THIS RAINY FRIDAY

‘I alreadt feel rlly sick’, came the text this morning from my middle daughter. It was 07,36h.

‘I’m on the bus and I still have to sit here for another 30 mins’, she continued.

‘Sorry baby. What would you like me to do?’, I replied.

‘Idk’, she texted back.

I waited for her to let me know what she would like me to do. If she lived here with me and was feeling sick, I would have let her stay home.

Half an hour later she texted me from school. It was 08,13h and classes would start in two minutes.

‘Can you pretty pls come pick me up’, she asked. She became a bit more unwell once she arrived at school.

‘Maybe I can make it through 1st’, she added.

I got in my car and drove across the street to pick her up. She was standing at the attendance office window with her Halloween throw blanket wrapped around her shoulders when I walked into school. After signing her out, we returned home where she spent most of the day sleeping whilst I worked.

By the end of the school day, Cinnamon felt better. She definitely needed the extra hours of sleep. As she was about to walk across the street to wait for the bus to her father’s house, she got a text from a friend. The girl that my son hangs out with. The one who is moving to New Mexico for the next five or six months. The girls asked if Cinnamon and her brother could come over to her place, as it was her last night in Austin.

I wanted to avoid the after-school traffic so we drove over to the school a few minutes before the bell rang and picked up my son. After dropping them off at the friend’s place, a torrential downpour started. The windshield wipers were at their highest, but I was still having a difficult time seeing the street clearly. Luckily the rain subsided by the time I got home. Had we left even five minutes later from school, the children would have been soaked by the time they got into their friend’s house.

About three hours later, I picked up my children and took them to their father’s house. The friend went too. For a few more hours of time together and to include my older daughter as well.

I then returned home and started my quiet weekend alone on this rainy Friday. Time to reflect, to read, and to relax.