If I Could Do the Day Over

'The Secret' tells you to rewind the day in your mind and recreate the moments where you felt you could do better. I've been replaying yesterday in my mind and I'm not quite sure where to start.

Kids. In a word, that is where things went wrong yesterday. Okay ... now to put The Secret's spin to it, how could I have acted or reacted to make things go better?

I sit and ponder that. I know that I should always take several deep breaths before I lose my cool. Yes that's it. I should have breathed. A lot.

I didn't even lose my temper very much. Well maybe I did.

In one (of many) instances, a toy got broken. There was positively no way this toy could have been broken unless it was sheer determination to break it for the sake of breaking it. There was a 5 year old and 3, under 3 years old in the room at the time. I jumped to conclusions and I didn't out and out accuse anyone, but I looked my newest daycare arrival in the eye and told him that there is no need for toys to get broken. If that starts to happen, the toys will disappear.

I had too many kids yesterday. Thursdays are a day where I have a full house all morning, it quietens down in the afternoon and more often than not, all (except one) of my morning crowd is gone by snack time. Thursday is the day where I have a crazy amount of after school kids. Thursday is a day that 2 families have chosen to come for one day a week. Often, the ebbs and tides of the ever changing schedules even out the kid load on a Thursday and it is never as busy as I anticipate that it will be. Not this Thursday. Not by a long shot. All of the kids that were here for lunch, were here for snack. Plus a truckload of after schoolers.

Kurt was sick yesterday. He looked at me as he was leaving for school and I knew that he should be staying home. I needed him to walk the kids to school. I really, really, really needed him to pick up my kindergartners after school. I said, "Give it a try ... you may be okay when you get there." He wasn't. He was about 15 minutes into his day at school when I got a call from his teacher, telling me that he wasn't feeling well enough to stay at school. Could I pick him up or should they have someone drive him home? I can see the school from my house - I said that he should be okay to walk (but the teacher hesitated, not thinking he was able to walk the block back home). I could dress up the kids and pick him up but he'd still have to walk home. So he got a ride home with a teacher.

Most kids get a little bit of extra attention when they are sick. Not mine. Kurt's stomach was bothering him and he took up residence in the upstairs bathroom. Was I worried? Yes ... but not over Kurt. It was 15 minutes after lunch time and a time where mass-digestion usually warrants a revolving door scenario in the bathroom. Thankfully yesterday was not one of those days, but I asked him to please use the downstairs bathroom. The upstairs one is in constant use with my job. It was lunch time and he still wasn't feeling good at all. Was I concerned? Yes ... I was concerned about how I was going to retrieve the kids from school. Thankfully, he started feeling better a little while after he ate and got progressively better as the afternoon wore on. Whew!! He could pick the kids up after school, after all!

I was angry at myself for being so cold-hearted to my own child, who wasn't feeling up to par. I was berating myself for being in this situation in the first place. I shouldn't need Kurt so much! I have taken on too much.

Then, I have parents who are on maternity leave, going on maternity leave and on sick leave. Instead of breaking the ties here altogether, they are bringing or planning to bring their children one day a week or one hour a week. All this does for me is add extra stress to those days and restricts my ability to replace their lost income with a full time child. I must say something. This is something that I have allowed to happen.

The one thing that I felt good about was conquering one of 'the mountains' I wrote about yesterday morning. A long, laborious, tedious and totally boring job related to my bookkeeping was complete at last. I triumphantly handed the completed job over to her at the end of my day. And what did she tell me? That this was not even half of the job. There is at least this much, or more forthcoming. Talk about feeling deflated!!

Kurt and I had a 'date' to go shopping after everyone left. He was feeling totally back to normal by this time and we were going ahead with our shopping plans. I had a long list of things I needed. I found clearance sales in the toy aisles so I started shopping for my next round of gifts for the kids and some toys for the house to help us through this long, long winter with some new diversions. I spent more time and money than I did on my Christmas shopping. I am not exaggerating. It was crazy.

We got home in time for me to turn around and go to a dance at the dance studio. Kurt said, "Don't you think that you should just stay home?" I looked at the mountains of 'stuff' we had bought, that I had to put away. I looked at the snow that needed to be shovelled (again). I felt overwhelmed and exhausted. So I stayed home. Sometimes that is when you need to go out the most ... is when you feel like it the least. That is quite possibly true. But I stayed home and tended to my never ending snow.

I had words swimming in my head last night. The only reason that I didn't wander over to the computer and blog then, is because I knew that once I started ... I wouldn't stop. So I woke up at 5:30 this morning so that I would have time to release some of these words before my day officially begins.

If I could do yesterday over ... I think I would call in sick!