"No school today". For either of my kids. For Good Friday.
No school on Good Friday? Really? Who the hell gets Good Friday off? Teachers, bankers, and... who, exactly? The Catholic Church doesn't get a day off on the Friday before Easter, and you can't shutter a McDonald's on the Black Friday of Filet o' Fish sales. I know retail does a brisk business on Good Friday - at least, I think I remember that from when I worked that Staples back when I was 19, but I did my best to ignore customers that day (and every day, truth be told). But professionally? No company I've worked for had that as a holiday, and that's in the span of twenty years. Hell, the mail even got delivered today.*
* Disclaimer: Just because there was mail in the mailbox today does not, in fact, mean the USPS was working today. I was negligent on checking the mail this week, so it's entirely possible the wad of circulars and bulk mail clogging the mailbox was a day or more in arrears. That they're thinking of discontinuing delivery on Saturdays and deliver on Good Friday makes little sense... but then again, they are government employees, so what do I know?
But the point of all this mess is that the kids are unsupervised. It's not skipping work (an easy task for me at present), it's keeping them occupied. No sooner did my wife depart for work than the kids were fighting because Claire had crossed the transom into Connor's room. Oh, and that's just the beginning...
Read a story? Sure... but when my two year old wanders off in the middle of "Mr. Mischief" because hearing a Mr. Men book for the thirtieth time does lose its allure, you can't just chase after her to see what mess she's getting into, you need to keep reading because your four year old will settle for nothing less. And when the inevitable THUMP-BASH-CRASH-WAAAAAHHHH! echoes from the far end of the house, the sprint to the end of the house to cuddle and chide child #2 means child #1 is likely digging through your wife's underwear drawer because why not. Outside time? Yeah, that's an exercise in consensus building akin to having North Korea and George W Bush do their best star-belly sneeches impression, changing positions at a breakneck pace yet always remaining in opposition and teetering on the edge of full-o open hostilities. Lunch becomes a buffet. Why have a sandwich when requests can also be made for mac-and-cheese, broccoli, four kiwis, grapes, crackers, and cries for cake, ice cream and chocolate? Naptime! They don't get quality naps during the school day, so the day off has that going for it, right? Sure, if you can get both of them down. That involves sitting in the room with one of them, stroking that child's hair to try and accelerate the process of falling asleep and praying that the unsupervised child won't slam a door, sing at 110 dB, crash a bookcase or otherwise make a noise. Oh, and then sprint-tiptoeing to the other kid's room, doing a second round of sleep-assisting negotiation, and then hoping that the already-sleeping child doesn't immediately wake up and make noise that negates the insouciant nap of her sibling.
Yeah, it's been that kind of day. And since Connor was - somehow - up until 9:30 "reading to himself in bed", tomorrow promises to be just as exciting.
No comments:
Post a Comment