christ, this week

This has been one hell of a week. The kids had Spring Break and usually when Max is out of school for any prolonged period of time, he devolves into very difficult behavior. I’ve tried to explain what it’s like in a previous entry so I’ll not go into that further here. Suffice to say, unless we are out doing activity after activity after activity, it can be a nightmare. Luckily, the kids spend the day with my parents on Fridays and on Tuesdays we all go over there too and I’m usually “let out” for a few hours. So, I had built in breaks, I reminded myself! Two days where I’d get respite from the craziness!

Then on Saturday I get a text from my mom letting me know she felt absolutely terrible. That her cold from the day before had, in fact, been the beginning of the flu.

And I knew right then. There would be no breaks. She’d be sick all the week through. To say I was disappointed would be putting it mildly.

Then! To add to the fun, I got the cold on Monday that everyone else had the previous week. So, not only would I have the kids, with no school and looking to me to provide any and all fun and activities, I’d have the added bonus of extra difficult Max behavior, zero breaks from any of it AND I got to be sick and feeling like crap through it all, making it that much more exhausting. Oh, fun.

My one redeeming spot of brightness was that our old babysitter and friend, Kimberlee, would come a couple mornings to watch the kids so I could go to the gym. Those two hours were glorious.

The rest of the week was spent having lots and lots of play dates, at others houses and at ours, owing to the fact that the weather decided to give us rain for the 5th and 6th time respectively this winter. Play dates at the park, walking around the neighborhood, and spending half a day worried out of my mind and crying every 30 minutes because Story the cat went missing. She was found, thankfully. Thank fuck for my girlfriends who are the moms of my kids friends. I adore them and couldn’t have made it through without having them to hang out with while the kids played and argued.

So here I am, at the almost tail end of this long ass week. I’m still sick and feeling like crap in new and exciting ways but  I can almost, finally stop feeling sorry for myself.

Tomorrow I go with my friend Michelle, whose daughters are friends with my kids, to the March For Our Lives LA. I’m making our sign tonight and I can’t wait to be there tomorrow. It’s an issue I am hugely and deeply invested in and thank god for these kids from Parkland as they are finally going to be the catalyst for change. It took these kids having to go through something unimaginable and vile and I’m so grateful for them. I dread the day my six year old understands why he has to practice hiding in a closet every month during Active Shooter drills and I have a constant worry somewhere in the back of my head that our school could easily be next and my little kids could be murdered. I will not breathe easier until gun reform happens and I will do all I can to help that happen, sooner rather than later.