A supermom day
Note: Results not typical. Don't try this at home. Usually my job is slow-paced and stress-free, which is fine except when it crosses over into full boredom mode, but yesterday was not one of those days.
6:30 -- Wake up, take shower. Return to bedroom to find a listless Becky sporting a fever of 101.6. Quickly negotiate with ben for me to go to work for crucial early meeting, then return home by 12:25 so he can go to work to attend HIS crucial 1:00 meeting.
7:45 -- See Sarah off on the school bus, then zip to work in a brisk 45 minutes.
8:45 -- Attend crucial meeting, return to desk and fire off memo about throwing together a quick insert into an already-printed booklet that's about to be mailed but has just become obsolete in one fairly y important detail.
9:30 -- Attend another important meeting on a totally different but important topic.
10:00 -- Huddle with uber-boss at her computer, making last-minute changes to a press release, then frantically gather some stats for a complementary piece. Both of these plus a piece are scheduled to go on the web at 3:00.
11:45 -- Hit "send" on stat document which I pulled together in record time, then dash out the door for next project: tag-team parenting.
12:30 -- Ben tells me that Becky's fever is a bit higher as he runs out the door. Get in our bed with Becky and laptop. Answer e-mails while simultaneously thinking up animals that begin with each letter of the alphabet. Also call doctor's office for advice on Becky's fever and cough (this is the 12th day that she's been ill to some degree). Nurse says she should come in. Quickly calculate that I can have Becky seen 25 minutes hence and then get back in time to be here when the bus drops off Sarah.
2:20 -- After considerable delay (in a doctor's office at the height of flu season? Astounding!) we finally see a nurse practitioner just before I'm about to use their phone to call my stepmother and hope she's home so she can go to our house and meet Sarah (I left my cell in a different jacket -- damn you, change of seasons). The verdict: more rest, Motrin and Dimetapp. Fortunately she gives us some free samples since I have to time to stop at a drugstore. But at least we have a few minutes to spare to get home -- enough time, in fact, to swing by the convenience store and pick up some eggs so I can make challah this afternoon.
3:00 -- Back home and online. E-mails are flying thick and fast. I belatedly start formatting the documents (only just now approved by the grand poo-bahs) into web pages in readiness for upload. Realize that the version of Dreamweaver on my home computer is outdated, causing some annoying issues that make it slower and harder to do this, but I soldier on. Kids climbing all over me. They are ordered to watch Spongebob Squarepants until they are glassy-eyed. Any idea of challah is out the window.
3:00 to 5:30 -- Work frantically on updating web site, hindered by own cluelessness in overwriting a file and having to do it over again. E-mails, IMs and phone calls add to the multimedia frenzy. Good thing I'm used to working in a noisy newsroom because Spongebob's primal screams in the next room are not a distraction.
5:30 -- Finally peel away from the computer to open a much-needed beer. Peruse freezer and notice a pound of hamburger and a blob of ground turkey. Realize we have no onions. Get back on computer to look for a recipe for quick meatloaf to go with the noodles requested by feverish child. Success -- thank you, Epicurious.com (it was delicious, by the way).
7:30 -- Abandon dirty dishes to put Becky to bed, then finally relax to watch a bit of TV in bed with Ben and Sarah -- the second half of the much-anticipated hourlong "Fairly Oddbaby" episode of "Fairly Oddparents," another kids' show we adults actually enjoy. iCarly and Drake and Josh? Not so much, maybe because they're for older kids and are already providing insipid examples of how to relate to the opposite sex.
6:30 -- Wake up, take shower. Return to bedroom to find a listless Becky sporting a fever of 101.6. Quickly negotiate with ben for me to go to work for crucial early meeting, then return home by 12:25 so he can go to work to attend HIS crucial 1:00 meeting.
7:45 -- See Sarah off on the school bus, then zip to work in a brisk 45 minutes.
8:45 -- Attend crucial meeting, return to desk and fire off memo about throwing together a quick insert into an already-printed booklet that's about to be mailed but has just become obsolete in one fairly y important detail.
9:30 -- Attend another important meeting on a totally different but important topic.
10:00 -- Huddle with uber-boss at her computer, making last-minute changes to a press release, then frantically gather some stats for a complementary piece. Both of these plus a piece are scheduled to go on the web at 3:00.
11:45 -- Hit "send" on stat document which I pulled together in record time, then dash out the door for next project: tag-team parenting.
12:30 -- Ben tells me that Becky's fever is a bit higher as he runs out the door. Get in our bed with Becky and laptop. Answer e-mails while simultaneously thinking up animals that begin with each letter of the alphabet. Also call doctor's office for advice on Becky's fever and cough (this is the 12th day that she's been ill to some degree). Nurse says she should come in. Quickly calculate that I can have Becky seen 25 minutes hence and then get back in time to be here when the bus drops off Sarah.
2:20 -- After considerable delay (in a doctor's office at the height of flu season? Astounding!) we finally see a nurse practitioner just before I'm about to use their phone to call my stepmother and hope she's home so she can go to our house and meet Sarah (I left my cell in a different jacket -- damn you, change of seasons). The verdict: more rest, Motrin and Dimetapp. Fortunately she gives us some free samples since I have to time to stop at a drugstore. But at least we have a few minutes to spare to get home -- enough time, in fact, to swing by the convenience store and pick up some eggs so I can make challah this afternoon.
3:00 -- Back home and online. E-mails are flying thick and fast. I belatedly start formatting the documents (only just now approved by the grand poo-bahs) into web pages in readiness for upload. Realize that the version of Dreamweaver on my home computer is outdated, causing some annoying issues that make it slower and harder to do this, but I soldier on. Kids climbing all over me. They are ordered to watch Spongebob Squarepants until they are glassy-eyed. Any idea of challah is out the window.
3:00 to 5:30 -- Work frantically on updating web site, hindered by own cluelessness in overwriting a file and having to do it over again. E-mails, IMs and phone calls add to the multimedia frenzy. Good thing I'm used to working in a noisy newsroom because Spongebob's primal screams in the next room are not a distraction.
5:30 -- Finally peel away from the computer to open a much-needed beer. Peruse freezer and notice a pound of hamburger and a blob of ground turkey. Realize we have no onions. Get back on computer to look for a recipe for quick meatloaf to go with the noodles requested by feverish child. Success -- thank you, Epicurious.com (it was delicious, by the way).
7:30 -- Abandon dirty dishes to put Becky to bed, then finally relax to watch a bit of TV in bed with Ben and Sarah -- the second half of the much-anticipated hourlong "Fairly Oddbaby" episode of "Fairly Oddparents," another kids' show we adults actually enjoy. iCarly and Drake and Josh? Not so much, maybe because they're for older kids and are already providing insipid examples of how to relate to the opposite sex.
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