Hopelessly Devoted

I adore my children. I think it’s safe to say that most parents feel the same about their own children.

Yet, I’m grateful each and every night when they’re both asleep and I’m finally not needed for just a bit before I go to bed myself.

Last Friday was one of those rare days when I had the day off but the girls had to go to school. Whatever was I going to do with myself?

Well, because I’m hopelessly devoted to my children, I got up a half hour before we needed to do so and put Olivia in the bath. She loves bathing first thing in the morning, it gives her a moment to relax before jumping into her day, whatever that day might bring.

Then we headed downstairs for breakfast.

After breakfast, both girls wanted their hair braided. Olivia requested a waterfall braid and Alyssa wanted me to give her the Katniss braid.

Once both of them wore braided tresses, I drove them to school.

Then I returned home where I stripped the bed and put the sheets in the drier.

About two and a half hours after dropping the girls off at school, I returned to the school to have lunch with Olivia. It’s what I do when I’m able. She actually eats lunch when I’m there with her, so, what can I say? I can’t not go. (Yay for double negatives, right?)

After lunch with Olivia, I went home again, put the now clean and dry sheets back on the bed, played around a little on Facebook, boiled some eggs for dyeing and watched the clock so I’d be ready when it was time for the girls to come home.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy the solitude. In fact, I often long for solitude. But knowing it was short-lived made me unable to actually enjoy it.

The girls got out of school at 1:15 so I was at the school by 1:00 to pick them up. I mean, come on, who wants to ride a bus for ten minutes when Mom can pick you up, right?

When we got home, I prepared cups of dye for the girls and they each colored eighteen boiled eggs. Yes, that’s a lot of eggs. We’ll be eating deviled eggs and tuna salad for weeks. Ugh.

Olivia managed to dye her hands as much as she dyed the eggs so after all the eggs were a lovely shade of brown from having been dipped into every single color available, I put Olivia out on the back deck with a giant bowl of warm water.

Fifteen minutes later, she was back in, soaked from head to toe. But her hands were clean, so…mission accomplished?

After changing O’s clothes, I declared it was time for a bike ride. We loaded Olivia into the trailer that is pulled behind my bike and Alyssa and I pedaled our way to my mom’s house, only three miles away. It was a great day to be outside.

Lest one read this and think that all this togetherness was brought to you by smiles of joy and endless patience, let me clarify that there was a bit of frustration on my part when Olivia dropped a third egg on the floor. Yes, I laughed when she came in soaking wet but I might have muttered something under my breath when I was trying to help her get into clean clothes and she was less than cooperative.

I think I wrote all this out so that someday, if the girls ever find this, they see that I loved them, so, so much. Even on Friday’s when it might have seemed as if I counted down the hours until I could watch Hannibal at 10pm after they were both sound asleep.