My "Day Off"

I am a teacher. One of the best parts of my job - aside from educating young children, of course - is that I only teach 4 days a week. This means that I have every Friday off. Inevitably, every Thursday, my coworkers comment on the fact that it is the last day of my work week. What they don't realize is, it's not really a day off in the true sense of the phrase. Due to the fact that it is the only week day that I can get things done - and the fact that my life is like a poster for Murphy's Law - Friday is usually** total chaos and not the least bit relaxing. I'm sure some of you remember the day I decided to go into work on my day off. That was a life lesson right there.


Last Friday was a typical day for me. PJ scheduled Sophie's kindergarten readiness test at Patrick & Lucy's school for that day, since I'd be off to take her. So, I already had one task planned. (The bright side was one less drop off and pick up to do since Sophie goes to a different school.) I got up well before the crack of dawn to lay out the clothes and pack the lunches. Then I started waking the kids up in order to shove some breakfast in their faces and rush them through the morning routine. Unfortunately, as Patrick was getting down from his top bunk, he had trouble putting any weight on his left foot. Generally not an alarmist, I assured him he could walk it off while he was eating and getting dressed. Mother of the Year, right? I figured once he was up and moving, he'd feel fine. No such luck.


In the rush to get out of the house by 7:15, Patrick informed me that he definitely couldn't go to school in that much pain. That was when Lucy started crying about the fact that she was not going to be the only one going to school. Which left me with Sophie out of school for her test, Patrick on the disabled list, and Lucy out for pity. Now, the question was how I was going to show up at Patrick and Lucy's school for Sophie's test with Patrick and Lucy in tow. I'm fairly certain playing hooky is frowned upon. That's when a stroke of genius hit me and I called on Annette. In exchange for a cup of coffee, she watched my four darlings while I took Sophie to her test. Annette already has two of her own kids. By the time Sophie and I returned, they had pulled out every toy in the house. I'm sure there were no less than 67,000 cars on the floor and 52 musical instruments. (My kids loved the instruments. Because they don't have any. I have way too many kids to encourage more noise.) 


After all this, I got through to our doctor to set up an appointment for Patrick. They could see us right away. So we ditched poor Annette and her mess and rushed over to the pediatrician's office, which, to no one's surprise, led to a trip to Children's Hospital for X-rays. After the X-rays, we waited in the waiting room for an hour before someone came out to tell me there was nothing broken in Patrick's foot. While I was relieved that he wasn't actually broken, it was kind of a drag to think we had wasted half of the day finding out there was nothing wrong. And I definitely had to control myself from beating him when Patrick found the ability to run down the parking garage ramp to the car. (Granted, he could only run on tiptoe, but he was running nonetheless.) 


At that point, we were all starving, so I took the kids out to lunch at UNO's. The waitress started the meal with, "Wow. You have a lot of kids with you. Are they all yours?" I tried not to roll my eyes. She redeemed herself later when she told me she couldn't believe how calm and polite they were. (Good thing she didn't follow me home and watch them turn into jerks monsters later.)


The lesson of the day is this: Don't be too jealous of my four day work week. I'm fairly certain I do less when I am in school teaching other people's children all day. Just don't tell my boss I said that!

What I am not doing on my day off.

**Footnote: I say usually, because there is an occasional exception. As I am writing this, I am home alone with a napping Charlotte while the other kids are with Nannie and Auntie Juju at the movie theater. The only thing I've done today is walk to the park with Charlotte. It's been heavenly (and completely out of the ordinary)!

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