sweeping continued and I started making some real progress.
Perhaps it wasn’t going to be such a bad day afterall….
But there was a pretty serious lack of food. I could make eggs, but there was no bread for toast. I could make beans but that takes hours. I could make cornbread but that takes an hour or so and it takes a clean kitchen (for my own OCD comfort, not because you really need a tidy kitchen to make cornbread). The kids were saying they were hungry and all I could offer was dried fruit. Desi woke up hungry and I had no idea what to feed her. Jen got out the last of the granola and said to just put milk in it (the yogurt was all gone).
At the same time, lots of other commotion was streaming around me. Jen’s boyfriend Krishnan was running around doing bits and pieces of projects while determined to be cheerful and conversational. I just wanted him to shut up and leave me alone (did I say I was cranky?). Jen’s son Elias (newly turned 18) had texted me to bring him some unscented lotion for his tattoo, which I did. When I gave him the lotion, he showed me his tattoo. I told him that I would have been more impressed if he had gotten on the bus to go work for Jen’s friend for a week. He wrinkled his nose and said he wasn’t interested in doing that. Walking away, I said—to no one in particular—that I would have been more impressed if he had been interested in going to work for Jen’s friend.
On the kid front, it was a whiny, crying, screaming day. Mostly they did not all cry or scream at once, but someone was crying or screaming pretty much non-stop all day. One of the two year olds is teething; the three year old was feeling especially sensitive and cried at the drop of a hat; one of the four year olds has been determined to stay sad and homesick non-stop all day including lots of crying, and the other was delivered in full attachment disorder melt down—I had to sit and hold her in a mommy huddle on the back porch until she was able to make the transition. Fortunately there were two older girls who helped out some with the little ones, but they also wanted to chat my ear off about cell phones and pop music and all I really wanted was them to shut up and go away (again, cranky!).
And then Jen told me she was leaving me alone with Elias while she went grocery shopping—words to strike terror into my heart since there is no guarantee when she will return once she leaves the house. However, she assured me that she had to have the car back by 11:30 to have her brakes fixed, so I would only have to hold down the fort alone for a limited time—an hour and a half, max. The mommy huddle happened while Jen was gone and Elias did a good job of holding down the fort while I was on the back porch. He did, however, disappear back into his room as soon as he helped his mom unload the groceries.
The worst part of the day was Jen’s scatteredness. Or perhaps it was just my cranky, pain-colored perception that made her seem scattered. It seemed to me that she was coming and going all day long, and that when she was in, she wasn’t really there, if you know what I mean. I thought when she came back from grocery shopping that I would feel less alone. Instead, her coming and going and not-being-thereness left me feeling more alone than if she had actually been out doing errands. Like when one of the older girls dropped the glass bottle of water in the middle of lunch and Jen launched in to clean-up mode, but then suddenly disappeared, leaving me to think the job was done, only to find more glass on the floor (which I cleaned up). (This was after the kids asked for more of everything non-stop, over and over again for a steady 15 minutes and I told Jen I was ready to quit. I know she was trying to fix it…) Or, like when I took one of the two-year olds in for a nap only to have him show back up in the pool area with Jen’s daughter Desi (6), a mouth full of chips, and a story from Desi that Jen had fed them and sent them out. When I went into the air-conditioned house (out of the 100 degree heat), Jen was sitting on the couch chatting with a parent and apologized for letting him escape from her.
Was this a no good, very bad day, or did I just have a bad attitude?
My worst moment was when I lost it with Desi. She had an attitude all day—sassy, belligerent, dare I say bitchy? Jen explained that she hadn’t gotten to bed until after eleven because her and Krishnan had had scheduling difficulties in picking up her horse Zena, and therefore Desi did not get enough sleep. I had words with Desi more than once about her behavior towards me, but it didn’t even make a dent. While cleaning up the rest of the glass, the kids at the table were asking for lunch service, Jen was talking to her car mechanic, Andy, and his daughters at the kitchen entrance, and Desi kept asking for more celery. I told her she would have to wait until I finished cleaning up the glass, so she walked off in a huff.
Five minutes after I finished, Jen was still talking to Andy, so in a bid for Jen’s attention Desi waltzed past Jen into the kitchen and announced she wanted more lunch after all. I told her no and asked her to leave the kitchen. She said no. I flicked water at her (I was doing another round of dishes) and when she didn’t budge, I held a dirty plate over her head and told her I would dump food on her head if she didn’t vacate the kitchen. She retreated to the kitchen gate and then yelled that I was mean and then stepped back into the kitchen. When I told her that she could go play or go to her room, she said no again and struck one of those “fuck you” poses she is so good at. I threw the water from my hands directly into her face, but she just came at me saying no. So I scooped her up, took her back to her room, and dropped her on her bed. When she hit, she flailed herself until she fell off the bed onto her head. I just closed the door and walked away. Sometimes you just gotta walk away.
