My Day Off

I love having days off in the middle of the week. They are so much better than the weekends. It cuts your week into two parts, which for some reason just makes it feel so much more bearable. In my opinion, a weekday also has a certain calm about it, much more than a Saturday or Sunday. People are at work, the neighborhood is quiet, (except for our house), and there is no need to rush around.  It just works for me.

Mari had an appointment today, so rather than try to juggle work and the kids I took an official day off. I've been looking forward to May 11th for a few weeks. Besides the calm about my day, the other main perk is getting to spend one on one time with Jack. While Nate is in preschool, I get Jack ALL to myself, and he's hilarious. Each day he shows his true personality more and more.

Today we had big plans, drop Nate off at school, head to Target, go for a run, head to the library for storytime and then finally hit the park before picking up Nate. I know that doesn't sound like a peaceful day to some but it truly beats the grind of getting the kids and myself ready by 7:30AM, out the door and on to conference calls by 8:00AM.
We did have a minor hiccup in our day. Luckily it didn't destroy it all together, but it was close. During the Target trip, I lost my car keys. We had been in the store shopping through various aisles for about 30 minutes when Jack said, "Keys".  Since Jack started talking a few weeks ago, he adds new words to his vocabulary everyday. I can't tell you how thankful I am that "Keys" was on his list today. I of course repeat everything he says just to make sure I understand him. He'll always correct me with a deep, "Yah," or a very clear, "NO".  When he said "Keys", I instinctively said, "Yes, keys Jacks, wait....keys, where are the keys?"

With no keys anywhere in sight, I started thinking about everyplace we had been. I spent a while in the shoe aisle looking for some new tennis shoes for Jack. Of course the cute new sandals caught my eye and took me on a detour. So I realized I better go down every aisle and even recruited some nice lady to help us. Finally I spotted them...just lying on the floor in clear sight. I have no idea how I didn't hear those drop. Just chalk it up to a chatty 2 yr old. My recruit overheard me say we found them and replied "Oh thank God, I'm so glad you found them, but you seem so calm about it all."

I replied, "Yah, I guess so, it's all relative. We've dealt with worse." (I didn't have time to give her our daily list of crises.)

Here is picture of my hero with his new shoes. Mom, if you're reading this you should avert your eyes, he's got applesauce all over him. I didn't have a chance to clean him up before he ran away in his new shoes. Don't worry though, he's clean now, and sleeping peacefully and yes that is a stamp on his belly. He insists that the librarian at storytime give him a stamp on his belly rather than his hand. Like I said, he's hilarious.