Today was one of THOSE days. It was 96 degrees and for me, that is reason enough to have one of THOSE days. Anything over 80 is a heatwave to me. After living in the West Valley for 3 years, I now dream of living in a place where it never gets above 60.
I can trace the origins of this particular day to last night, which set all this in motion. It was one of THOSE nights.
Everyone decided to camp out in Mommy's room, once again. I find it interesting that I never slept with a single one of my children when they were babies. I wasn't one of THOSE MOMS, or so I thought. Yet now, I am they all seem to be taking full advantage of making up for lost co-sleeping time with Mommy. They have formed a coup and taken up full-time residence in my room. Maybe I'm a wimp or maybe I just feel bad because of the pandemic, but either way, I am an enabler of this ongoing situation. Some nights I am just too tired and cranky to allow them to bunk with me, so they scatter to their rooms. But by the next night, they are all back again, with pillows, sleeping bags, stuffed animals, and the whole kitten caboodle. My room looks like a daycare at nap-time.
Going back to last night, Catherine woke up around 3 and announced she had to throw up. That's never good, but even worse since flu season has already past, presumably, and we are in the middle of a pandemic. As if that wasn't bad enough, Garin woke up at the same time and had an asthma attack. So I ran to get his inhaler while she was throwing up. I will spare you any more details but suffice it to say, no one got any sleep.
So today, we were dealing with near triple-digit temperatures, complete sleep deprivation, and homeschooling. Miles, God bless him, wandered around aimlessly and bored, for what felt like most of the day. Catherine and Graham seemed to do okay (Catherine only vomited twice last night and does not seem to have COVID 19, thank goodness). Garin, as I predicted he would, did the least well of the four. He held on for most of the day, until the last period of school, which is art, his least favorite subject. His assignment was a self-portrait. The minute I heard that I thought, Everyone run for cover. It's going to get bad in here. And bad it got.
He toiled for at least 90 minutes on his self-portrait, made no progress, and eventually had a meltdown out of pure frustration and exhaustion. It took us an hour or so to get past that and for everyone to recover. Once we overcame that crisis, we headed out to run a few errands, which should have been easy. But of course, because it was 96 degrees and no one had slept, everything had to go wrong.
Amongst the errands, were two stops at two separate Home Depots, for curbside pickup orders. I had ordered some shovels, so the kids could continue their gardening pursuits, which they seemed to enjoy. They wanted two industrial-grade shovels, to make better progress with their demolition in the backyard. We soon discovered that Home Depot has not mastered this COVID 19/curbside pickup thing at all. It took nearly half an hour to get one shovel at the first store and almost as long to get the other shovel at the second store. Meanwhile I had four cranky, tired, and hot kids in the back of my car, ready to go Postal at Home Depot. I wasn't far behind them.
Eventually, after running a few more brief errands, we made it home with our hard-earned shovels. The kids headed to the backyard and immediately started putting them to use, which made all the hassle worth it.
However, it didn't take long for the peace to be disturbed. A few minutes in, Graham declared that he hated gardening and walked off the job. I wasn't surprised. He's not one for getting dirty nor for manual labor. The only gardening I see him pursuing is joining The Queen in her rose garden to snip a few buds before having a spot of tea with her corgies under-foot.
He left the laborers outside with their industrial shovels and dirt, came into the kitchen and made himself a cold fruit smoothie. He drank it with a fancy striped straw while perusing the latest issue of People, that happened to be sitting on the kitchen counter. If nothing else, Graham is predictable.
The last part of the day turned out to be the best. After gardening, the kids decided to go skinny dipping in the pool, while I made dinner. It was a perfect night for that since it was still in the '90s, well past 6. I made a delicious Cinco de Mayo feast of Cheese Enchiladas, Refried Beans, Garden Salad and Flan. We dined al fresco on the patio and watch the full moon come out.
Everyone is in their beds tonight as I am writing this, so I am optimistic that the rest of tonight and consequently tomorrow, will be better than today.
