Adventures in Motherhood and Writing

This is been a … weird week. On Tuesday, the kiddo was complaining of an ear ache. Plus he had bad sinuses and a slight fever. So he stayed home from school and it was off to the doctor we went. He has another ear infection and we got ear drops, antiobiotic, nose spray. Yeah. Um…$45 later… I got him home and pumped him full of Motrin, then fed him and made him take his ear drops. That was NOT fun. He refused and I was Mean Mommy and sat on him to make it happen. Yes, I did. Then I made him take the antibiotic and shoot his nose with the nasal spray and THEN I gave him Claritin. I pumped him full.

By the time Wednesday came around and I picked him up from his grandparents, he was feeling about a thousand times better. And it showed. He spilled his Coke all over the dinner table, leaving a sticky mess and then announcing that, “Uh, MOM! We have a problem.” So I cleaned that up. By that time, it was his bath time. I ran the bath and he got in with the explicit instructions NOT to splash.

Well, about 30 seconds later, I hear all this slashing and open the door to find the floor underwater. sigh Three bath towels later (and I had kicked him out of the tub), I’d reached my limit. It was time for him to be in BED. I think he was out in 2.3 seconds.

When I got up Thursday morning, the cat had decided to puke in three differernt places in the living room.Yeah. I so wanted to clean THAT up first thing in the morning. And it was DES-GUST-ING, too. I was 😯 

That afternoon was soccer practice and since I’m trying to finish my revision in ONE WEEK, I thought I’d dust off the AlphaSmart and take it with me. I felt SO smart. I even printed off my pages for the latest chapter I was working on. I get to soccer practice and sit in the car, breaking out Alphie, punching the ON button and… nothing. Nada. Zilch. The batteries are dead. Crap. So I open up the back and find… the batteries are corroded! Double crap!

So I get out my trust ink pen and start to scribble the newest scene I want to write on the back of one of the pages. I’ll just write in longhand, I think. That won’t be so bad! It’ll be novel and… CRAP! The pen ran out of ink!

ARGH!

I threw it in the backseat and look longingly at my paper with the scribble along the back. I see the scene in my head so vividly and it’s driving me crazy I can’t write it down. I pick up the Alphie and use an old pair of sunglasses to pry out the disgusting batteries and – luckily – have an empty sandwich bag in the car to put them in. I have a package of On The Go Wipes and use that to clean out the battery acid (very carefully). I put that in the baggie. I sit and wait until soccer practice is over.

We get home and Man is already there mowing the yard (YAY!). I cook breakfast for dinner – eggs, bacon, sausage. I make the kid do his homework then put him in the tub and finally it’s time for him to go to bed. I put in new batteries in the Alphie and sat down on the couch while Man read his book and wrote and wrote and wrote. I wrote 1250. And you know why? Because I wasn’t distracted by the Internet, Twitter, Facebook or email. It felt SO good to write those words and get them out on paper. Tonight I’m going to work on the scene some more.

That is, of course, if no one spills or pukes on the carpet.

Happy Friday!