Unscheduled Events

It has been a week of craziness so far. My children’s school year is rapidly coming to a close, and this week and the schedule of the next couple of weeks will be absolute madness. My faculty meeting conflicts with the 4th grade science fair in which my older daughter has a project on Wednesday. Then on Friday- I am reading at lunchtime to my kindergartener’s class… and we are having cupcakes for her 6th birthday. These are both commitments that I don’t want to say no to, although I know that missing faculty meeting is generally not a good idea. There is a whole list of events on Saturday that we are to attend- and yours truly is doing all the snack-buying, cupcake-buying, birthday cake arranging, RSVP collecting etc. Both yesterday and today we had departmental seminars, and I had meetings with both seminar speakers (which were awesome, by the way). You get the picture, if it is not one thing it is another.

I’ve been trying to get through a paper for the last 3 days- but never seem to have an uninterrupted hour. If I can hang on by my fingernails until school closes, we can all look forward to a summer without such a crazy schedule. The pile of work on my desk is growing larger by the day. It is happy work, however, piles of data to be put in papers, a grant I am working on that is taking a project in an exciting new way. That pile will get even bigger, I fear- when I hear something about that paper that I submitted 64 DAYS AGO. Last week I was assured that the reviews would be forthcoming shortly- but that was last Thursday! And did I mention those two posters for the ASM General Meeting at the beginning of June, and the thesis defense for my master’s student? If only the schedule would permit…

Last night… after I wrote the previous paragraphs, our complicated schedule came to a full and immediate stop… I was visited in the night by my younger daughter- who said she was … ?hungry?. For all of you non parents- this is a sign. Kids who have eaten a good dinner, don’t usually come in at 2 am and say they are hungry-. This can be 6-year-old-speak for ‘my tummy doesn’t feel good’…but I was too half asleep to pick up the hint. She ate a banana, got into my bed… and shortly thereafter I heard !!!!Mommy!!! and a little gagging.

I was INSTANTLY awake- and charging with her toward the bathroom to get over the tile. I succeeded, for the most part, to get her into the bathroom before the major vomiting… but the bathroom was just covered. We were up until 6, cleaning up, changing sheets, heaving every hour. The little A is such a trouper- she never cried although she was obviously miserable. After DrMrA took the older one to school – the little A and I went back to sleep- until noon. Now she is awake and sipping on her Gatorade… she claims her stomach doesn’t feel ‘hungry’ anymore…and she wants some orange juice (Dr. Mom said no to this one). She claims she doesn’t have a fever- she’s just too hot because of her long hair. She just announced that she is ready to go back to school (ah huh, sure kid).

I’m disoriented. I will have to read what I wrote last night to see what is on the schedule, and decide what will be canceled. Such is the real life of a scientist-mom- it is not always pretty.

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