Monday is No Funday

Mondays suck.

They suck not in the traditional sense...end of the weekend, beginning of the school/work week, etc....but in what they have become specifically to our household. Mondays should be great. I have Mondays off. I should be lovin' Monday. But I don't. There's just too much going on.

Monday is traditional in that I have to get up at the butt-crack of dawn in order to get Kailey to school, always an adventure. Getting her out of bed...sucks. The Spanish Inquisition was easier than getting a breakfast order out of her. Trying to get her to eat breakfast...sucks big time. Getting her dressed in an outfit she doesn't freak out over...el sucko. This morning, I'll admit, wasn't that bad. It was a better morning.

I'll usually get Kailey off to school in the morning and then work out. This morning I didn't. Big mistake. Lately I've been giving in to the temptation to NOT work out, and I need to NOT listen to that voice. I feel better when I work out. I actually have more energy when I work out. Bad things happen when I don't work out.

Instead, I snoozed in my big chair with Kyra while she watched TV. I'm an awesome dad. I can see the girls confronting me thirty years from now about how they're in counseling because I wasn't there for them...that I was too busy snoozing in my big comfy chair and "forcing" them to watch TV. Yeah, well, get over it. I was beaten with a stick as a child, and I turned out OK. (Sorry, Mom. Actually, I was only beaten with a yard stick one time, that I can remember...it's all so fuzzy now.)

Kyra's birthday party is Sunday, so Diane and I decided to go shopping for Kyra's present after we dropped her off at school and before Diane went into work. I thought while we were at it, we should knock off some Christmas shopping as well. So we did. No sense in going to Toys 'R' Us multiple times. I hate shopping at Toys 'R' Us. To me it's a waste of time. My girls have closets FULL of crap that they NEVER PLAY WITH. Every few months I'll go in there to clean things out and straighten things up, and it's like frickin' Christmas in July. The girls are like, "OHHH, I remember this!" Well maybe if you dug around in your closet more, you'd find something to play with!

For her birthday, the ONLY thing that Kyra wants is a big freakin' Black 'n' Decker electronic workbench. If I had a boy and he wanted to play with Barbies, I probably wouldn't let him. But I have no problem letting my girls play with fake power tools. I'm a total hypocrite. I know it. Get over it. Kyra made it abundantly clear to both Diane and me that that was the ONLY thing she wanted for her birthday. Anything less would be total devastation. She will play with this thing for exactly one week and it will take up space in our home (space that we do not have) for the next ten years. Well, the joke's on her because we bought her the Home Depot electronic work bench which was cooler, had better fake tools, and is something that at least I would play with when she gets bored with it.

Highlight of the day: we bought Kyra a Barbie with a dog that takes a crap...I sh... er, kid you not. I thought I was going to crap right there in Toys 'R' Us. It was awesome. You feed the dog these pellets and when you push its tail down, it takes a dump! There's a picture of it right on the back of the box! Merry Christmas! I was going to put a link to it here so you could see for yourself, but apparently Toys 'R' Us thought that showing a steaming pile of canine feces on its website would not be good for business. I beg to differ.

So, we got most of our Christmas shopping done for the girls. That's cool. Diane went to work and I had a forty-five minutes to kill before picking up Kyra from school, so I went guitar shopping. That was highlight #2 of the day. I worked with a guy named Isaiah at Guitar Center, and he was great. He recommended and showed me a couple of other guitars that I'm now considering. I'm leaning toward Gibson.

I hurried from Guitar Center and picked Kyra up from school. Why not Kailey? Because last week she started tutoring on Mondays and Tuesdays. She's been having a little trouble in reading and math, and apparently they want to give her help early, which is good, but could again come back to haunt me in thirty years: "WHO PUTS THEIR SEVEN YEAR-OLD CHILD IN TUTORING!!!" I do. No child left behind. Get over it. She's in tutoring until 3:15. I take Kyra home and feed her. We go back to the school and pick up Kailey. We return home, get Kailey a snack, and get both girls changed for their 4:00 gymnastics lesson.

I take a book and read during the girls' gymnastics lesson. I used to watch them, but about fifteen minutes into the lesson, the older advanced classes begin and there are thirty pre-pubescent (and a handful of pubescent) girls running and tumbling and performing amazing acrobatic feats right in front of me, usually blocking my view of my girls' classes. So now I read, primarily to keep from looking like a dirty old man. I did notice, however, that Kyra was quite pouty during her lesson.

Took the girls to McDonald's after gymnastics. I hardly ever buy them fast food anymore, but I was tired and didn't feel like cooking anything (I knew I should have worked out). Kyra complained all throughout dinner about not being hungry. I made her eat anyway. Kailey has a ton of homework this week. Why do 2nd graders have homework? I never had homework until probably 5th grade. But I guess we can't leave any kids behind now, can we? So instead of allowing them to go outside and play, I had to be a hardass and make them do homework. I've learned that if we don't get a good jump on it on Mondays then it's hard to get through it all during the rest of the week, which contributes to the joys of Monday.

While Kailey finished up her homework, I herded Kyra into the bathtub. On the way there she commented on how cold she felt. I told her she'd feel better once she got into the warm water. I got her into the tub and returned to help Kailey with her homework and load the dishwasher. Then I went to wash Kyra and noticed she was shivering. Light bulb. I washed her up, dried her off, dressed her in the warmest PJ's I could find, and put her under a blanket in front of the TV while I got Kailey in the tub and fetched the thermometer...100.5.

From the bathroom I heard singing. Loud singing. I walked into the bathroom to find Kailey standing naked in the tub singing at the top of her lungs:

"Can you feel it?"
Can you feel the love?
Nothin' feels better than feelin' the love."

That's my girl, and highlight #3 of the day. I guess Monday wasn't as bad as I thought, just much busier than I like it to be. And I had to fly solo since Diane is working late. Both girls went to bed without a fuss, for which I am eternally thankful. But I put a bucket next to Kyra's bed because I have a feeling this day ain't over.