Daydreaming at the computer, I wasn’t surfing the usual suspects: Twitter, Facebook or 105 ways to cook zucchini. I was looking over Orbitz and Expedia trying to find the best single occupancy rates for a week in the Turks and Caicos or for an overnight stay at the Monastery in Conyers.
A week has passed since Morgan County dismissed school and my family has already dialed Georgia Power and 911. I called Georgia Power because a large pecan limb flung itself onto a power line in our yard. My daughter dialed 911 to ask for help in getting her sixteen year old brother to share the Wii.
Children groan and moan to be free of school but once they get that wish, they are absolutely miserable. The only upside to this arrangement is children who are miserable will eventually make themselves happy by letting everyone within 35.7 miles know just how miserable they are.
As that first week wore on, I identified with the pecan limb that threw itself 50 feet onto our driveway. Inexplicably shearing itself from its host absent rain or wind, I guess the ill-fated branch could not bear another moment hanging within earshot of my children.
I confessed to someone how our first day of break quickly spiraled down into nothing more than screaming and yelling, refusing to eat or drink anything but Oreos and Diet Mountain Dew and constantly asking, “Can Julie come over to play?”
And that was just me.
My friend looked at me with their lips all funny and tight. Like I had admitted to calling 911 for an officer to referee who gets dibs on the last brownie. (I know for a fact that particular call wasn’t recorded so nothing can be proven.)
Right then and there, I made a vow: no matter what it takes, I will never reveal the honest truth about how my badly my children behave this summer. That doesn’t mean I’ll lie either.
This pledge sentenced me to vow of silence and a summer full of waving and nods to friends from my car window.
The short summer was to be unscheduled fun. Then I realized my summer vacation plan failed in one of the most basic tenets. To have a successful business relationship, you and your client must have shared expectations.
I expected carefree days of doing all I wanted …writing, cleaning house, exercising, doing laundry — getting all my obligations done – and then we could go have fun.
My children expected me to be an on call waitress, nurse, teacher, referee, chauffeur, bicycle repairman, art teacher and never-ending fount of mercy and money.
Obviously, there was no meeting of the minds and that added up to a lot of unmet expectations on both sides. Unmet expectations make me very cranky. I want to enjoy my children this summer.
In spite of them. In spite of me.
So guess that means ever-changing, fluid expectations of what each day holds — if that’s possible. Either that or spending afternoons in a lawn chair reading a good book under one of our old pecan trees.
So glad husband didn't park truck in usual spot.
