One man's voice Thoughts, rants and commentary of a simple man

Yesterday was the longest day of my life

Ok, maybe not the longest day of my life, but man it sure felt pretty long to me. But before we get into this longest of days I should step back a bit and get to the cause of it all.

The past few days have been somewhat rough on me because of this stupid cold I have had. Fortunately I go better pretty quick due in large part to the efforts of my wife and kids in taking care of me. Well, that type of effort seldom goes without punishment as the caretaker often takes on the symptoms of the one being cared for. So was the case with my wife. She got what I had. And she got it a lot worse than I had it.

She started showing signs of illness late Wednesday night and as of Thursday was pretty well in the heat of getting he butt kicked by this bug. What that meant for the household was that she would not be able to be a mom on yesterday and she asked me if I could take care of the Friday activities for her.

I was not able to miss work yesterday because of a meeting that has been planned for the last two weeks. What that meant was that I was now thrown headlong into the role of a single parent getting his kids to school for the day along with getting other of his kids to a place outside the home because my wife would not be able to do anything for the day. So late Thursday night I set out to make sure that Friday was taken care of. Here is what ended up being set up for Friday:

1. Wake up the kids, feed them, dress them and get out of the house by 7:30 AM.
2. Get to grandma's house in Newark by 8:00 to drop off the younger three children, one of whom was staying the night and needed a night bag packed.
3. Get to Hayward by 8:30 to drop off the older two for school.
4. Get to Concord by 9:30 to prepare for my 10:00 can't-miss meeting.

Now there was a little more to it than that. If you look real close at that list above there is no provision for getting my kids home from school. See that was a little more complex because their school does not start until 9:30 and it is against the rules to be at school and not be in a class room. So what I set up for the kids was:

1. Get to school at 8:30 and go to the early math class room. Sit there quietly until it is time for their classes to start at 9:30.
2. Go to class at 9:30. Learn like champions.
3. After school find a particular parent who was going to take them to her house.
4. Wait at this particular parent's house until another parent comes by to pick up her kids and my kids, then take my kids to yet another parents house from where my kids will be brought home.

When all was said and done I was able to get all of the morning activities done and get to work a little after 9:00. I met with my boss who helped me set up a very aggressive schedule that pretty much commits me to a single project through mid-November (which I am ok with but hope I am not setting myself up for dropping the ball). I spent the rest of my day working on the project and got out of work a little after 5:00 PM.

I got on the road and found a message from Adriannah on my phone that she wanted all of us to come pick up the younger kids from grandma's because there was cake that she made and she wanted all of us to share some of it together. So I went home, picked up Sandi, Sarah and Bekah and hit the road to grandma's house. We had cake, mingled a bit and picked the kids up and headed home.

We got home at a little after 8:00 at which time I put some hotdogs to boil, fed the kids, ate dinner, prayed for us all and put us to bed. At about 9:30 or so I was finally able to sit down, take a breath and realize what had happened in the day.

What a day. What a long, long, longest of days. I am glad I am able to rest a little today. I totally need it.