Switching gears

I look down at my buzzing phone and see “Nurse” on the caller ID.  My first thoughts are “which one?” and “now what?”.  I should note that my kids love to go to the school nurse.  For the first few weeks of school I think they spent more time in the nurse’s office than in their own classroom (she gives out jolly ranchers for a sore throat - enough said).  It was the kindergartner, he was coughing a lot and said he had a stomach ache.  They had sent him back to class but he was back again.  Ok, I’m on my way…… time to switch gears.

The next twenty minutes for me are a whirlwind of emotion.  You know when you sleep through your alarm and wake up totally late?  That feeling of going from dead sleep to instant anxiety?  That’s the only feeling I can compare this to for me.  I rush to pack up all my things, look at my meeting schedule and give coworkers a heads up as I hurry out the door.  I drive to the school, a little more tense than usual, my heart beating a little faster.  The anxiety builds as I scroll through all the ways my day has now changed, evaluating what needs to be done today, what can wait until tomorrow and how am I possibly going to get it all done.

I know that this experience is shared by all moms (and dads), whether you work outside the home or not. It’s any time that you have your day planned out and something happens to throw it off course.  Your reaction to this new course will set the tone for the rest of your day.  You feel angry or frustrated or overwhelmed or disappointed that you can’t do something that you were looking forward to doing.  Whatever that feeling is, I've finally realized it’s ok to feel that way.  Call a friend and vent or turn the music up really loud, whatever you need to do to work through it.  But then comes the hard part, once you’ve allowed those feelings to come out, you are faced with the choice that will determine how the rest of the day will play out.  You can choose stay angry/frustrated/disappointed and your day will turn out exactly how you thought it would, horrible.  Or you can choose to do the best with what is in front of you.  It may not be what you planned, but do you want to make it worse by facing it head on with a black cloud over your head?  I know all too well that this is easier said than done.  But I hope that by talking about it enough it will start to get a little easier.

And if you’re still wondering, the cough and the stomach ache are just fine.  A little bit of lunch, some rest on the couch and a few extra hugs helped him make a full recovery by the end of the day.  Those extra hugs actually helped me with my "recovery" too.

Heart-FULLy yours, 

Kacey