It was pretty much a no good, very bad day.
At 3:15 I remembered that I had to ask Jen if I could get off early for a 4pm church event that I was in charge of. I asked Jen what she thought my chances were of getting off at four. She said three kids were being picked up very soon and that she thought I could go after that. Sure enough, those kids did go, but then the prospective parents who said they would come look at the daycare at 3 showed up at 3:45 and there is no way Jen can show the place without someone minding Desi, so I was there until 4:30 afterall. As I was leaving, one of the infants showed up, but Jen said she could handle it, so I went to my church thing. Only the tech set-up guy had shown up, so that was a wash. We did learn about live streaming capabilities at church though so that was good.
I got home and vented to my house-mate Michael. He told me that his house guests were picking up take out food and he thought there would be enough for me. There wasn’t though, which fit with the day, so I walked down to La Hacienda, had my favorite tostada and a couple of margaritas.
It was a no good, very bad day, but it seems to be ending well:)
Wondering where the Zen twist is? Either the margaritas or that I didn’t kill anyone. Take your pick!
Last night was my second night of sleep interrupted by bouts of pain. For the past decade and a half my uterus has picked up this habit of treating me to rounds of faux labor pains with contractions and all. The pain lasts about 20 minutes (although low-grade pain can linger for hours) and the rounds come every 4-6 hours. That means that I woke up in pain twice the last two nights and was up for half an hour each time. The bouts leave me exhausted and the middle of the night interruptions leave me sleep deprived.
I woke up late and by the time I was awake enough to do my morning stretches, another round of pain struck, sucking up all of my morning prep time. I spent my stretches time writhing in pain and panting in the already heavy heat of the day. I didn’t get a shower, coffee, or even have time to wash my face. I just pulled on clothes and loaded myself into my car (still entering from the passenger side and climbing over the stick shift because I can’t afford to fix the broken driver’s side door). When I got to Jen’s I realized that I had forgotten my Bert’s Bees Wax chapstick and my lips were already dry.
I could see that it might be the start of a no good, very bad day. But, I didn’t want to curse myself, so I focused on the idea of a happy day instead.
I was met at the door by loud barking dogs. Not unusual, but they do tend to be less energetically vocal first thing in the morning, so the barrage was an unpleasant morning bonus. The kitchen looked about usual—all the cupboards and drawers in various stages of openness and all of the counters in various stages of dishes and food prep. The floor, however, was in the unusual state of looking somewhat like the barn floor. There had clearly been a mishap in feeding the guinea pigs their hay.
It certainly looked like a no good, very bad day in the making….
I rolled up my sleeves (metaphorically, as I wore a tank top today) and got started. I thought that some good, hard housework might distract me from pain and crankiness. Air conditioning would help too. It was only 9am and the house was stuffy and hot. Since the air conditioning was already on, I just had to close all of the doors and windows. (Closing the doors is easy; keeping them closed is a huge challenge, what with all the two-year olds and ADD!) After 45 minutes of hot sweaty dish washing and counter scrubbing, I realized that the air conditioner was NOT broken, it was just set at 85 degrees. I turned it down to 78 and things got much more comfortable. The hot dishwashing and counter cleaning and floor sweeping continued and I started making some real progress.
Perhaps it wasn’t going to be such a bad day afterall….
But there was a pretty serious lack of food. I could make eggs, but there was no bread for toast. I could make beans but that takes hours. I could make cornbread but that takes an hour or so and it takes a clean kitchen (for my own OCD comfort, not because you really need a tidy kitchen to make cornbread). The kids were saying they were hungry and all I could offer was dried fruit. Desi woke up hungry and I had no idea what to feed her. Jen got out the last of the granola and said to just put milk in it (the yogurt was all gone).
At the same time, lots of other commotion was streaming around me. Jen’s boyfriend Krishnan was running around doing bits and pieces of projects while determined to be cheerful and conversational. I just wanted him to shut up and leave me alone (did I say I was cranky?). Jen’s son Elias (newly turned 18) had texted me to bring him some unscented lotion for his tattoo, which I did. When I gave him the lotion, he showed me his tattoo. I told him that I would have been more impressed if he had gotten on the bus to go work for Jen’s friend for a week. He wrinkled his nose and said he wasn’t interested in doing that. Walking away, I said—to no one in particular—that I would have been more impressed if he had been interested in going to work for Jen’s friend.
