The day after
Holidays are a great thing. Getting away from the everyday grind, no responsibilities, your own time schedule, do what you want when you want. It’s the day after holidays that always terrifies me. Back to reality. When everything hits the fan.
My husband and I just spend 7 glorious days in Mexico. It took me 5 of those 7 to unwind, that left 2 days to wonder what I would be going home to. But it was fun. Just my honey and me. We hadn’t done something like this for a long time. No talking about the kids, bills, work (there were definitely some long silent moments!) Sitting on the beach, wandering through markets, hiking up hills; we had a great time. Always, though, there was the dread of the day after. You know the day, the day your kids make you pay. You’ve left them when they didn’t want to be left. Gone somewhere wonderful and didn’t take them and they will surely make you pay.
I was hoping, living in a dream land, that we could, for just one day pretend that we were the perfect family. No fighting about who gets what, no snarly remarks when asked to do something, just wonderful pleasantries exchanged among us all. “Dear mother, how wonderful you look. So glad to hear you had such a marvellous time while we were at home.” “Yes father, I shall do exactly as you say. Can I get you anything else? Glass of water? “ But that is not at all how it went down.
We arrived home at midnight to find three of our five children still awake. This was wonderful, I was so glad to see them. My daughter takes one look at me “Were you wearing your sunglasses all week? Your tan looks ridiculous!” Of course wails of laughter ensue as she points at my racoon eyes gleaming back at her. My son grabs the bags “What’d you bring me?” he says in a rather demanding voice. I rifle through my bags and pull out a t-shirt with a Chihuahua sitting on a toilet and the phrase “No more stinkin’ tacos” printed in very large letters. “That’s it?! What about jewellery, silver, bling?” Of course I am thinking what happened to my angelic children. My children would never behave as ungrateful hooligans. I had had enough, wanted to go to bed so I told them they need to get ready as well, it’s now 12:30 a.m. and in seven short hours the other two will be awake. I’m sure their welcome home will be filled with “I love you mom” and “ I missed you sooooo much.” I’m sure, so very sure that it will be a better homecoming in the morning.
7:35 a.m. I wake up to screaming and gnashing of teeth. “Who ate my candy???!!!” tears and yelling followed. “Taylor did it!!!” was screamed through heavy sobs and a river of tears from my five year old. My seven year old was trying to consoled her, bless her heart. “Taylor did not eat your candy. Be quiet you’ll wake up mommy!” She got that right. I walked into their room and was greeted with a flood of hugs and a “What did you bring us?” Okay they were one up on their older siblings. My fifteen year old walks up the basement stairs sees his littlest sister grabs her, hangs her upside down until she screams. All the while I am asking him to please put her down, she so obviously doesn’t like this kind of treatment. I am informed that he is not doing anything as the five year old squeals from under his arm. He is simply letting her know how much he missed her. Than it dawns on me, two more families will be joining us for lunch, I have to clean up all the suitcases and dirty laundries littered about the floor, make something edible from our pre-grocery shopped cupboards and get myself dressed all in the next 2 hours. Thank God I have such agreeable children whom I only had to nag, bribe, and threaten (all not very good parenting strategies! But when you’re desperate one can stoop pretty low!) for one and a half of those two hours.
Lunch went well, we enjoyed seeing our friends. Of course when my 5 year old muttered a profanity at the dinner table I was shell shocked and wondered where in the world she had ever heard a word like that. I wondered to myself what else this day could possibly bring. And I was not to be disappointed. By 3:00 p.m. my 10 year old son had a wicked high fever and was feeling quite sick. He was coughing, vomiting and generally quite a mess. At 5:00 p.m. I ran out the door to visit a friend I had not seen in a long time. Maggie (my gps) is an idiot and got me completely and utterly lost in the north end of Winnipeg. I finally found the place, brought no money for parking, the hotel had no change for the meter, forgot what room she was in to which the hotel manager informed me that he could not, would not tell me what room she was in but could connect me with her via telephone in the other room. Would I like that? I think to myself that of course I would like that, I haven’t been tramping about Furby Street for nothing. Just let me talk with her! We have a wonderful time! I love hanging with her. I leave for home at 10:00p.m. without a single incident! Maybe, my luck is turning! I arrive home to find my son burning with fever and puking. I watch the last 5 minutes of a football game and find out that the Saskatchewan Roughriders had a worse day then I did. I, at least, could have used the thirteenth man.
