I'll tell you what I want to know, though, and it's the age-old complaint of housewives and homemakers everywhere: how do I get my menfolk to understand that just because I don't have a paying job doesn't mean I don't WORK?!
Here's my day yesterday, the first day of school:
Up at 5:30 a.m. to make my husband breakfast (grits and orange juice, don't ask me why he likes them), and to make sure he has everything he needs to get out the door.
Drive my husband to work at 6:15 a.m. (Other car is in the shop right now.)
Arrive back home just in time to take our roommate, Sean, to work at 7. Naturally, his job is a half-hour drive from the house. Stop for a quick bagel and soda in the area.
Arrive back home AGAIN just in time for Quinn to wake up and want breakfast. Change the baby, make the baby fruit and oatmeal, spoon the fruit and oatmeal more-or-less into the baby's mouth. Then wash the baby and dress the baby, because he's going to have to run all my other errands with me.
Time to wake Nicholas, whose school day mercifully begins at 12:10 (they have morning and afternoon classes, with an evening lab available if you need extra help). Nag him unmercifully to get him to eat, shower (with extra emphasis on washing his hair, since he never seems to), get dressed, gather his things, etc. Extra time out to re-sew hole he manages to rip in crotch of jeans.
Drive Nicholas to school and get him sorted out with the registrar. Unbelievably, Nicky's new school had a FIRE last week, which gutted half the buildings, including the main admin offices. So I find out that while Nicky's in the computer, all his paper hard copies, including his medical release and shot records, were lost in the fire. Gotta redo all of that.
Arrive home and prepare lunch for Quinn and myself. Stuff the baby, gobble a few bites myself, change the baby, clean the baby, repeat as needed.
Pick Joe up at 2:45 p.m. and drive him to blood donation center, where he has an appointment.
Drive from blood donation center to Sean's work and pick him up, arriving about 3:40 p.m.
Drive from Sean's work to Nicholas's school and pick him up at 4:30 p.m.
Drop Nicholas and Quinn off at home and take Sean along to pick Joe up at the blood donation center.
Stop at Holiday Inn near donation center to pick up event planning packet, because I'm the chairperson of the committee to plan a party my social club is having next March.
Stop at supermarket on the way home to pick up milk, a package of ham, and a bell pepper so that I can make jambalaya and cornbread for dinner.
Arrive home and begin chopping vegetables for jambalaya while the menfolk flop down in front of the computers and the television "to rest", citing their hard days at work.
Cook jambalaya, bake cornbread, and chop fruit for fruit salad (I asked Sean to do it a couple of days ago, and it never happened).
Serve the adult and semi-adult men their food, and begin feeding Quinlan his dinner.
To top it all off, my husband hands me a basket full of his clothes and says, "Could you make sure these get washed so I have something to wear tomorrow? I'd do it myself, but I'm so tired from working. I've got to get some sleep." Sean says, "So I guess you didn't get a chance to do the dishes, huh?" And Nicholas complains at me today that I "didn't bother" to fill out the new enrollment forms for him yet.
Well, what can I say? I had a rigorous schedule of bon bon-eating and soap opera-watching to get done, and didn't have time!
But I've always said that if one MUST have a baby at the age of 40, Quinn is the baby to have.
