Thursday, July 8, 2010

Exhausted gratitude

After many years of commuting to work, first by train and then by car, I consider myself fortunate to work mostly at home. I'm not out there, fighting traffic every day. I'm not running to catch a train and then squeezing myself into a car just as the doors close. I don't miss it, either.

Then, every once in a while, I have to drive into Boston, like today. All three kids had dentist appointments, at the dental clinic at Children's Hospital.

The appointments were at 2:00, 2:30 and 3:00. We left the house at 1:00, and walked in the door to the clinic at 1:40. After waiting about 10 minutes to check in, we finally did, and had a seat in the unbelievably crowded waiting room for what I hoped would be a short wait.

Usually I totally forget to bring anything to do. Today, I remembered, and so I handed the kids their books, and opened up the Globe.

Twenty minutes later, I'd read all I wanted to read. (How about that potential spy exchange deal? Wow.) I attempted to keep the boys from climbing all over each other, but by 2:35, I'd had enough. Back to the reception desk. Did I miss it when our names were called? Because my first appointment was at 2:00.

Five minutes later, in came the hygienist. The rest of the appointments went more or less smoothly. Parking cost more than usual because of the delay, but I got an extra buck back from the change machine so it almost evened out.

Of course, by the time we got back to the van and out into the street from the parking garage, it was 4:00. The Longwood Medical Area is not the place to be at 4:00 on a weekday afternoon, at least not if you want to get OUT of the Longwood Medical Area any time soon.

Fifty-five minutes later, we finally got home. I am completely exhausted. To be sure, some of that is because in my zeal to get the kids to their appointments on time, I forgot my afternoon iced coffee. This means that instead of crashing at, say, 9:00 at night, I crashed around 5:00.

I'm still down. I have a lot to do this evening and somehow have to dig deep and find the energy to do it. I don't want to have a coffee now because I'll be up way too late. On the other hand, maybe I could finally conquer my ironing pile if I were conscious for a few hours more than usual.

Exhausted moms of the world, I'm right there with you today. And I'm not even sleep-deprived from an infant, or from waiting up all hours of the night for a teenager who missed curfew. Just low on caffeine and psychologically stressed from fighting traffic on the Boston city streets.

No comments: