This Morning Sucked
September 19, 2018
This morning got off to a rough start. About 45 minutes after James Wilson got to school, I realized he’d forgotten his bag with his gym uniform hanging on the back of the kitchen chair. They only have gym once a week and they walk to the Olympic Stadium for it. James had a meeting in Rotterdam this morning and was renting a car so I called him to see if he’d left the city yet, but he had, and he was running late so couldn’t turn back. I called the school office to find out what time gym started and to see if I could run the bag over but the receptionist said they had already left.
This all sounds like no big deal, but let me tell you, it was an exercise in how the little things are harder than you’d think.
Just calling the school was hard. I had to log onto the Firefly Website for the school to get the correct phone number (there are several different buildings for his school so you have to call the right one.) . The numbers aren’t listed on the home page so I had to click through multiple tabs and pages to find the one with the phone tree (you’d have thought we’d have plugged this into our phones for easy access by now, but nope). Then I had to figure out how to make the call. We have new Dutch phone plans now so I couldn’t figure out the right combination of + Country Code to make the call go through. Took several tries before I finally got connected and by then I was super flustered.
Yes, this is a learning opportunity for JW to be responsible for his own stuff, etc, but I feel really badly for him. Our place is a mess — we are still in our short stay apartment and we are doing our best to keep it organized, but we have suitcases and laundry racks and fold out beds and mountains of papers and books and all kinds of crap piled up everywhere in this tiny apartment and the bag (which he had carefully packed the night before) was under a towel from James’s morning shower and Brian’s leash looks like the handles so it was totally easy to miss.
Plus we were focussed on JW’s solo journey to school — he navigated himself home yesterday and was going to school by himself today. We’d been taking him and picking him up every day but we decided to let him go alone to try it out — the kids here are incredibly independent from a very young age. They all ride the trams and buses and bike by themselves. We wanted to make sure JW had enough experience with the route before we let him go solo. Today, James walked him to the tram and made sure he got on, then JW texted me all along the way to update me on the journey and let me know he got there safely. I know he was so proud of himself, and I also know when he got to school he must have been really upset to realize he didn’t have his gym bag. He’s really hard on himself about things like that and I suspect it probably derailed his entire day.
The other thing making this day hard is I was supposed to go see a doctor about my foot this morning. In all the gym-bag drama I was running late and still had to walk Brian and get ready for my appointment. As I was rushing around I got flustered realizing I didn’t have time to shave my leg so I was embarrassed thinking about the doctor having to encounter my horribly stubbly leg, and then I had to deal with getting the brace James ordered me on my foot, which is a multi-step process requiring a direction booklet. Then I started panicking that we weren’t following the correct procedure to see a doctor (the insurance system here is different than at home and we’re still figuring it out) and I started running through all the different scenarios of how I’d show up at the appointment with the wrong papers, or not have the correct authorization and basically I just said forget it I’m not going.
Finally, yesterday the cat decided she’d had enough of being stuck in this apartment and she tried to squeeze herself through the laundry rack we’ve been using to block the window so she can’t get out. She had her head mostly through and was stuck hanging halfway out the window, dangling over the edge, trying to wiggle her butt though, four stories in the air.
So to sum up, we move to our new apartment tomorrow and I can not wait.
Oh my. I hope you get to the doctor soon!
Did you ever get to see a doctor?
Lesson learned: Gym class is not a relevant activity if it only happens once a week.
2nd lesson learned: Even a laid back cat eventually reaches its limits. When you get into your new flat she will probably go into the yard and not come back in until the first snow.
Was there wine involved during any stage of this day?
I think the only lesson learned is I’m no longer going to care about shaving my legs.
4:30PM Update: The kid was completely unfazed about the forgotten gym bag. :-/