Round 'n Round

It is the Tuesday before Christmas. I have a lot of things to do today.

I have four loads of laundry that are clean, but not folded, and gathering more wrinkles my the minute. I have gifts to wrap and deliver. The dishwasher is full of clean dishes. The Sink is full of dirty dishes.

Today is the day I plan on handing out holiday gifts to teachers. I have chosen to day because it is the last day of gymnastics class and piano lessons. I am explaining to the boys that I am going to bundle up the Christmas cookies and deliver them to the children's librarians (who are very nice and set aside books for my boys frequently) when Nathan shakes his head.

"You better go to the library without me, Mom."

"Why?" I ask.

"Because I just threw up in the bathroom."

This changes everything. And not in a good way. Nathan seems fine. He's playing and happy. But he just puked. So I decide to let him stay home. I bundle up the cookies anyway and think that maybe I'll deliver them later. I leave Nate with Steve and drag Andy off to his gymnastics class. We arrive five minutes late, but deliver the gift to his teacher without a hitch.

This will be the easiest thing I do all day.

When I get home Steve is in some sort of tizzy. He is on a call, and manages to shout some sort of information about me needing to go pick Nick up from school and also to charge my cell phone. When I ask what's wrong with Nick, he just looks irritated, shouts something about them needing him out of there and him being really busy on the phone, and I take off to remove Nick.

At the school, it turns out Nick isn't throwing up, as I imagined. He also is not running a fever and he does not have any broken bones. He has a headache, and is complaining of not feeling well. If I had taken the call fromt eh nurse, I would have pushed back, because this is not a sick child. This is a tired child, and maybe a reluctant-to-be-at-school child, but he is not ill. The cough they mention sounds very purposeful to me.

But I bring him home.

So not I have al of the work to do AND three boys at home. They need lunch. They are all happily playing in the living room. No one would guess that two of them are sick.

I start to panic because I have to fold so much laundry, and the hampers are also all full upstairs - Nate has no pants in his drawer. I HAVE to do laundry. And make beef stew, because that's what's for dinner, and the vegetable drawer is full f parsnips because we keep getting them every week from the CSA and we never eat them because, let's face it, they don't taste that good. But today is pick-up day.

And should I take the boys to afternoon activities? Usually the rule is, no school, no fun activities. I would like to skip karate, but then what about piano? It's the last lesson for two weeks. And we have her little gift. Maybe we'll just skip karate and go to piano. But I have to go to the little plaza anyway to pick up the veggies from the CSA and the dry-cleaning.

And this is the game I call "Round 'n Round." I'll take them. I won't take them. We'll go to piano but not karate. I'll jus stay home and cook and fold laundry - I need the time. What should I do? What is the right thing?

I still don't know.