Fraught

Spring Break is fraught with concern for a kid with working parents.

Penny was actually pale and withdrawn this morning, worried that her friend at the daycare wouldn't be there.

Then we got in the car and she looked in her lunchbox to take inventory and discovered that the little tupperware cup of sugar-free syrup I put in there for her waffles had leaked. Ug.

So we got to the daycare and I send her into the kitchen to put her lunchbox in the fridge while I take Alex back to the classroom, and by the time he's taken off his coat and we've gone into the pre-K classroom where everyone is for the moment, Penny's still not joined us. So I head back up to the front to find her and end up going over some diabetes-care questions with the director and then having her figure our tuition for the week so I could write the check.

When Penny and I get back to the pre-K classroom, Alex is sitting at a table with his back to the door. I assume he's playing, but I want a hug and a kiss, so I go over to him... to discover that he's just sitting there, alone, quietly sobbing because he thought I'd left without saying goodbye.

Dammit. So I sit on a little chair and hold him on my lap for a while and reassure him that I'd never ever leave him without a hug and a kiss and so forth and so on, but of course he's worked himself into a lather, so I have to take him over to the teacher and sort of pry him off. (I say "sort of" because he did actually let go of me of his own free will, but he was still crying. So I guess it was more like I had to be pried off, emotionally at least.)

But luckily, Penny's friend was there. I got the most perfunctory good-bye hug and kiss ever from her when I left.

I want a do-over on this morning.