As usual, I overslept.
My son knocked on the bathroom door while I was having my morning constitutional. Of course, I let him come in, because he’s four, and because I knew he didn’t actually have to use the bathroom himself, because he wore a pull-up last night.
Having an audience didn’t exactly make my morning routine any speedier, especially since I’ve been charged by his dentist with making sure he brushes his teeth properly both morning and night. That adds another few minutes. Add onto that the discovery that he’d leaked out of his pull-up and onto his bedsheets, and we were getting down to the wire.
Not that I had any chance in hell of getting to work on time at that point, of course.
Breakfast — his, not mine — was rushed, although he did an excellent job of eating while watching YouTube on his iPhone. Sometimes he gets super involved in the videos and forgets to eat. (It’s one of our old phones, with a broken sleep button, and we let him use it for apps.)
Headed back upstairs, only to realize that his mattress pad had still been damp with pee when I put the new sheets on.
I don’t have time for this.
Threw an old burp cloth over the spot that had crept through the clean fitted, read him a very short book, sang him a very short song, and kissed him goodbye. Bounded down the stairs, threw on my shoes and my jacket, snatched up my purse and keys, stepped into the garage, hit the garage door opener, climbed in the new car, stuck the switchblade key in the ignition, let’s get going. Threw it in reverse. On my way.
CRUUUUNCH.
What the HELL was that? What did I just hit in my own fucking driveway?
Answer: the garage door that had only gone up two-thirds of the way.
Well, shit. There goes today.
In the midst of a major adrenaline rush, I called my boss to let her know I wouldn’t be in, then called the 800 number on our garage door opener to get the local garage door repair folks on their way. Went upstairs to get Connor and to let Aaron know what had happened, and to tell him that he wouldn’t need to get up with Connor. Mentally juggled my almost-nonexistent vacation and personal days and realized that I could, in fact, afford to take the entire day as personal time if I juggle some future dates around.
The morning was spent playing with Connor and waiting for the repairman to call.
The repairman showed up a couple hours after my initial call. He was super friendly and genial to Connor, and did a fabulously thorough job of fixing, balancing, lubing, and generally maintaining our garage door and opener. I keep joking that I should have hit the door months ago; it opens and closes smoother and quieter than it has since we’ve lived here.
Connor had asked me please, pleeeease, could I stay home and not go to work for the afternoon? Twist my arm, little buddy. Especially since his Quiet Time starts just after lunch, which means I’d get some time to get some other stuff done while he was sleeping.
Which is exactly what happened.
I never get the chance to “run errands” — usually, any potential errands are covered by shopping on Amazon, putting a weird item on the weekly grocery list, or maybe running past someplace on a weekend after lunch or before dinner with the whole family in tow. So, today, it was downright glorious to drive down to the computer repair shop to drop off my old laptop, then drop into the eyeglass place to get my glasses adjusted, then go mosey around the greenhouse and pick up some container perennials and some decorative gourds. (If the forecast hadn’t called for a freeze tonight, I might have planted the perennials in the containers, too. As it is, I’ll be waiting a few days until the nights warm back up.)
After errands, I came home, placed the gourds on the front step in a properly decorative manner, harvested the last of the tomatoes and herbs before tonight’s freeze, then got an Old Navy return all packaged up to send out — and got to send it out with the mail, too, since the mailman hadn’t come yet. Then I got to spend some time talking with Aaron and admiring the latest additions to his videogaming hardware.
Once Connor got up from his nap strike (at least he was quiet, even if he didn’t sleep), the day pretty much reverted to a normal Friday, with Aaron going to work and Connor and myself eating dinner at home and the whole normal routine. Even better, actually: since Connor didn’t nap, he went down hard at bedtime. Win!
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what a Personal Day looks like. It started out all frazzled and WTF and ended with shit getting done.
Probably the best day off I’ve had in a long time.