Monday, January 29, 2007

I can’t be Supermom without my Super Dad

I’ve been trying to prepare myself for a busy week. I am the kind of person who needs to plan ahead to be busy. If the busy-ness catches me off guard I am a mess…I mean a BIGGER mess than usual. So I started today with an attitude of acceptance with respect to the fullness of my day/week. I thought I was ready to handle it all.

This week is Catholic Schools Week so there’s a lot going on at school. Miss M was a reader at Mass this morning so Banana and C.B. and I went to church at 8:30. I came home to make a salad for the Teacher Appreciation luncheon, and left to drop that off as soon as it was all put together. The salad drop-off coincided with Big D’s Preschool pickup time, so at least I was able to accomplish two things in one trip out. We had lunch when we arrived back home with Big D with about 15 minutes to play before going to Miss Anne’s for “Number School” at noon. Whew!

All of this and Banana (the one with the lingering cold) still had not taken a nap. This was where I start thinking about calling in some reinforcements. If Banana went down for her nap at noon she would need to be awakened at 1:15 in order to go get the boys from their class. That’s not much of a nap even for a healthy kid. What I really needed was someone to run and get the boys for me at 1:30. My first thought was to call one of my nearby sister-in-law’s. However, I had already asked one of them to get Miss M from school for me and the other one was without her car today. Second thought…my mom was off today and running errands this afternoon. I called her cell phone thinking maybe she could swing by and get the boys while she’s out and about. No answer. Then I called the other grandparents, but they were also out and I had no luck with their cell phone. I even called a neighbor I thought might come and sit at the house while I went to get the boys, but I got no answer there either.

I finally called my dad at home. I hesitated to call him because sometimes I feel like I am taking advantage of him. I truly believe he is incapable of telling me no. If I need his help with the kids, he’s there even if he has to shuffle other things in his schedule. Except golf. Golf is the one thing that will not get shuffled. I also hesitated to call him because he is already scheduled to watch my kids on Thursday during another Catholic Schools Week event. In addition, he lives the furthest away out of the people I called. The time he spent in the car coming and going would likely be even longer than the time spent here. But…

…I felt like I was out of options, so I went ahead and called my dad. My hero. He showed up here at 1:15 so I could go get the boys without waking the baby. He saved the day. The boys were excited to see him when they got home. They showed him their “homework” from class and even shared their snack with him. As I thought about this later it made me wonder if their actions might have helped to express my own appreciation. I didn't have a snack to share with him. Of course I told him "Thank you" more than once while he was here. I tell him thanks all the time, but he always gets all “Aw, shucks” on me. I often wonder if he knows how grateful I am to have him as a father. I really need to come up with a reason to get together with my dad that doesn’t involve watching my kids.

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