supervising from the couch: Leaving NYC

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Leaving NYC—Rough Re-entry

Thursday doesn't really count as a day in NYC, since it was just a taxi ride to the airport, followed by hours of travel.

We landed around 4:30 p.m., and made it home by 5:00 p.m. There was about an hour of hugs and I-missed-you-so-much bliss. The souvenirs were a big hit, and it felt good to be home.

Then, at 6:00 p.m., Rob left for the Utah game (that's the whole reason we didn't stay for the weekend) and everything melted down. They all had homework they'd left until that night, there was unfinished piano practicing, and I had to scrounge up some dinner. No one was using their inside voices, and Ellie kept covering her ears and crying for everyone to be quiet. Soon it was obvious that her ears hurt, which almost certainly meant an ear infection. Because we have new insurance, I had to figure out where I could take her, tell all the other kids to put themselves to bed, and head to urgent care. Yep, an ear infection. By the time we stopped at the pharmacy, it was way past bed time for both of us. Long day.

Waking up to 14 loads of laundry didn't help. Plus I had a gospel doctrine lesson to prepare, court of honor to plan, PTA and room mom activities coming up, and a new calling as Relief Society secretary. Thank goodness at least for General Conference weekend!

I knew I needed to hurry and document our trip so I could remember that it was worth it, in spite of the trouble it is to get away and then recover from an adventure like that. And it was. Jane Austen nailed it though, when she said,

"There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort!"

It was good to go, and even with a rough re-entry, it's good to be back home.

1 comment:

mks said...: i have been loving all of your nyc posts. it makes me want to go back! um, please don't say that we didn't need to bring you extra spudnuts when you gave us a backpack. i think we need to give you 100 plates of spudnuts for that! we will put it to good use. besides, the please take 2 was directed to a few specific people who ate 10+ last year. so we were happy to give you more!; October 22, 2012 at 11:27 PM

Post a Comment

here's the story:

I was interviewed for a newpaper article about kids and sleep, and quoted as saying something like "when I'm tired, I feel like supervising from the couch." Ever since, it's been our catch phrase for slacker parenting. Ironically, I only had one child at the time and we were practically attached at the hip. Now that I have four older kids, they spend chunks of time playing without even the benefit of me watching from the couch. However, I do try to come running if it sounds like there might be blood. Somehow they have all thrived in spite of me.