Sunday prep
I bonded with the vet tech this week.
My mom’s dad’s dog was limping the day I took her to get shots, so instead of a quick trip to get shots dine with my 4-year-old in town, instead I dropped off Bonnie the collie for a full day including euthanasia for x rays and a full dental cleaning because WHY NOT she’s already being put under.
I’m grateful the biggest pressure was getting her there and getting fees OK’d by my dad.
He went over the rules when I picked her up that night, face slightly drooly and focused on the door leading out of the small examination room.
He went over the rules – no running, no jumping, take medication every day… and I laughed in his face. Because its not my dog on my property, and she is an exclusively outdoor dog by choice in a weird relationship with the one also left behind when my mom died. The one who lives inside and the one who lives outside.
There is a point where the Venn diagram of their lives coexist, but I am part of that diagram, even though this commitment is three weeks away it is one of the balls I juggle.
He confided he walks down dimmer every night to his mother-in-law. I get the pressure.
It’s not just the few minutes of effort it takes for a walk down and back, it’s the minutes of conversation, the emotional toll it takes. Not that the effort is a hard one, or not enjoyable, but it stretches you emotionally, caretaking.
I help maintain three households. It can be as simple as alight bulb or as complex as medical appointments and vet trips, easy as a lunch date or as hard as staring mortality in the face and working to provide a chance for their narrative to carry on that history in their own words instead of yours.
I work three days a week out of town – way out of town. it can be 24-30 hours gone a week already, and we balance this with my husband’s two jobs and continued education commitments.
My Tuesdays and Thursdays are filling up with errands, the last couple I have had my four-year-old in the car for almost 6 hours.
It’s hard to be frustrated myself trying to squeeze in one more errands when he wants to go home as much as you do and shows it in the line of a Sprouts.
Sundays are for family as much as we can. Today is man time at the batting cages while I squeeze in all of the homemaking and checks off the errand and work list. Not an entirely family day but family focused for sure.
The fridge is getting organized, the InstaPot is full of rice and the produce drawer is about to get integrated into some dinner ideas. Tonight is lemon chicken and potatoes, fried rice will be ready for another night and we will see what the depths of the fridge produce for another meal.
I never make it to Wednesday’s dinner but I always aim for it.
Sundays are for relaxation in our book but we rarely, truly get to it. Our caretaking day, beyond sports (it’s almost baseball season) sometimes a day for an outing, often a day for multiple laundry loads and cleaning out backpacks and cleaning the kitchen in prep for a new week.
So again prepping for another crazy week, the dates filling in on my planner more and more, schedules clashing and even showers requiring a line so i can keep it together.
So even then a busy day, but it’s our day.
