Not a very notable title – but that’s where I am.
I work outside of the house very minimally. Six hours a week – and I’ve got an experienced, Red Cross certified babysitter just hanging around the house for the most part, so she babysits. Added bonus that Julie goes to camp, so really, it’s just a matter of Jessie and Sam not killing each other two mornings a week. Marc works five minutes away, and can come home immediately if they call and need him.
Except that this week, Jessie is in Boston at the Model UN camp. A fabulous, wonderful experience for her – but it means that she isn’t home to babysit.
Yesterday, Sam was home by himself, which isn’t a big deal, in and of itself. He LIKES staying home alone, or at least he always did in the past. Marc had an on-line class he had to take and was completely unavailable for the morning. I ended up coming home early, and we switched things around. If Sam doesn’t like being home alone, then we can’t leave him home alone. My mother would come out today, Marc would leave work early three days this week to pick Jessie up in Boston. We could DO this.
Except… Marc is taking an on-line class this week, and had to be at work, logged in and focused by 10:00. Total miscommunication – he thought I knew that, I had no idea and failed to tell my mother she had to be here by nine thirty – there was a ten minute window where Sam was going to be home alone. I was already at work, and Marc waited as long as he could, but had to leave. My mother was ten minutes away, and would be here – in theory, it should have been FINE.
Of course, that was the ten minutes where Lucky had to have his seizure.
Sam was a disaster after that. He kept calling me on the phone, begging me to come home, sobbing and pleading with me. Shut himself into my bedroom, and refused to talk to my mother.
It was like a perfect storm, where everything combined to completely wreck my little guy. Normally, his older sister is here, and normally, Marc is available to run home at a moment’s notice. Normally, my dog doesn’t have a huge seizure. But all of those things combined and poor Sammy…
Everything is fine now. Lucky is fine, as he always is after a seizure. Julie had a lovely morning hanging out with her Grammy, Marc finished his course, and my mother was able to bring back Jessie’s glasses that she’d left over her house last week. But it really reinforced how impossible it is for me to be working.
When I’m at work – it’s blissful. I LIKE my job. I have fun when I’m there, I like the people I work with, and we need the income. But… five phone calls with Sam having a full-blown panic attack doesn’t make for a productive work day.
I feel stuck – like I need to work, and I could work. I could so easily up my hours and be bringing home a paycheck that would make a huge difference for us – but even if we discount today (because really, this was a situation where absolutely everything went wrong), I still need to BE here. I need three or four hours each day when I can homeschool him. And those hours can’t be when I’m picking up at junior high or elementary school, dropping off at religious school, trying to get dinner/bath/homework done – I need to be able to focus on teaching him. He can’t work independently yet – he can’t even see well enough to do that.
And I’ve got the worst damn headache.
1 ping