Missing the Bus

I missed the bus today. Overslept. No, I don't really take the bus, but I did oversleep. Woke up when I should have been heading out the door. The glowing numbers on my clock startled me awake. I called the daycare to let Heather know I would be late. Normally if I wake up late I throw on some clothes and fly out the door, but not today. Today I took my shower and blow-dried my hair. I knew we wouldn't have five babies before 8:30 am and so I was not too incredibly worried. Turned out that we had only four babies all day long and won't have more than that for the entire week.My boss and I decided I will go in from 9 am to 6 pm for the rest of the week.

Here at home we are beginning the countdown to the arrival of Little Brother, Number 15. He is due mid January and we're all pretty excited. His clothes and car seat are all washed. His bedroom his ready and now we wait. Number 16 will make her appearance in late April or early May. (Yes! I said she!!!) How cool is that? I am amassing quite the collection of sweet grandchildren! These two darling both have names, but I'm keeping that a surprise.

The house is feeling chilly lately. All the mild late fall weather has made us soft. This next week is going to shock us back into reality.

Photos are "borrowed" from my boy in Minnesota. That's our Santa Baby, Number 13, also known as Jonah.

Waking Up Late (again)

I was tired last night and went upstairs to bed an hour early. I must have needed the extra sleep, but veering from the established routine threw off my sleeping schedule. I woke to use the bathroom earlier than usual (It was 12:30 am.) and likely woke up and went back to sleep again just before my alarm went off. I never heard a thing until Sergio started his car at 6:15 am.

I was jolted awake when I looked at my alarm clock, which is about 12 minutes fast. It read 6:30. I hopped out of bed and grabbed my clothes. There was no time to consider a shower. I didn't have time for that. I washed my face, threw on some deodorant, and grabbed some breakfast. Thankfully, the icy snow that had accumulated on my car over night was not stuck fast to my windshield. I may have actually arrived in the nick of time had it not been for the train ambling down the tracks and across Canandaigua Road at 6:56. I'm not sure what my time card reads, I didn't look, but often the time clock runs slow.

Most of day went fine, aside from Maggie's juicy diaper leaking through her pants and onto the lap of my jeans. It was still early and I decided I was grossed out enough to run out to my car for a clean pair that I keep in case of emergencies. (I have an old bladder...) Being the cook and having defiled clothing just don't go together well. I can handle boogers on my shoulder, but feces on my legs is totally different. Ha ha!

Tonight I came home to chill out and check my computer. What do you know? I had a message on Facebook that I had accidentally left a laughing emoji on a link to an article about the Holocaust. Some people were not happy with me, but both the friend who posted the link and a few others said it was most likely an accident. Oh, dear...

Snowy Roads and a Late Start

I woke up on time this morning, but somehow left the house later than usual. It was just a few minutes later, but the roads were snow covered and it was still dark. I swept the snow off my already warmed up car, headed out and immediately caught two red lights. About five minutes into my drive I came up behind a CDS Monarch van traveling anywhere between 20 and 30 miles an hour. I prayed it wouldn't turn from Plank Rd onto Salt, but it did. I hoped against the odds that it would turn onto Atlantic Avenue, but it didn't. I was quite relieved when it finally turned onto Penfield Rd. and was going the opposite direction than me.

I made decent time driving down Gananda Parkway, and a good portion of the way down Canandaigua Rd as well, but just before I reached the junction with 31F another very cautious driver blocked my way. I was slightly impatient, but only because I knew I was destined to be late for work, and I hate being late. I realize there are a myriad of reasons for drivers to travel under the speed limit, especially in poor weather conditions. Tires and experience in the snow are just two of them.

I waited, mumbling a little bit under my breath, as I waited for Mr Sporty-Looking Car to cross the intersection. He was so very careful about crossing that I knew the double hill ahead might pose a challenge for him (or her). The brake lights lit up multiple times on the way down the hill and I couldn't help thinking how he was going to need that momentum to climb the hill on the other side... I was not wrong. He was losing speed as he went. "Don't slow down!" I instructed, but he paid me no mind.

Not far from the crest of the hill his tires began to spin and he came to a stop. I had to think fast as I did not have any way to help and did not want to become stuck on the hill myself. I peered into the darkness to his left and prayed no one was coming up the road on the other side, then I drove on past as did at least two people behind me. A short distance down the road I passed a semi headed his direction, flashed a warning with my high beams, and continued on to work. I was seven minutes late.

It's About Time

Keys and clocks. They make life interesting...

I have managed to keep track of my keys since last Monday. No major incidents despite letting Idris carry them around the block on our walk the night before Halloween. Just imagine them being dropped down a storm sewer... or lost in a pile of leaves. Thankfully, that did not happen. So far, so good on the keys.

