October nearly killed me...

And November doesn’t look much better.

I got trampled by kindergarten and doctor’s appointments and Michael’s business trips last month, which is why I wasn’t around much.  For some reason, the simple world of kindergarten exploded with homework and class projects at the beginning of October.  It started with the Letter Notebook, which requires Cassie to practice writing the Letter of the Week and then finding pictures that start with the Letter of the Week, which she has to cut out, paste and label in the Letter Notebook.  It’s been taking us half an hour a night to do this project – one night for practicing the letter, one night for finding and cutting pictures, and one night for the pasting and labeling.  This is ON TOP OF any other homework that walks through the door, like more practice writing on worksheets and books that she’s supposed to read for her Reading Log, plus art projects and Things She Must Bring In For Class (like an empty water bottle, a white adult t-shirt, an egg carton, etc.).  It’s been killing me to keep up with all of this.  And the ON TOP OF all this, I volunteered to chaperone field trips and co-host a class party.  Lots of work, I gotta tell ya.

But Cassie loves that I’m active in her class activities, so it’s not a bad thing.  But then I had a bunch of medical appointments ON TOP OF that.  Two of these appointments were for me – my annual pelvic exam and my annual mammogram.  These are the kinds of appointments I prefer to go to sans children, meaning I needed a sitter for Sam those mornings.  Michael was supposed to stay home those mornings so I could get to my appointments, but then he had one business trip after another and I had to keep rescheduling my pelvic exam until I finally threw a screaming fit and he told me when he was going to be home.  And then the doctor’s office called me to cancel THAT appointment because the doc had to go out of town.

I eventually did get my mammogram and my pelvic exam done, and I even got a flu shot to boot (my gynecologist gave it to me, a nice little bonus to go with the speculum up my… well, you know).  Then I had to get flu shots for the kids and guess what?  The pediatrician was booked solid on flu shots.  She does them on specific days and you HAVE to have an appointment.  I finally ended up calling in to have Cassie looked at for something else, a rash on her face, and the receptionist asked if I wanted to get flu shots for both kids then, since we’d all be there.

“Was this all I needed to do to get a flu shot for my kids, have one of them come up with some weird skin ailment so I could make an appointment to bring them in?”

“Yes,” the receptionist replied.  “They’re going to be here anyway, so…”

So next fall, I’m going to scribble all over Cassie’s face with a green marker to give her another ‘rash’ and get our flu shots again that way.

Beyond that, I’ve been overloaded with work.  You can read about that at my work blog – http://www.helenehmadden.com.  I’m working to cut back in preparation for the holidays.  Don’t quite know how I’ll do that yet, but I will.

Meanwhile, it’s story time now with Sam.  I’ll blog some more later, I promise.

Unless November eats me alive as well.

Writing and Self-Indulgence

I apologize for cross posting this to here and to my writing blog, but I’ve been slammed for time, and I need to get a blog post up here anyway I can. 

I’m feeling horrifically self-indulgent today, or rather I feel horrific because I was self-indulgent today.  The local schools were closed today for the election, so I didn’t have to worry about getting to the bus stop by 3:15 to pick up my oldest daughter.  She stayed home with me and her little sister, who had a temperature of 102 degrees.  The youngest acted fine most of the day, but because of the fever she actually took an afternoon nap for the first time in almost six months.  A very loooooooong nap.

With the youngest sound asleep and the oldest happily drawing and playing in her room all afternoon, I was actually able to enjoy my old work schedule of three uninterrupted hours of work today.  I handled a few e-mails, battled it out with a horror story that refused to settle on a plot line, and wrote over one thousand words in that time.  I didn’t focus on the story that was on my to-do list for today – I was too obsessed with fixing and then writing the horror story.  But I definitely got something accomplished.

And I feel horrible about it.

Should I have knocked off at 3PM like I usually do on school days and spent more time with my eldest daughter?  I know she was perfectly happy in her room, working on an art project for her kindergarten class (an art project that is due on Thursday and was going to require a lot her time to complete anyway, I might add).  I just can’t believe I had so much time today to write!  I haven’t had such a luxury in ages, three uninterrupted hours.  At best, I manage to get an hour in the afternoon to write most days because one child comes home from school at 3 and the other refuses to go down for a nap anymore.  I need this kind of time to write, and my taking it and using it didn’t hurt anybody, so why do I feel so crappy about having spent the whole afternoon doing what I love?

Maybe I ate too much chocolate today.  Damn Halloween candy…

But seriously, I need to do something about my work schedule, about my daily schedule.  I need to find a way to get back those three hours of writing time, yet still tend to the needs of my kids.  It simply kills me that I can’t do this anymore.

Anybody else feel horribly guilty when they get time like this to work?