It took me a while to recover from the busy bustle-y rigors of Monday, February 1st, but I managed to capture some of it in a slightly disjointed journal entry to help with details for this post. These are the types of everyday runarounds that seem to get lost, so every now and then I try to write one down, even though it is honestly SO BORING to write after living it. HAH.
Monday morning was bustling and busy. Once I filled out the girl's health attestation forms and hung them around their necks, we were ready to head to school. The first stop was Amber's school. During the five minute drive to her school, Jeff called and asked if I could bring his webcam to school (he brought it home to use for church yesterday and forgot to bring it back to school--our ward has now invested in its own webcam). I told Jeff we had 25 minutes between dropping Amber off and Rose's drop-off time, so we could go back home and get the webcam for him.
First, we had to deliver Amber to her school. When we parked and got out of the car to walk to the school door together, Amber started limping along in her boots.
"I need to go to the nurse," she said.
"Already? No you don't. Wait, why?" I fumbled.
At that point I remembered that she had worn her pink boots without socks the previous day and played outside for a long time, thus wearing painful sores onto her feet. It hurt to wear her boots on top of those sores, even with socks. I dropped Amber off at school anyways, because what could I do? The school morning time crunch doesn't allow for last minute wardrobe changes!
Instead of driving straight to wait peacefully with an audiobook in front of Rose's school like usual (no drop-off allowed before 9am), we drove home, where I dashed inside and grabbed not only Jeff's webcam, but also Amber's sneakers. The shoes were torn and filthy because:
- They were hand-me-downs from Rose, and
- Amber always walks in mud, whether she's wearing wipe-clean rubber boots or stain-able sneakers.
I clapped the shoes together and banged them on the ground a few times to get the big bits of dried mud off, then put them in an ugly gray plastic Walmart bag for delivery. I didn't have time to wash and dry them, but I figured dirty shoes were better than painful shoes, so I took them anyways.
Since we still had a little time and the high school was on the way to Rose's school, we stopped at the high school to give Jeff the webcam. I pulled up to the campus road that goes past the football field because it is the closest to Jeff's new classroom. But the 8 foot tall chain link gate was closed and padlocked! I couldn't get any closer! In fact, I couldn't get in at all. I called Jeff and discovered that he had five minutes until his next class.
"I'll run for it!" he said.
Rose and I sat in the car by the padlocked fence and waited. Jeff had two flights of stairs and 200 meters between his classroom and the locked gate. It was going to be close!
While we waited for him, a large service truck pulled up right behind me, blocking my exit. Then a high school security golf cart pulled up next to me. I was surrounded! Did they think I was about to ram down the chain link fence with my minivan? Was I in trouble? Why did they box me in? Rose needed to be at school in five minutes! I got out of the car to explain why I was parked in front of the gate, still worrying that I was in trouble. Before I could say anything, the security guard started talking.
"We close the gate to deter people from wandering all over campus, but the padlock isn't even locked," he informed me.
I nodded, and he started opening the gate while I started realizing that it was just a coincidence that the security guard showed up when I did. He was there to open the gate for the service truck. At that point, I saw Jeff come charging up the road towards the fence, blue necktie blowing in the breeze from his speedy sprint. I handed off his webcam, he thanked me, and then dashed back to his room.
Meanwhile the service truck had backed up so I could back up and get outtathere. We made it to Rose's school two buildings down in plenty of time, though I did drop her off at a different entry point than usual due to traffic. At last I turned homeward, only to remember partway there that I needed to make one more stop at Amber's school to give her the softer shoes.
So I detoured through town and re-parked in the far-away kindergarten parking lot, power-walked all the way up to the building, and pushed the doorbell intercom button. The office secretary buzzed me in when I explained through their speaker that I had a pair of shoes for my daughter. I gave the secretary the ugly plastic bag with Amber's dirty shredded secondhand-me-down shoes in it and explained why she needed new shoes after a mere half hour in school (sores on feet from wearing boots barefoot).
The secretary didn't seem amused or sympathetic or... anything. She didn't really display any emotion, but that could've been the mask barrier blocking her mouth. Or maybe as secretary at an all-kindergarten school full of five hundred 5 and 6 year olds, she really didn't care why a kid needed new shoes after half an hour of school. She had seen it all. No big deal. Whatever. I stopped trying to explain, handed over the shoes, gave Amber's teacher name, and drove home, feeling oddly spent and deflated for such an early hour. It was barely 9:15am and I felt as though I had done an entire day's worth of errands.
I called my mom on the way home to tell her about my back-and-forth morning and we ended up talking for well over an hour after I got home. While we talked, I swept up the dirt clods that Amber tracked all through the house when she put on yesterday's dried muddy boots this morning. It was a brutal, boring reminder of my low-ladder-rung of function as a stay at home parent.
Why can't I just feel accomplished from doing all of these menial pick-up, drop-off, clean-up routines? These everyday family glue type of jobs are a big part of my life, so why don't I feel accomplished when I do them? It's important that they get done, but it doesn't make me feel important to do them. Can I learn how to find satisfaction in the menial everyday work? Sigh. Sometimes I do. My mom helped me feel better about all of it. She knows what it's like, since she's been there, done that.
After I talked with my dear mom, I returned a missed call from Em. Em and I ended up talking for three whole hours! Official time: 2 hours and 57 minutes. We talked about all of the things: politics, racism, women's rights, abortion, Brown family communication kerfuffles, even Trump! I actually shared my honest opinions on everything instead of just being on defense/deflect mode, and it felt GOOD.
It felt good to have done the work not only to go beyond thinking that racism is a problem of the past, but also to have examples to illustrate why and how I think what I do. I felt like I was doing my part to be an anti-racist during our conversation, and even though I know I didn't do it perfectly, it felt good to try and defend and speak! It felt good to share my opinions and viewpoints on all of the other topics too, and discuss them with Em. It was something of a miracle that we didn't get overheated or angry--we were heated at times, but not in a mean way; just in a fervent way. It's kind of amazing how different pretty much all of our political views are. It was also good to acknowledge that it's ok for us to have different opinions. We don't have to agree to be sisters, friends, and to respect each other. It felt important to arrive at that place.
After my long phone call with Em, I tossed on workout clothes, did a 20 minute yoga video, and then dashed to pick kids up from school, drop them off at home, and then drove to the high school for cross country practice. It was another solo coaching day for me. Jeff had to attend a district Zoom head cross country coaches meeting to plan the meets for our brief season. After spending most of my day on the phone discussing difficult topics, my emotions were fried! My head was not in the game and I was not in coach-mode.
I had one group of kids run hills when they were supposed to run flat. It took like three backtracks before I finally explained the workout to the group running on the track. My brain was in fifteen different places at once and nothing was coming out right! Finally everyone was running and it all turned out ok, but I felt sort of incompetent and flustered before and after the actual running. I can run. I can't be coherent in front of a group! Especially not after intense political discussions, apparently. Haha. Thankfully Jeff's meeting ended in time for him to come to the very end of practice. Coaching is always better with Jeff there.
Whew, writing about tiring days is tiring!
After dinner that night Amber was feeling "kissy" and kissed both of my cheeks, my forehead, both of my hands, and my ears after she and Rose did my hair yet again.
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