Let's go on a Date & Forget we Have Kids!

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In July I lost my job. Layoff – a "it’s not you, it’s that the new management has no idea what you even do,” kind of thing.

And now, here I am, at home. The first time I’ve been unemployed since I was 18 years old…so, it’s been a while.

Being me, I immediately set up a structure to work on what I’m going to do next – a schedule for updating the resume, polishing LinkedIn, getting my stuff out there on CareerBuilder and Indeed, networking and interviewing. The girls had a few weeks of summer left, so I pulled them out of summer camp and worked bike rides, parks and pool trips into my daily routine. 

Great, I can do this!

Rapid Fire

School was scheduled to start at the end of August. Yay, I’ll be able to get more done without needing to shoo squabbling children out of the room. No one interrupting me to tattle on a mean sister, no one asking if they can just watch TV "Noooowwww???", no one demanding to know what they can eat for the 20th time in 30 minutes. Peace, quiet, productivity!

But wait, there's more. You see, Mr. Puff had a pretty big life change this summer too. For the first time since I met him, almost 17 years ago, he took two weeks off of work. 

Two weeks. In a row. We all keeled over from shock.

And hey, I’m not working…so, fun times. I can structure in some "vacation." Sure I had 16 meetings, interviews and calls scheduled over a that two-week stretch, but that’s okay, I’m flexible and I have coffee!

In the last week before school started we hit the beach and Universal Studios Hollywood, we went on bike rides, had picnics, watched movies and went to the dentist...in between 10 meetings and two phone interviews. A little hectic, but okay.

Monday finally arrived, we packed the girls off for their first day of school. I got down to business with back-to-back meetings all morning and into the afternoon. Great!

Mr. Puff went surfing for the first time in years. Great!

Between meetings and job searching, I powered through the marathon of back-to-school paperwork. Great, great and great!

I can do this, no problem!

Uh, Houston, We Have a Problem

School pickup. School. Pickup.

I’ve never done after-school pickup before. Never.

When I was on maternity leave we paid for after-school care so the kids wouldn’t lose their places (waiting list), which meant school pickup was sometime between 3:00 and 5:00, or whenever the baby woke up from her afternoon nap. Now I had to get to the grade school for the two younger girls by 2:20 every day. 

Monday my meeting ran long, so Mr. Puff walked over to get the girls. Day one, check.  

Tuesday, set alarm and ran out of meeting, walked over to get the girls. Day two, check.

At least we had good burgers
Wednesday, Mr. Puff announced that he’d like us to do something together, just the two of us, before he went back to work. Well okay, I agree, let's go – I have an alarm set for 2:20.

Wednesday

We ran off to have lunch alone, together, like grownups. It was delicious, relaxing, quiet. 

After a sedate meal, Mr. Puff wanted to swing by the board shop. No problem, we ate lunch early to miss the rush so we had plenty of time before 2:20 rolled around. 

We drove, we chatted, we meandered. Our route took us past the local high school – the one our girls will attend one day.

“Huh, that’s a lot of kids,” Mr. Puff remarked.

“Yeah, it is. The upper-grade kids leave campus for lunch, but that seems like an unusual amount. I wonder what’s going on?”

“Looks like a bunch of them are headed to the bus stop. What’s with that?” he wondered.

My brain froze for .05 seconds, I sucked in a sharp gasp, “IT’S MINIMUM DAY!”

We gaped at each other in horror, “FUCK!”

 “WHEN IS SCHOOL OUT?” Mr. Puff bellowed.

“I DON’T KNOW!” I shouted back.

I made a hard right as the light turned green and raced up the hill, weaving around cars that had no appreciation for my sudden urgency, while Mr. Puff frantically searched the school website.

“12:35!” he roared.

We both gaped at the dash clock: 12:30 pm. “FUCK!”

“THE TOLLROAD!” he shouted.

“WHERE’S THE ON-RAMP?” I yelled.

I slapped my phone into the dash holder, he jabbed the Waze app and our helpful, bubble friend asked, "Are you on your way home?"

Yes!

Arrival time: 12:47.

“OH MY GOD, WE’RE TERRIBLE PARENTS!” I slammed my foot to the floor at the next green light and red-lined the Subaru up the hill to beat the line of cars to the on-ramp. The tires barked and screeched as we cornered hard and blazed through the toll booth.

Arrival time, 12:46

The tollroad was wide open. We raced down the hill, over the bridge and flew up the off-ramp.

Arrival time: 12:45

The light was green at the end of the ramp, we slid around the corner and pushed assertively (but within the speed limit, of course) through the lunch-time traffic.

Arrival time: 12:44

“Don’t worry, I talked to them about finding each other and waiting by the swings if I’m not right there!” I panted.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” was the only reply.

We hit the next green light, and the rest all the way up to the last left turn.

Arrival time: 12:43

We blinked at each other, sweaty and wide-eyed, waiting for the light to change. “Seriously, we’re terrible parents, I can’t believe we forgot minimum day!”

He patted my shoulder, “It’s okay, they’re smart kids and there’s parents and teachers all over the place, they’ll be fine. We’ve never done this before. This is the first time in eight years we’ve had to remember minimum day.”

Cute and competent
The light turned and we raced down the block, I slammed on the brakes at the corner of the school crossing, Mr. Puff jumped out and ran.

Arrival time, 12:42.

Deep Breath in, Aaaaand Let it Out

I pulled around to the pickup zone and there he was with two smiling girls. Everyone clambered into the car and we set off for home.

“Mama, mama! Athena came and got me at my class, just like you said, and we went to the swings together and then daddy came!” announced Badger.

“We are SO, SO sorry we were late you guys.”

“It’s okay mom,” Athena reassured, “we were only waiting for a couple of minutes, it was fine.”

“Thank you baby, but we’re clearly terrible parents and we owe you one.”

And that was how we found ourselves buying ICEEs at Target later that day.






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