Sometimes I catch a few minutes of sleep on my lunch break. I keep an alarm clock in my car because once I fell asleep and woke up ten minutes after my break ended. They wondered what had happened to me but in actuality I'd never left the parking lot. Today I turned on my alarm, read a few paragraphs in my book, and then closed my eyes. I was having a dream and woke suddenly. I glanced down at my clock and it read 2:58. Adrenaline shot through my system as I jolted upright! How could I have slept an entire hour and a half? Why didn't my alarm go off? Why didn't someone come outside to find me? Where was Megan? She should have been going on break at 2 pm... And then I looked at my phone... It wasn't even 2 o'clock yet. I'd just forgotten to turn my alarm clock back an hour. I back walked across the parking lot to the building, my heart still pounding.

Daylight Saving Time is over for another year and we are back to Standard Time. This is what the world would look like if we never played "Change the Clocks." Yup, it's getting dark early.

Alarming

Silent and sleepy. Dark clouds vainly attempted to thwart the day's sure arrival. I opened my eyes and blinked. Morning struggled through the window. No bright sunshine flooded in, and yet the dark of night was dissipating...

"What time is it?!" I grabbed my little clock and pressed the button. "7:17."

I literally flew out of bed and made a grab for yesterday's blue jeans which were on the floor by my bed. I heard my flip phone fall out of the pocket and hit the floor. I blinked some more, trying to find the runaway phone. In the end I got down on my knees to peer under the bed before locating the digital device and making the dreaded phone call.

"Hello. Tot Spot. This is Heather." said the voice on the other end, and what could I do but tell her I had just woken up and was on my way. I wasn't just going to be late, I already was. By fifteen minutes. "We'll be fine," she said. In truth, they hadn't even yet missed me, but they would soon have been missing breakfast.

Waking up in a panic leaves one rather disoriented at a time when there isn't any extra time to be so. I opened one drawer to find a shirt, and another to locate a pair of socks. Both instances left me feeling blank and confused, like my brain hadn't completely turned on. I dragged a brush through my hair, turned a circle or two in the middle of the bedroom, and tried to clear the fog from my brain. There was no shower, no application of deodorant, and no changing of the undergarment. I tossed two waffles in the toaster and a cup of water in the microwave on the way to the bathroom where I relieved myself and washed my face.

I have no clue what time it was when I left the house, but I made it to work by about 7:50 am, less than an hour after I'd flown out of bed. In a stroke of luck, or Divine Intervention, our fifth baby had just arrived and an extra assistant teacher was taking my place as I came in. (I'd envisioned a room full of tiny tots and infants, at least six or seven of them, but God was way ahead of me.)

The Daycare owner thinks I get too much overtime. He'd wanted me to start taking a "long lunch," which means leaving for my break a half hour early when I am typically cleaning the kitchen and setting out afternoon snacks. (I end up staying an extra half hour to 45 minutes almost every day because we still have too many children in the center at 4 o'clock.)  I told our director I wasn't going to give him 2 1/2 hours of my time every week. She could try to send me home early once a week, but I wasn't going to bust my butt trying to give him back time I needed to do my job and have it wasted. Today I found a new way to save him from paying me overtime... I overslept. Oops.

Tonight the alarm is turned on, and I am turning in. I gained about 2 1/2 hours sleep last night by going to sleep an hour early, and oversleeping for another 90 minutes. Honestly, I think it was much needed. But I don't intend to do it again anytime soon.

A Little Snow Storm Too

I didn't leave home early enough this morning. I wasn't late leaving, I just needed to leave earlier than I did. My first clue was the snow piled on the hood and windshield. The second was the ice underneath the snow...

Had the roads not been snow covered, the snow not flying sideways, and the temperatures not bitter, I might have arrived at work on time, but blizzard-like conditions have a way of convincing folks to drive closer to 25 miles an hour rather than 45 or 50. (The photo is not from today, rather one I took one snowy November morning. I left my camera upstairs today.) At the halfway point I was doing okay, but rapidly approaching a time crunch. The kicker was the 55 mile an hour section where the guy in front was going about 20 miles an hour.

I punched in ten minutes late. (Yes, we still have a time clock with cards to punch.) Thankfully, I still worked my 8 hours and punched out at ten minutes til five. Between the holiday and going home early, I lost about 8 hours last week. My unused vacation time is in this week's check, but it feels like I've been shorted by an entire day. Ha.ha! I think I might get over it. I do typically garner a little bit of overtime most weeks.

I went to the pottery studio last night before the storm blew in and worked on another box with a figure on top. This time it's sitting on the edge of the lid with its legs hanging over the front. I'm never sure what I'm going to do with them until they happen and sometimes I find myself smiling at the result. Kind of like the little guy standing on his head on the lid of the little trinket box. I might have stayed longer last night, but the few others there cleared out early and being there alone just isn't quite the same. Besides, my car was parked across Monroe Avenue and I'm not real keen on being in the city alone in the dark. I decided to go home once I was done. It was only 7:30 pm. and the snow hadn't yet started to pile up.