3 Hours of Vacation...

It's a day I have been looking forward to all summer; marking off the calendar patiently with X's. Today was the first day that all 3 children were going to be in school for 3 hours of the day. Hooray!!! I worked really hard yesterday grading papers, cleaning and washing clothes so that I could relish this first day of independence.

I had it all planned out. I was going to drop the kids off, wander around Hobby Lobby, come home and go for a walk, do a little pleasure reading (I have a new book on the Progressive Era that I am dying to get into), and just relax. I felt like all of my hard work over the last few weeks reorganizing the house (and of course, spending the entire summer with the kids) made me deserving of 3 hours of vacation time.

But alas, my life never goes according to plan. Here we are 3 days into the school year and illness has already taken hold of my house. Yesterday afternoon, Josh came home violently ill with a stomach bug. I quickly quarantined him to our bedroom and Lysoled/Cloroxed the house down behind him. Afraid of spreading sickness, I didn't think Maggie should sleep in our room. Will volunteered to let her sleep with him. She was so excited to sleep in his big boy bed. She snuggled up right next to him and went to sleep. A few hours later, she kept waking up crying because she had a stuffy nose. She can't suck the pacifier with a stuffy nose so she was miserable. One day in the vicinity of other kids and she already had a runny nose. Fabulous!

After a while, Maggie came to bed with me. Josh spent the night in the bathroom (bless his heart). Between her struggle to breathe and Josh's sickness, I got very little sleep. When I got up this morning, I was trying to remain positive. On the bright side, none of the rest of us woke up with the stomach bug. Small victories.

Determined to at least enjoy some of my time, I reworked my schedule for the morning. I took the kids to school, made a trip to the grocery store to get Gatorade and soup for Josh, and then went to wander around Hobby Lobby. I nixed the walk and attempted to read. I was so tired, I didn't get 3 pages into the book before I was asleep on the couch. After a 20 minute power nap, I made me some brunch and washed some clothes. And my 3 hours were up.

Josh was feeling good enough this evening to keep an eye on the boys while I went for a 2 mile walk after Maggie went down for the night. Tomorrow, I am back to the grind and will have to Clorox the entire house. But for today, I am grateful for a few hours of time to myself. I don't do it enough. And I could get used to it---so much so, I already have next Thursday morning planned!