On the kid front, it was a whiny, crying, screaming day. Mostly they did not all cry or scream at once, but someone was crying or screaming pretty much non-stop all day. One of the two year olds is teething; the three year old was feeling especially sensitive and cried at the drop of a hat; one of the four year olds has been determined to stay sad and homesick non-stop all day including lots of crying, and the other was delivered in full attachment disorder melt down—I had to sit and hold her in a mommy huddle on the back porch until she was able to make the transition. Fortunately there were two older girls who helped out some with the little ones, but they also wanted to chat my ear off about cell phones and pop music and all I really wanted was them to shut up and go away (again, cranky!).
And then Jen told me she was leaving me alone with Elias while she went grocery shopping—words to strike terror into my heart since there is no guarantee when she will return once she leaves the house. However, she assured me that she had to have the car back by 11:30 to have her brakes fixed, so I would only have to hold down the fort alone for a limited time—an hour and a half, max. The mommy huddle happened while Jen was gone and Elias did a good job of holding down the fort while I was on the back porch. He did, however, disappear back into his room as soon as he helped his mom unload the groceries.
The worst part of the day was Jen’s scatteredness. Or perhaps it was just my cranky, pain-colored perception that made her seem scattered. It seemed to me that she was coming and going all day long, and that when she was in, she wasn’t really there, if you know what I mean. I thought when she came back from grocery shopping that I would feel less alone. Instead, her coming and going and not-being-thereness left me feeling more alone than if she had actually been out doing errands. Like when one of the older girls dropped the glass bottle of water in the middle of lunch and Jen launched in to clean-up mode, but then suddenly disappeared, leaving me to think the job was done, only to find more glass on the floor (which I cleaned up). (This was after the kids asked for more of everything non-stop, over and over again for a steady 15 minutes and I told Jen I was ready to quit. I know she was trying to fix it…) Or, like when I took one of the two-year olds in for a nap only to have him show back up in the pool area with Jen’s daughter Desi (6), a mouth full of chips, and a story from Desi that Jen had fed them and sent them out. When I went into the air-conditioned house (out of the 100 degree heat), Jen was sitting on the couch chatting with a parent and apologized for letting him escape from her.
Was this a no good, very bad day, or did I just have a bad attitude?
My worst moment was when I lost it with Desi. She had an attitude all day—sassy, belligerent, dare I say bitchy? Jen explained that she hadn’t gotten to bed until after eleven because her and Krishnan had had scheduling difficulties in picking up her horse Zena, and therefore Desi did not get enough sleep. I had words with Desi more than once about her behavior towards me, but it didn’t even make a dent. While cleaning up the rest of the glass, the kids at the table were asking for lunch service, Jen was talking to her car mechanic, Andy, and his daughters at the kitchen entrance, and Desi kept asking for more celery. I told her she would have to wait until I finished cleaning up the glass, so she walked off in a huff.
Five minutes after I finished, Jen was still talking to Andy, so in a bid for Jen’s attention Desi waltzed past Jen into the kitchen and announced she wanted more lunch after all. I told her no and asked her to leave the kitchen. She said no. I flicked water at her (I was doing another round of dishes) and when she didn’t budge, I held a dirty plate over her head and told her I would dump food on her head if she didn’t vacate the kitchen. She retreated to the kitchen gate and then yelled that I was mean and then stepped back into the kitchen. When I told her that she could go play or go to her room, she said no again and struck one of those “fuck you” poses she is so good at. I threw the water from my hands directly into her face, but she just came at me saying no. So I scooped her up, took her back to her room, and dropped her on her bed. When she hit, she flailed herself until she fell off the bed onto her head. I just closed the door and walked away. Sometimes you just gotta walk away.
It was pretty much a no good, very bad day.
At 3:15 I remembered that I had to ask Jen if I could get off early for a 4pm church event that I was in charge of. I asked Jen what she thought my chances were of getting off at four. She said three kids were being picked up very soon and that she thought I could go after that. Sure enough, those kids did go, but then the prospective parents who said they would come look at the daycare at 3 showed up at 3:45 and there is no way Jen can show the place without someone minding Desi, so I was there until 4:30 afterall. As I was leaving, one of the infants showed up, but Jen said she could handle it, so I went to my church thing. Only the tech set-up guy had shown up, so that was a wash. We did learn about live streaming capabilities at church though so that was good.
I got home and vented to my house-mate Michael. He told me that his house guests were picking up take out food and he thought there would be enough for me. There wasn’t though, which fit with the day, so I walked down to La Hacienda, had my favorite tostada and a couple of margaritas.
It was a no good, very bad day, but it seems to be ending well:)
Wondering where the Zen twist is? Either the margaritas or that I didn’t kill anyone. Take your pick!
