Sprinting Across the Finish Line

The Marathon is over and I'm sprinting across the finish line this year. Summer is over and it was the least stressful of any we've had. It was also probably the most boring, but sometimes boring is good.

Just so you can see how it all ended, here is what I had done before 8 this morning. I started at the Y with Rand and Jimmy. On the way I gave instructions to Rand about what he needed to get ready for supper as Bart is out of town. Hey, he's not in school and he has one year of cooking school under his belt. No way I should have to cook. But I digress.

We did our workout and then I came home. I sent Rand to put gas in the van. I went to my room and wrote a check for Salinda's activities pass and then went to her room to give her a check but got screamed at so cheerfully offered to come back later. Got my clothes ready. Showered. Then I went back in to Salinda's room to get yelled at again and remind her of a few things. Told Sadie we needed to fill out one more form for her for school and asked her to bring it to my office.

Then I woke up Dominyk and gave him his meds. Reminded Wilson I needed his school paperwork, which I thought was one page. Got Dominyk's clothes out of my bedroom where they had been and told him to get in the shower. Asked Rand to help Wilson with breakfast.

Woke up Tony, made sure he had what he needed and gave him his meds.

Went to the office and wrote a check for Jimmy's school pictures and filled out that form. Wrote him a check for a Phy Ed T-shirt. Filled out Wilson's school paperwork which turned out to be six pages. As i was finishing that paperwork, I realized that Dominyk must have the same paperwork and so I sent him to get his.

Let me digress here for just a moment. Is this not the age for technology? Then please explain to me why I had to write my address down 32 times this week? Multiple forms for each kid. You can't tell me that technology would not allow the nurses office to see the regular office's stuff. You know they can... because you can't tell me that they are having more than one person add the data to the computer.

Here's what should happen, in my opinion. Each child should have one file. At the beginning of the year, they should print that stuff out on one form -- send it out -- and ask people to make any changes and send it back. But no, instead, I have to fill out literally 48 separate sheets of paper and send them in.... all of them containing the same information that I put on the same 48 sheets of paper last year. Can someone please explain to me why this is necessary when the information is ALREADY ON YOUR COMPUTER????? Ok, Ok, there might be changes, but then again -- that's why my idea would work better.

oh well. They are done for this year, so I guess I'll shut up and rant about it again then.

Started working on Dominyk's paper and was interrupted by Sadie, so I signed her form. Reminded Dominyk he needed to have breakfast. I then Dominyk's paperwork completed and then filled out paperwork for PCA time sheets and faxed them in several hours late.

Literally seconds before Tony got in the neighbors car for his ride to school I remembered first day of school pictures and ran outside to take them.

By this time I had been home from the Y for exactly one hour and was ready to take off. Five kids in the van and we took off. Since Ric, Leon and Cedes (how she is now spelling Sadie, short for Mercedes) were refusing to talk to me, I decided to go through a long soliloquy about attitudes growing like amoebas and invading people (explaining why Cedes was crabby -- Salinda venomous amoebas) and middle school anxiety and even though he tried not to, Leon had to laugh. Ricky is too stoic, but Leon knew I was hilarious. By the time we were at school Cedes was finally smiling.

I dropped them off, victorious at the completion of another summer. Now I am at Dunn Brother's waiting for Kari who should be meeting me soon just like she did last year and the year before. It's our tradition. She blogged this morning about our tradition as well. I'll have to post a picture later of her drooling.

So, now it's 9:00 a.m. By the time I got to Dunn Brothers, ordered my food, and completely restarted my computer, cleaned off the computer desktop a bit, and blogged an hour has gone by. Don't you think it should take less time to do something than it does to blog about doing it?

And now, I am going to WORK.