Tomorrow is Labour Day, a day in which we celebrate the hard-fought victories of labour unions throughout history by taking the day off work.
Thank goodness all I have to do is:
- One dozen loads of laundry; one for every time my four-year-old got out of bed tonight.
- Reorganize the kids’ school clothes so that when they throw them all onto the floor and just wear the same basic thing every day, it’s easier for me to put them away again.
- Sort through the lunch containers and water bottles and slide into a mid-day existential crisis.
- Bake batches of muffins to be frozen for school snack for my snotty kids who are too good to eat the supermarket granola bars I pack them and curse the day we moved into this hipster neighbourhood.
- Teach my seven-year-old to tie her shoes in one day because we already bought the ones with laces and we are firm believers in the high-pressure/panic mode of learning.
- Reaffirm my commitment to high-pressure/panic as a motivational force as well as a mode of learning by meeting multiple work deadlines.
- Break for an emotional meltdown because the end of another summer means their childhoods are passing me by and all I want to do is spend every waking moment with my wonderful babies.
- Transition smoothly into a nervous breakdown because I can’t spend another moment catering to their whims; what about my dreams!? When do I get to work toward my own intellectual and creative goals? It’s like I’m a prisoner in my own home!
- Calm down by baking yet another batch of muffins.
- Try to get to bed on time. No, really. Okay, so I said “try.”
- Wake up in a cold sweat because, oh crap, won’t they need pencils?