Vacation, Please

Highlights of my day.

Kidney stone surgery at 6:30 am.  I completely love going to Buffalo Ambulatory Surgery Center because the nurses are like fairy godmothers, the anesthesiologist tells really funny jokes, and my urologist makes me blush and giggle like a moron.

Arrived home at 9:30 am to a blessedly quiet and empty house to rest.  Drank 900 gallons of water and slept.  Woke often to make sure I didn't drown.

11:45 am: Noah comes home.

Noah has decided it is no longer okay that Mommy doesn't feel well.  He has decided he will  be as bad as a three-year-old can be to just to be clear that it's not acceptable for me to be lazying around in pain.  Awesome afternoon, let me tell you.

Joey's bus arrived home fifteen minutes early.  I was in the bathroom saving myself from drowning (and by the way, without giving TMI, this is a really big deal when you've just had kidney stones blasted). I exited the bathroom and noticed my Greek neighbors staring in my windows.  The wife was wearing a full length fur coat and I'm pretty sure they were trying to see me in the bathroom.  I felt violated.  But then I heard the bus beeping and I realized the neighbors (who really are lovely people and way too couth to be staring into people's bathrooms from their driveways) were wondering where the heck I was.  I raced to the door, flung it open, just as the bus driver was ushering Joey back on the bus to take him God-knows-where.  I yelled, "NO!  WAIT!  I'm HERE!!!!!!!"  The road is about three hundred feet from my house, so I'm hoping the gesture the bus driver gave me was all five fingers, and not just one.  Luckily, Joey was permitted to leave the bus.

Joey clearly forgot that I had surgery today, and came in like wildfire.  "Mom!  I have to read THREE stories!  You have to read TWO IMPORTANT NOTES in my backpack!  I got invited to a birthday party!  I want popcorn!  I'm really thirsty!  Where's my change of clothes?  Where's Grandma?"

This litany quickly progressed into a Loudness Competition with Noah, until the two began shoving each other out of the way (all the better for me to focus on one of them--so thoughtful).

The day really exploded from here, and now, at 7:21 my boys are in bed and I am, too.

A lot of people might think me taking this year off from work is a lovely vacation, and let me be clear: I have never been happier.  Seriously.

But seriously.  I need a vacation from this "vacation."