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Friday, June 17, 2011

It takes a village

I had to go out of town for work yesterday.  Just a day trip but it meant I had to leave early and come home after 7.  This also means that PHD had to:

1. get the kids to school
2. meet them after school, (don't forget thursday is early dismissal) and
3. take Boy 1 to tennis lessons at 5:30. 

Can anyone guess how many of these things happened?  I will give you a hint - not three of them and not even two of them.  I wouldn't give him such a hard time over this except the night before when I started listing how the day should go without me here to initiate every activity, he got really short with me, "I know, you told me, I can handle it, you know."  So this blog, which has the sole purpose of heckling him, is his own fault.

Anyway, I got home a bit early so I thought I would drive by tennis and see how it was going.  No one there.  Hmm, must have missed tennis.  I get to the house and PHD is all alone.  Good God, did he lose both of them this time?  "Where are the kids?"  "Oh, they are playing at the neighbors' house down the street.  The mom invited them for supper."  We have known these people for 10 years, at least, and he still calls them the people down the street, and the mom down the street, along with a thumb point in a southern direction.  Anyway, "the mom down the street" knew I was away today and was looking out for the boys, thankfully!  So I say, "so you decided to skip tennis, then".  Blank look. "I thought that was at 7."  No big deal, people forget stuff all the time.  I forgot to take them to soccer a couple of weeks ago.  The tooth fairy forgot to come two nights in a row and she's magic, so it can happen to anyone.  

PHD starts telling me how the day went.  The boys wanted to ride their bikes to school so they took off on their bikes and when PHD tried to follow them the pedal fell off his bike.  He was already way behind them and jumped on my bike to catch up.  By the time he reached the school, they were already in.  He had to chase them down because they had talked him into carrying their lunches.  Only there was a BBQ lunch at school that day so he didn't even have to pack a lunch.  I could have let it go but I didn't. I wanted to get to his sheepish look quickly. (Ahh, there it is.  Sooner than I expected.)  Then, he says, "I was pretty stressed because I went to Staples and got stuck in traffic so I was worried I would be home late.  I wasn't late but our two and the two from down the street and the mom (southern thumb point) were all standing on the doorstep.  She said she would take them all to her house."  (I didn't even say anything about the trip to Staples.  Pretty generous-of-spirit of me as he isn't allowed to go there due to an unexplainable addiction to office organizers.  I do try to be kind.) I said "It's early dissmissal today. Maybe you were late?"  "Oh.  right. What time do they get out?"  Doesn't matter.  We'll have to reteach you in September, anyway.  Or maybe I will start a little homeschooling in August, for PHD.  Or not - it seems a little ambitious for me.

So, as you can see, the MacFuddles do need a village to raise their children.  Thank you "mom down the street", who miraculously seems to always know where her kids are, and mine. 

I now need to go google "How to make cool father's day presents out of a file organizer." Ideas are gratefully accepted...



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Fishin Dad is laughing at the blog! He says maybe he should start blogging about his wife!