One of Those Days

It's been one of those days where right now is the first time the tushy has had contact with chair all day. I drove on a third grade field trip today, forgetting at the time that it was one of those all-day affairs. This was my second time on this particular field trip, and I suddenly remembered that it wasn't one of those sit-back-and-be-entertained trips, oh no. Parents had to help with the fieldtrippin' learning process. Okay, deep sigh, but I'll get the freelance work done later.

Except that later, DH tells me that he has a conference call with Hong Kong (yeah, he the kind of job that requires lot of conference calls to Hong Kong, or Egypt or Rotterdam) and I would have to take T to soccer practice. The only time we had between school-fieldtrip and soccer practice was taken up with scooping the guts out of unsuspecting pumpkins because Halloween was a'comin and we didn't have any other time between now and then.

After an hour of sitting on the sidelines and freezing the aforementioned tushy almost off, we made a quick dash to the taqueria for burritos, because cooking dinner just did not fit in there anywhere. DH was on yet ANOTHER conference call after dinner, so I had to sit and listen to T read for half an hour before bed.

It was while I was sitting on his bed, arm wrapped around my eight year-old that I noticed how small his hands are. I can still wrap my entire hand around his little one, and I realized that in just a year or two his hand would be as big as mine, and these little, quiet moments would be over. Right then, he stopped reading, leaned up against me and said "Thanks for coming on the field trip today." I gave up.

This is why we budget and work around my spotty freelance career and even spottier book sales - so I can go and kill an entire day with 20 third graders learning about the history of our little town (I got to run the mock-bucket brigade). So what if I have to stay up until 1am to meet my Friday deadline? I got to go on a field trip, gut pumpkins, watch a soccer scrimmage and listen to my kid read a book. I can't imagine time better spent.

On this date: In 1929, the Stock Market crashed.