Note to self: The next time I have an extended break, get ALL of my work done on the very first day of the break. DO NOT WAIT until the last day of the break to write lesson plans. Something WILL happen to mess with those plans, causing me to stay up WAY past my bedtime the night before I have to return to work.
OK, now that's over with, I can explain what the heck I'm talking about.
When I left work last Tuesday afternoon, I knew I had only one thing to take care of work-wise over the break. That would be this week's lesson plans. I had already gotten a good start on them before I had left for break, so all that was left to do was finish typing them up and putting in the plans for the few spots that were still missing.
The plan was that I'd spend some time over the break coming up with more fun, hands-on activities for my kiddos to do this week. I wanted a somewhat fresh start. To change things up a bit and break free from the doing the same ol' activities. Nothing major, just a few ideas that would shake things up a little.
The only problem with that idea, however, is that I knew it would take some time to figure out what I wanted to do, prepare any materials that I would need, and write the plans out in a way that would allow for such activities while still hitting everything else that HAD to be done.
I told myself that the day I'd take care of all that would be yesterday. Sunday. The last day of my break. That way I could spend Wednesday preparing for Thanksgiving, Thursday enjoying Thanksgiving, Friday with my parents, and Saturday Christmas shopping. Just like I did.
However, on Friday, there was a kink thrown in to my plans when I wasn't able to spend near as much time with my parents as originally planned, and my mom asked that we go back over there yesterday so that we could spend a little more time together.
Me, being the optimist that I am, figured we'd head over to my parents' house pretty early yesterday, leave before dinner time, and I could spend the evening taking care of what I needed to take care of.
Except, I should know better than anyone that it wasn't going to be that easy.... it never is.
When we first arrived at my parents' house, all was good. My mom, me, Peanut, my brother, Butter, and four of the foster kids sat around the kitchen table to play some board games. We had a great time. We played a couple of games of Blurt, and then we tried a new game called Anything Goes. Both games created a lot of laughs, and it felt so good to be spending some quality time with my family... just like we normally do over the holidays. I didn't feel crowded or uncomfortable. I didn't feel like I was having to force myself to enjoy my time. It really felt like the "good old days". Jelly was playing, quite happily, with my niece and nephew and everyone was having a great time.
That was until I looked over and noticed something about Butter that scared the crap out of me.
Butter had stayed with my parents on Friday. That way, Peanut and I could go shopping and Butter would be occupied with my brother at my parents' house. I knew Jelly would be totally content staying home with Hubby while Peanut and I shopped.
Before we left my parents' house on Friday, Butter had told me about a sore he had in his ear. It looked as though he'd scratched it somehow, and it had gotten a little infected. I decided to clean it out with peroxide and thought nothing more about it. Yet, when I got back to my parents' house yesterday, the little sore had completely spread over his entire ear and it was nasty and swollen and infected.
Please excuse the severe TMI, but his ear was covered in lots of pus filled blisters and sores, and all around his ear was a yellow, waxy, crust. And I just threw up a little in my mouth thinking about it again. Yes, it was gross. Is gross. But, while we were playing games, he also showed me that a couple of cuts he had on his legs had started to swell up and were also nasty and infected looking. My mom told me that they had cleaned the blisters, put antiseptic cream on them, used peroxide, and they just seemed to be spreading and getting worse.
My mom and I were both very concerned that Butter had some kind of staph infection. And I decided that it would be best to take him to the ER to get the blisters checked out and treated right then, rather than waiting to get in to see the doctor sometime this week.
So, game time was over, and a trip to the ER was in order. My mom offered to keep Jelly with her, and my brother and Peanut decided to tag along with me to the ER with Butter.
Thankfully, when we got there, the place was pretty empty. We were able to get straight back in to a room to see a doctor. The doctor came in, took one look at him, and told me that he had impetigo. Awesome.
They gave me a prescription for a strong oral antibiotic, and an antibiotic cream to put on the sores. I have to keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't start getting a fever or anything, and it should clear up in about a week. The doctor let me know that it was nothing too serious, and that he should avoid touching anyone or sharing towels or clothing or the like with anyone else until the sores were gone. Even though impetigo is contagious, she told me that after the first couple of doses of antibiotic, proper hand-washing, and taking necessary precautions, the rest of us at home and at school should be safe.
I was relieved, but also noticed that it was after 5PM by the time we got out of the ER. We then had to get to Walmart to fill his prescription - which took 30 minutes. By the time we got back to my parents's house, it was after 6PM and my mom told me that we were staying for dinner.
After a fantastic dinner, cooked by my dad, and giving ourselves a little time after dinner so we didn't just eat and run, it was 8PM before we left their house.
When we got home, the kids all got ready for bed. Butter took a shower, got his ear all cleaned up, took another dose of antibiotics, and headed off to bed. Jelly went straight to bed. Peanut decided that even though we'd been off school for 5 days, she needed to do some laundry.
Me? I headed to the living room with my laptop and my planbook to get my work done that I had put off all break long.
By the time I typed up my plans, came up with the extra activities I had decided on, and prepared the materials for all that, it was 11:30PM, and I was finally ready to go to bed.
4:30AM came awfully fast this morning. When my alarm went off, it felt like I had just closed my eyes. I guess it's a good thing that I spent a lot of my break getting plenty of rest. I should be able to make it through the day without getting too tired. I hope.
But, lesson learned, I suppose. I should know by now that procrastination never really works out. Something will always come up to throw off my good intentions or plans.
Peanut has band practice tonight, so I have to stay at school until 6PM. My plan is to write out my plans for next week...so I'm ahead of the game. I want to make sure everything is taken care of before this coming weekend, because it's Jelly's birthday on Thursday, the Christmas parade on Saturday, and another day of Christmas shopping is planned for Sunday. I know that I won't have much time to work over the weekend, which means I have to get my work done NOW. Ahead of time. No putting it off.
If I can pull it off, my hopes are to keep myself a week ahead between now and Christmas. A whole three weeks. I'm optimistic that I can do it.
OK, that's enough from me today....time to get my head back in to the real world and get myself ready to go back to work.
It's funny, as much as I've LOVED these five days off, I'm actually ready and excited to go back to work. I love this time of year, and as hard as it is to focus on school work when Christmas is so close, I really get creative and inspired to come up with some fun activities for my kiddos to do that are both fun and educational.
So, it's time to get started!!
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