Tag Archives: crazy

Truancy, kittens in heaven, and one shoe…. Oh my!

by

Today was… there are no specific words…. I guess… It could be described as any of the following:  rushed, sad, happy, crazy, hilarious, interesting, hurried, weird, upsetting, pleasing, and pretty much any other word.

It actually started yesterday when I got home from work and got the mail. There was a letter from the school saying that my daughter, Taylor, had missed eleven hours of unexcused school and that if she missed three more hours she would be charged with truancy. First off, I would never tolerate any of my children to miss school without good reason, and let’s just say that if I caught them skipping class that being in trouble for truancy would be the least of their concerns. At any rate, I became immediately upset with Taylor and jumped on her about it. She started to cry and stated that she hadn’t skipped, and she stuck to it. I was convinced of her innocence, so I reviewed the dates and learned that they all were times (all two days) when I had pulled her out of school for dental work, and once for a medication review. I normally try to schedule these for after school but we live in a small town and would lose the only open time just in driving time. At any rate, she had not skipped class and I offered her my apologies for doubting her.  In fact, I had called the school and picked her up myself, and had returned her myself on each occasion.

I then drove my girls to their place of employment only to find that they had once again lost Taylor’s paystub. Her checks get direct deposited, but hours get missed at times there and it is good to review. Always. For the second time in the last week they hadn’t bothered to print it. I has also needed some other forms filled out regarding their income and the payroll department had failed to complete the forms. I was upset, and made a call… of course, I got a voicemail. I left a long one.

When we got back we found that our poor little mama cat had lost her kittens sometime while we were at work. I had taken to helping her feed them and warming them up because she didn’t seem to be doing a very good job. She is pretty young and it was her first litter. I had prepared my daughters for this, having worked with a veterinarian for many years, and had explained that sometimes young mother cats (and some old ones) weren’t so good with the mommy business. I had placed a heater near their bed and had been supplementing their feeding, although she was feeding them some, but she must have abandoned them while we were gone and they did not survive. It was a sad thing. Even more upsetting is that between the time we discovered their unfortunate passing and went to find a box she took the babies and hid them. We went through everything. Bed frames, closets, clothes, blankets, drawers, we searched for nearly three hours and finally decided that we would try again today. Jacob informed me quite confidently that we would NOT find the babies because they had gone to heaven. Well put little man.

Madison was sick this morning, Taylor missed the school bus and came running up to my bedroom. I jumped out of bed and raced her to the next stop for the bus and got her dropped off. Then I hurried back home and found an upset Madison. She had awakened to Bella pushing on her face with her nose and crying. She opened her eyes and our dear little Bella had brought two of her babies to her and kept nudging them close to Madison, obviously upset and wanting Maddy to make it better. It was heartbreaking.  Maddy was upset, both about the loss of the kittens, and then again to waking up with dead kittens in her bed. Not a great start to our day.

I made the day even more interesting by emailing their principal with a keyboard full of anger over the notice I had received regarding my daughter. I carbon copied it to her teacher and was soon greeted with a phone call and an apology. Well that was better.  I then called and made a doctors appointment for Madison (she was not feeling well and had experienced an allergic reaction to her new medication earlier this week and really needed to be seen again.) We got in the car and got about half way to Jacob’s daycare and I got a text from Taylor. I have never been so baffled by a text in my life.

“Can you bring me shoes plz, don’t get mad I am already crying? I think I accidentally left it somewhere, maybe in the car.” (She knows I hate when they use abbreviations like plz, but I didn’t comment on it this time.)

I had no answer for her for several minutes. How does one lose a shoe on the way to school? I decided NOT to ask her. I responded that there was not a shoe in the car but I would go home and get her another pair. So, we turned around and went back to get her shoes. By this time we were running late. They are repaving the road into town so we ended up spending an extra thirty minutes going back for shoes and waiting for the pilot car to get us through the construction zone, again. Maddy was going to be late for her doctor’s appointment so I called and they pushed it back fifteen minutes. I would never be able to get Jake to daycare at this point and still get her to town on time so I skipped dropping him off and brought him with us. We got to the school where a crying Taylor came out for her shoes. A girl in school had noticed her bare feet and had made fun of her in front of the class and she was upset. Maddy was the one that got her to stop crying and laugh when she said, “Well, hey it could be worse. At least you didn’t sleep with dead kittens!” Of course, we are very sad about the kittens, and she didn’t actually sleep with them, but her words distracted Taylor and she took her shoes, dried her eyes and went back to school. We were late for Maddy’s doctors appointment.

Jacob was a treat at the doctor’s office. He is normally a good little boy, today… not so much. He was in a mood. He wanted a surgical glove to blow up into a balloon. He wanted to check his blood pressure. He wanted a sucker. He did NOT want to sit still. When I would put him back in his seat he would yell and kick and scream. Honestly I am not much of a believer in spanking but I was definitely tempted, especially when he grabbed my hair and yanked, which caught on my earring and sent it flipping across the floor. Eventually I got him to sit still without paddling his butt and he settled in. Once he realized that I was going to ignore his tantrum no matter how embarrassed I was he gave up and behaved. Thank goodness. We got Maddy situated. The low fuel light came on on my car and we sputtered our way away from the doctor’s office and  into the gas station on what I can only think were fumes…. I was now late for work.

I showed up at work, Maddy and Jacob in tow, and attempted to do billing statements and answer the phone. It didn’t go super well but eventually Maddy chipped in and we got it done. Thankfully I work in a small office with my family so having the kids there, while not preferred ALL of the time, is allowed on such occasions.

Taylor had to be at work at 4pm. She got out of school at 3:20. I got caught again in road construction and it was almost an hour to make just that fifteen minute drive home. She was late for work.

I am now home. I am sitting here blogging in order to relax for a few minutes, and so that I can one day look back at this entry and shake my head. In a few moments I am going to ransack my house, again, to find the other two kittens. Thankfully I am looking back on this day (this week, really) and chuckling to myself.

I have no doubt that you are as disgusted as I am about the lost kittens and I am completely baffled that I can’t find them. My house tends to be pretty orderly so I just can’t figure out where they are. Maybe she really did do the nature thing and consume them. I don’t know. Either way the thought of them being lost somewhere in my house unfound is, well, disgusting, and so sad. We have prepared a special little box and tears will be shed when we bury them later this evening. We did try to help the momma as much as possible and maybe we should have taken them from her and cared for them on our own, but I am a believer in natural instinct and nature taking it’s course. I couldn’t help assisting to a degree, especially when she was obviously upset during the last few days and meowing until we would come sit at her side.

Every day brings a new adventure when you have a four year old son with a superhero obsession, a daughter with migraines and working out her medication,  and a daughter that is absent minded enough to actually LOSE a shoe on her way to school. I dislike drama. A lot. Usually things go pretty smoothly in my home, because we run a pretty tight schedule. Every once in awhile I drop one of the balls that I have juggling in the air and they come tumbling down. I think, today, I dropped them all. However, I have now made a good start on collecting them and am in a surprisingly good mood.

Excuse me while I go follow the mommy kitty around to see where she might go.