Why You Should Never Answer Your Phone On Your Day Off

I am on Week 2 of my Spring Break. That's right, internet, my school has TWO weeks of Spring Break. Jealous much? I spent the last week in Texas with Henry, Quinn and my husband to see my little brother get hitched, so I have been looking forward to using this week to catch up on errands, relax and other such things.

I COULD keep the boys home with me all week (their Spring Break is next week), but I decided to send them to preschool/ daycare on MWF this week to allow me some time to run my errands WITHOUT CHILDREN and to just have some quiet time WITHOUT CHILDREN. I am keeping them home on Tuesday and Thursday to spend some quality mommy time with them.

I had some guilt about this, thinking that I should keep them home all week to spend time with them in order make up for the fact that I work (because even though I was going insane staying at home I still have tons of guilt about going back to work-- go figure), but ultimately I decided that MY time and my chance to get a few things done was important, too.

So on Monday morning I dropped both kids off at their schools and went home to bask in my whole morning at home WITHOUT CHILDREN. Do you notice how I keep emphasizing those two words "without children?" Can you guess what happened? Trust me, you can't. You may think you can, but you sooooo can't.

You MIGHT think that the school called and said that Henry was sick. Or that Quinn's school called. Or both. But, no, none of that happened. Instead, an acquaintance of ours called me as I returned from dropping off the boys. Let's call her Peg. I was going to call her Inconsiderate Woman Who Takes Way Too Much Advantage Of Me, but Peg seems nicer, no? Peg and her husband do tax returns for people, so they are really busy right now. Peg's boys are on Spring Break. Peg's boys are NOT nice boys. Actually the 5 year-old is okay, but the 9 year-old is a holy fucking terror. Their family is WAY dysfunctional. The parents yell, cuss and hit, and so do the kids. It is one ugly family to spend time with. They are not bad people, but they have no clue as to how to be good parents. I bet NOW you can begin to guess what happened, can't you?

Peg said that she couldn't get a sitter (gee, after a whole morning of trying to find a sitter ON THE DAY YOU NEEDED ONE -- shocking) and she was "desperate" to find somewhere for the boys to go so she could go to work. Oh, and what do you know, she was driving right by my house as she called. She had "no other options" and so wanted to know if she "could just drop them off for a couple of hours, just until lunch?" I was totally blindsided. And trapped. So the boys came in and I told Peg in no uncertain terms that I would help her this time, but that it is MY Spring Break and that I would NOT be available for the rest of the week. At all. I also told her that I would bring the boys to her office promptly at noon. Why? Well, because this same time last year she dropped the boys off for "a few hours" in the morning and did not return until 5:00 pm. Seriously.

So there was my day. I dropped off my OWN children to have a day WITHOUT CHILDREN, and ended up having a day WITH CHILDREN who are disgusting little booger eating ill-mannered children at that. Good times.

The good news is that after I spend any length of time around Peg's boys, all I want to do with my OWN boys is hug them and kiss then and tell them how wonderful they are for at least a solid week. So there's my silver lining.

And I am not answering my phone all week.


*Peg's boys have been mentioned here before. They were "Situation D."