A Working Mom's Nightmare

There are days when the carefully oiled machine, known as your plan breaks down. According to the plan kids go to school in the morning and get back in the afternoons. The plan does not allow for hiccups, or at least for the plan to work as streamlined as one would prefer, we would want things to follow our expectations for everything to roll smoothly day after day, after day.

Unfortunately, life tends to be a little bit less than smooth, and with each child multiplies the risk for those unfortunate events of your plan ending up going sideways, just for the merry reason that the risk of something happening tends to be directly proportional to the number of children you have, and the more kids, the less control over events surrounding them.

There are smart people whom decided to stay living close to their parents, and have those wonderful grandparents that some of us only dream of, you know the grandma-grandpa-auntie-uncle that jumps in when needed, or maybe you were smart enough to hire help, and then there are us. The ones who depend on the village they have built around them, but mainly, we depend on sheer luck.

"When I grow up, I want to be a real estate agent, because I want to follow mom's foot steps. And it is interesting, and cool, and you look at homes, and go in them. That's why I want to be a real estate agent." 

According to the plan, there are no sick kids on Mondays, or especially on days that you have something you, or your employer might consider important. According to the plan, there are no broken bones, no tonsillectomies, no stitches or concussions for that matter. However, at least in my family the plan is quite faulty, and you may even consider it broken as with three children the likelihood for any of those events to happen for at least one child seems to be quite great.

More often than we would want, we have that family powwow in our kitchen around 7 am. The one where both of us are laying our calendars side by side trying to decide if my meeting is more important than his, and questions asked are; can you take the morning or would you mind dragging him or her with you to the office, and there have been times when the thermometer has been used at least fifteen times within ten minutes just to make super sure, that the fever did not magically disappear. You know, one should never give up hope!

Last Monday it was a dog bite. This week it was an allergic reaction caused by the antibiotics given for the dog bite. We shall see what happens next week. So today I have been frantically driving between my office, the pediatrician’s office and our home. Luckily, he was able to take the morning shift, so I could make it to my training as I missed it a week ago. After my training, we spent a good hour at the doctor’s from where, I dragged my absolutely miserable daughter to the office for a meeting regarding the open house I will be hosting for one of our senior brokers both tomorrow and this coming Saturday; new construction in the heart of Hollywood Hills, Woodinville (MLS#: 1119196). We toured the home and I drove home to give my child the rest she needs.

"When I want to grow up, I want to be a veterinarian. One reason is that I like animals. Another reason is I care about animals, and animals are cute, and animals help the world. Now you know why I want to be a veterinarian."

I do not have grandparents, or any other relatives for that matter, around. But I do have my village of friends and neighbors, and without them I would be in trouble. In our neighborhood there is always someone whom is able to help when in pickle, and today I had one of my awesome ladies walk the boys home from the bus, as it would have been borderline cruel to drag my little girl back in the car to go pick up the lads.

What happens tomorrow, we don’t know yet, but I do have a lingering feeling that she won’t be going to school either, and yet, we will both need to work once again. 

Sometimes it's not the kids but Martha that's sick.