This day never had a chance. I should have given up before it started. Going into it, I knew that after being up for over 24 hours, I was only going to get two hours of sleep. I should have quit while I was ahead –except I was never ahead. I knew I would be tired and have to muddle through but I had no idea what else the day had in store for me.
At our 7 a.m. shift change, one of my patients’ decided to
be all confused and less alert than before. You NEVER want to see that happen
but at shift change it is the worst. It leaves you with the feeling that you
missed some earlier sign. It’s hard to leave when things aren’t going well. I
am already terrible at leaving work behind and that’s when everyone is stable.
So…I got in my car late when there was nothing left I could do for the patient
and I headed home for my measly sleep.
I got home to see the painting crew had arrived at the house
next door. Awesome. They use their ladders and tools right by my sleeping head.
The dog that lives next door likes to serve as the foreman and order them
around. Not ideal for sleeping.
I arise feeling….well feeling like I got two hours of sleep.
I changed and then was 20 minutes late meeting my friend and her kids who had
driven for 3 ½ hours and weren’t late. The park was only 20 minutes for my
house. Pretty lame to show up late when it is on your turf. Even lamer when you
are carrying a coffee from Starbucks. That shows that not only are you late but
you also stopped and got yourself a coffee. Fortunately, she is a good friend
and I think she will love me anyway.
After the park we told the kids we would take them to frozen
yogurt…which was out of business. Oops. Before any meltdown I mentioned there
was a Sonic across the street. So, we went. Audrey convinced me that when she
got the “mini” blizzard with her Nana it was SUPER small. Too small for the average
kid. I believed her and all the kids ordered smalls…Smalls which would be
considered “large” in any other country. So, we sat and let the kid’s eat a
volcano of ice cream. Sorry Michelle Obama. I was not a good role model of your
“Let’s Move” campaign. Usually I am better but today it was “Let’s eat a week’s
worth of ice cream in one sitting and then go lay around.” I will try harder.
We managed to get home not feeling all that swell. I had the
brilliant idea of telling Audrey she could have a friend sleep over because the
boys are on a trip. Good idea. Less sleep. As she prepared, I got the slip-n-slide
out. We have this complex system to make the slide work – it takes two hoses
just to get the desired effect. As I was switching the hose from my flower drip
system to the slip-n-slide, I got tangled in the hose and bit it. Yep, tripped
and fell in my front yard. Awesome. I had only had ½ glass of wine but on 2
hours of sleep, that is about the equivalent of four I have decided. After I
looked around (thank you to the people who hid when they saw me to spare my
shame), dusted myself off and applied a Band-Aid, I went inside.
I bought a Papa Murphy’s pizza for the kids for dinner. I
had this brilliant idea that since the house was so hot, we would grill it. I
have heard this can be done. How hard can it be? Well, a couple of tips. Don’t
remove the pizza from the paper tray. It doesn’t remove well and then you have
to rebuild the pizza. Another tip, don’t cover the pizza just in foil because,
in the end, the foil just sticks to the pizza and then you have pepperoni pizza
foil. Yep. I screwed up a Papa Murphy’s pizza. The girls were kind enough not
to laugh as I called Dominos and they delivered. I even sold the girls on the
idea that you can “track” your pizza as it comes to your house. Somehow this
atoned for my total ineptness.
The day is drawing to a close I hope. I just have one kid’s
movie to get through. I think I will sit behind them so they don’t notice the
drool and head bobbing. Here’s hoping for a better tomorrow.
