Thursday Do Your Worst

I think Thursday has a vendetta against me.  The last few Thursdays in a row have been bloody awful, and this one is shaping up to be a doozy too.  This is such a shame.  I’ve always been a huge fan of Thursdays in the past.  In fact, if I’d have ever been forced at knifepoint to answer questions for a consumer questionnaire on which day of the week was my favourite, it would always have been Thursday, up to now.

Now though, I am rapidly going off it.

Oscar goes to nursery on Thursdays and Fridays usually, which means days off for mama.  I am very keen on this.  I have several projects on the go which run much more smoothly when there isn’t a midget assistant involved.  I treasure my Thursday and Fridays.

Last night when Jason got home at stupid o’clock he said that he would not be able to pick Oscar up from nursery after work, as he would also be working until stupid o’clock then too.  This meant I would have to do it.

This posed a problem.  This is the week of social madness as far as the children are concerned. Tallulah had a Brownies Christmas party to go to on Monday night; on Tuesday night they had their friends round for tea; on Wednesday Tallulah had her school panto and Tilly had her Christingle service; on Friday we have more friends round for tea; on Saturday Tallulah is going to the Brownie panto.  It’s busy.

Thursday is the busiest day of all.  It was to start with Tallulah’s school play, and we all know how I feel about those.  Then I had to dash off and run errands, including buying supplies because it is the last karate lesson of the year tonight, and there will be a party where the kids must supply their own food and drink.  Tilly has a half day today, something to do with a staff pantomime.  She needed picking up, then she didn’t need picking up because she was going to a friend’s birthday party.  Then it emerged she would need picking up from the birthday party but that it didn’t finish until seven.  Unfortunately karate starts at six fifteen.  Even more unfortunately, tonight is the night of Tallulah’s school disco, which starts at seven and goes on until eight fifteen.  Karate doesn’t finish until quarter to eight and is in the next village to the school, so involves a car drive to get to. 

If I also had to fit in a trip to pick up Oscar from nursery in Glenfield, this would just make life impossible.

As it is, I have had to rescind Tallulah’s ticket for the school disco, as there is no way on God’s green earth I could get her to the disco and to karate.  Tilly has had to curtail her partying ways and is to be ready, on the doorstep of her friend’s house, wearing full karate kit at six on the dot, or we will be doomed.

Just thinking about Thursday has been giving me a headache, and meant that I have had to employ some of Jason’s project management skills coupled with ibuprofen and a strong espresso.

I thought about cancelling nursery.  Then I thought about the fact that this would mean a) taking Oscar with me to Tallulah’s nativity play, and b) not having any free time again. Neither of these things sounded very desirable.  I decided Jason could take him, but that I would pick him up at about two o’clock in the afternoon, thus giving myself at least three hours off. 

Brilliant.

Then it all went to hell in a bucket when Oscar’s temperature shot up and he just burst into tears at bed time.  This cold he has is both persistent and annoying, and we are all fed up of it now, most of all him. He is really anguished about the fact that he cannot taste anything properly and eating is now a chore, where it was previously a pleasure. He keeps asking me for food, and then crying when he tries it, because it doesn’t taste right.  Bless him.

So, the decision on nursery was taken out of my hands.  At this rate he will be lucky if he gets to the karate party as well, and I doubt if there will be any trip to nursery tomorrow either.

Bugger.

This morning he looked wan and miserable. His lip wobbled when I said he had to come with me to see Tallulah’s play.  To be honest, I did not blame him.  I was doing a lot of internal lip wobbling myself.

I had a plan. 

We rang granny, who was in, and not planning on going out.  We asked her if she wouldn’t mind having a small, limp, grey boy to sit with her for an hour.  She said she could think of nothing nicer.  She is a good granny.

Oscar perked up.

I dropped Tallulah at school, zoomed to granny’s house, dropped the boy off, made fourteen phone calls in a ten minute time span, zoomed to school and watched the play.

Actually, much to my amazement, it wasn’t bad at all.  In fact, and I whisper this, because it will definitely take the tarnish off of my grinchy reputation, I actually quite enjoyed it.  It was a nativity play, which is quite unusual these days, as they tend to go for more modern things involving break dancing and children dressed as pine air fresheners as a rule.  It was also done as a promenade performance, which stopped me reading my book, but in a good way.  We started off in the hall with all the kids singing, then Mary and Joseph took us on a tour of the school with each classroom kitted out as a way station on their journey to Bethlehem and each class singing a song to tie in with the theme of their classroom.

It was clever, and quite fun.

I was stunned. It has taken eleven years of parenting for me to go to one production that was worth the trip.  I do not ask for more. I realise I have more than most parents have in a lifetime. I will retire quietly now and relish the novelty.

Tallulah made a lovely donkey, and it’s not often I get to say that.

After that I picked the boy up, much to his horror, and it has been battle stations all day.  I have been hither and yon, yon and hither, and have just flitted home to empty shopping bags before setting off for the next lap.

Of course, because it is an insanely busy day, it has now decided that it will snow.  The sky is grey, the ground is wet and all morning it was pouring with rain, until an hour ago we had sleet, and then the sleet gave way to great, fat flakes of snow.  The temperature is falling like a stone, and despite the non appearance of the log man for the third time in as many days, I may have to actually crack and use my emergency log pile.

This will make it fun this evening when I have to navigate to Tilly’s friend’s house, which I have never been to before, and which is in the next town. I am taking the sat nav and putting tape over the children’s mouths.  I hate it when they help me find places.  They usually find places, they are just not the places I need to be.

Still, we have got this far with Thursday and I am still standing. I am made of stern stuff. It is all those vegetables my mum made me eat when I was a child I am sure.  I will survive.

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