One of those days

I hadn’t been at my desk this morning more than 5 minutes when I got a phone call from Melanie. Her plans this morning included going grocery shopping and then story time at the library for the girls. Because nap times—for Benedict, especially, but also Sophia—are sacrosanct there was a narrow window in which to accomplish all this. Melanie wanted to be out of the house by 8:30 for the supermarket so she could be back by 10 for story time.

Unfortunately, she never got out of the starting gate, because the minivan wouldn’t start. Thinking it was a dead battery, she tried jumping it off her sister’s car, but that didn’t work. So she called me. I immediately called our mechanic at Abington Sunoco. (I’ve mentioned them before and how awesome they are.) Jimmy the owner assured me he’d get right in his wrecker and come to the house to check it out.

It turned out that the battery would not take a charge so he brought it back to the shop, swapped out the battery, and brought it back. Can you beat that kind of service?

In the meantime, Melanie had brought the 3 crying and disappointed children back into the house from the dead minivan and as she was carrying Ben through the living room, she slipped on a magazine the girls had left laying about, fell down smashing her knee, and dropped Ben onto his back. Blood on his blanket confirmed he’d bitten his tongue which two small holes later attested. No sooner had she calmed him from that mishap than she went in to the kitchen and put him on the floor she he toppled over and cut his eyelid.

And all this happened before 9 am! Is it any surprise Melanie has a near-migraine?

So now I’m home early, watching the kids, who aren’t napping, while Melanie runs to the grocery store to re-stock our empty larder so we have something to eat for dinner. (I volunteered to go, but I think she wanted some time alone.)

Of course, it could have been a lot worse. The car problems are apparently fixed by a new battery and Ben seems to doing fine now.