Early in April I apparently decided things weren’t complicated enough in my life so I came down with pneumonia. It started off as a fever and a cough. The same thing the princess had a few weeks earlier. The thing that she kicked in four days. But since I didn’t slow down, on day six of the fever I found myself in urgent care with a temperature of 103 that nothing could contain, a splitting headache, shivering like crazy with blue lines going up the inside of my arms (like hypothermia) but my skin boiling to the touch. The nurse, bless her little ding bat heart, asks me if I was sure I had a fever. And then when she took it, she delighted told me I was her highest fever of the day. There must have been a contest. Wonder what I won. The doc was less dingbatty, thank goodness. Then just when I thought I might live (thank the gods for antibiotics) I came down with a good old fashioned head cold. Bother. Like I have time for this. But really, I hadn’t been sick like this in a long time and it was miserable.
When the doc was diagnosing the pneumonia, she said to get plenty of rest and don’t be under stress. What? Duh, but really, how am I supposed to pull this off?. Especially when I’m the only parent around during the week. But I managed to get rest, keep up with the minimum amount of paid work so as not to be fired, take care of the kids (thank god my stepmom was here on spring break), and make a costume.
(Yikes. Did she just say ‘make a costume?’ Oh yes she did. )
I sew, certainly. Have for just about ever. But I don’t do it very often and when I do it takes me a bit to get in the sewing grove. Well, this costume was for the Herald role in Cinderella so it was this medieval looking thing with leggings, an underblouse and a tunic. The Tunic. AKA The Tunic From Hell. It was quite complicated for one of my limited sewing abilities. However, frustration aside (and there was quite a bit of yelling and screaming and seam ripping), I pulled it off and the prince had one heck of a nice herald costume. And I was all strutty and stuff….yeah, I sew, I’m cool.
Anyhow, so just about the time I started feeling really well, we were into the show week for his play and show weeks are killer. Late night rehearsals, me working stage crew, the kids missing school, showing up late for school, me trying to squeeze work in around all this….the standard drill. But alas, we are done for two whole weeks until he auditions for The Wiz.
We just won’t mention that in less than two weeks, his barbershop chorus has their annual show. The one where he isn’t even qualified to sing 4 of the songs (ahem, he’s got a bit of work to get done). The one where he came home from rehearsal one night all proud that he auditioned for a speaking part (there is a little skit around the singing) and he got a speaking role (those men just don’t know how to tell him NO) but thank the gods it is only three lines but he still has extra rehearsals now for the next two weeks to get ready.
You know, it is extremely hard being a low energy mom raising a high energy boy.
In the midst of all this, I’ve decided the kids will be better off in a different school. (This is where I’ve strayed a bit from the ‘staying out of stress’ order). They shadow (frou frou private school term for seeing if they fit in…does this happen in public schools?) tomorrow and the next day at a different school. But really, this discussion is better saved for another time because I’m simply exhausted from thinking about what we’ve just done and what we’ve got going on.
Nitey.
