One of Those Weeks

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Friday night, eating dried fruit before they both were tucked in to bed.

It was one of those weeks around here. Thanks to an entire month's worth of paychecks being mailed to an address I haven't lived at for almost two years and some surprise bills and expenses I've scaled through the last couple weeks with a single dollar in my wallet that I refused to spend because it seemed unwise to spend my last dollar. (After some searching of pant pockets I found two more dollars but still didn't want to spent my last three dollars.)

On Wednesday night just as I was getting ready to turn in for bed with Az we got a knock on the door; a neighbor had driven onto our front patio and was stuck. Again. I love living where we do but I do not always love living across the street from a house full of ever-changing people who do things like drive their cars into my house and car. I've always just rolled my eyes and maybe posted an irritated status on Facebook but this time I decided to call the sheriff. Of course the woman driving the car didn't have a license, or anything convenient like insurance or an actual registered car. What she did have was a car full of passengers who smelled of alcohol. In the end it took over two hours and countless CHP and cops to get the whole thing straightened out. As it turns out the police were looking for an excuse to talk to residents of the house across the street, and they did it in my yard.

The next morning I was up bright and early at 4 and out of the house with both kids dressed and ready by 6. I was teaching zero period, but also got off of work later than usual. Just as I was getting off I got a call that Z was having a hard day and hadn't been put on the bus so I headed to get him. It took a few hours, six staff members, and a whole lot of patience and convincing him to get him out of there. Just as a staff member was informing me that Z would be brought to the nearby hospital to calm down unless I got him out of there in the next few minutes, Z just up and decided to go home. Parenting a special needs kid is always full of surprises. I missed some work/life related errands I was supposed to have attended to but at that point I just had to get Z home.

I ended up being away from Az for almost 12 hours that day, the longest I have ever been by far. But the world kept spinning and after an enthusiastic nursing session Az was back to playing on her own. The next morning I was gone before the sun had woken up again. It was a rough day at work but the nice thing about rough days at my job is that usually when the bell rings I get to leave all of the hurdles behind. That makes the hurdles no easier to jump when they're still in front of me though. When I met Migs with the kids in town after work Az was exhausted. I guess it had been a tiring couple days for her too. She fell asleep in my lap in the car immediately and I didn't have the heart to wake her up. She ended up sleeping for hours, even after I'd transferred her to her car seat. By the time we got home I gave the kids a dessert of dried fruit and sent them to bed, but not before taking a quick photo of course.