Do Over!

Have I used my do-over for the month yet?  If not, I’d like to enact a do over for this day.

Luckily nothing really major happened, it was just little annoying stuff all day.  Sheesh

We started out being late leaving this morning (Okay, technically we are late most mornings but there is late and then there is LATE) and I had forgotten to fix the boys anything for breakfast.  They ended up eating Hostess sugar donuts (or the little powdered sugar mini-donuts for those of you who don’t speak 3 year-old) in the car.  I’m sure you’ll be surprised but the boys didn’t find this a bad thing.  Obviously we had them in the house so we were planning to eat them, but I normally try to feed them something healthy in addition instead of just handing the boys a bag of sugar donuts in the car and saying eat. :)

I get to work and about noon I get a phone call from K’s school.  Apparently something happened to my payment and I had to go in that day to straighten it out or he couldn’t attend the rest of the week.  Ugh.  About 15 minutes after that call D’s school calls to tell me that he is acting up and thinks it is funny when he gets in trouble (the 3 year-old thinks it is hilarious when you threaten to punish him, what a shock) so I had to talk to him on the phone to try to get him to calm down.

After work I drive to the administration office for K’s school (before getting either child, I’m not a total idiot) to straighten out the billing problem and to sign him up for care next week.  Why would I have to sign him up for care for next week you ask instead of it being part of summer?  Apparently summer only goes until August 31st.  The fact that school doesn’t start (if it even starts on time) until September 9th is irrelevant.  So instead of being able to register him like I did for summer I physically have to go down to the office and pay in advance for care next week and September 8th.   Of course, I still have to sign him up, and pay for, his care during the school year.  That is an entirely different packet of forms that I picked up while I was there.  If I find a pot of gold between now and next week I’ll even be able to pay for it. 

Oh, the billing problem?  The person in charge of child care was gone for the day already, the person at the desk looked at my account and said “It doesn’t show you owe anything” so she called accounting.  After being on the phone for 15 minutes with accounting and me hearing her say things like ‘so you don’t know why she was sent here either?’, ‘you don’t show a balance owing?’, etc. it is finally decided that something must have happened with the payment method I was using and they had removed K from the program, which is why no one could find a balance owed. I paid for the week, got a receipt (so that I can prove to them I paid when I drop him off tomorrow) and then went on my way.  If you are going to call me down there and threaten to remove my kid from care can someone at least know why the first time I ask?

After 30 minutes there (they were busy and as you can see my problem was not easily solved) I was finally able to get on my way to get the boys.  I pick up D (who told me ‘I was good today’) and head over to get K.  I ran into the same construction traffic I ran into yesterday, the traffic that made me have to reschedule the appointment the boys had in Bellevue because I was going to be almost 45 minutes late.  Why don’t I go a different way you ask?  Well, I will tomorrow.  Today however I was hoping it was late enough that they were done (they weren’t) and frankly the time it takes to back track to get to another road that takes me where I need to go and the time I sit in construction (20 minutes for less than 1 mile) are about the same.  I’m definitely taking the other way tomorrow though.  I’d rather be moving than just sitting there watching the clock.

I finally do reach K’s school and there is a bright yellow sign on the sign-in table saying “HEAD LICE – Your child may have been exposed to head lice……”  Really!  Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew.  So now I am all freaked out, I checked both the kids hair while I was buckling them into the car at K’s school, my head and body is all itchy every time I think about it and I am just generally paranoid that the boys and I will get lice.  EWWWWWWWW!

I had a PTA committee chair meeting tonight that started at 6p.  I finally got to K’s school to pick him up at 6p.  So much for feeding them dinner before I left. 

Once I got on my way to the meeting I end up stuck in the same construction back up as before.  As I sat there trying to figure out why the way I was going was also slow (it was perpendicular to the other backup I was in) I realized that in order to try and relieve the congestion on the main road they have cycled the lights so that the way I am going misses one cycle (so people to the left go, people to the right go, people across go, repeat and then we go) and in addition they timed the light so that it was literally less than 20 seconds long.  I counted.  The worst part, in regards to frustration level, I didn’t even need to sit there for the 20 minutes I did.  I had read the directions wrong and the turn I needed was right before the backup began.  So not only did I sit but then I had to circle back.

Tomorrow I have a Cub Scout Leader meeting at 6:45p and I want to run to Lynnwood to buy this shampoo where I used to get the kids hair cut.  It is supposed to have Rosemary and other stuff in it that naturally repels lice.  I’m hoping the traffic gods will be with me so that I can get the kids, drive to Lynnwood, fix them dinner and then get to my meeting.

You know what, I just reread this and I don’t want a do over.  It is 10p, every one survived and I’d rather not relive this day at all.