The Ease of Working from Home

(That headline is dripping with sarcasm, if you can’t tell. DRIPPING.)

Sometimes, it takes me a full 24 hours to accomplish nothing.

It’s 4:00pm and I have tried three times to sit down and get some work done at this computer.

And three times, I’ve failed.

The first time, I got sucked into Facebook for a few minutes, then my sister came over for coffee. Then a comment one of us made led to remembering an old Saturday Night Live skit, and of course I had to try to find it online, which led to watching a few other videos together and laughing ourselves silly. Which, coupled with the coffee, did a pretty awesome job at clearing the lingering drowsiness from my mind.

The second time was after I’d put in a load of clothes, picked up in the living room, chopped a bunch of vegetables and some beef and got a curry going in the crock pot. But my daughter, not knowing I needed the computer, had already put in her Ugandan music DVD and she and Jonah were having a little video dance party in the dining room.

It was way too cute to interrupt!

The third time, everyone had finished dancing and had lunch (Eli was just sitting down with his sandwich), and it would be a while before the eldest got home to tell me about his first day back to school (yes, they started crazy-early this year!). So I slipped on my headphones, opened up my documents, was just about to start some music when Eli yells….

“Put Annie outside! Put her outside! She’s about to throw up!”

Anne is our 9-year-old lab mix –sweetest pup ever– but doesn’t always do so well when she gets too much human food. (I’d slipped her a couple bits of raw beef; then Eli gave her a chicken nugget.)

Headphones off, I hopped up and rushed to the living room. Eli was sitting in Donnie’s chair, with his knees pulled up, his hands over his eyes, moaning and looking pale (like his mom, he doesn’t do so great when any living creature throws up). I saw that I already missed the first “pumping” of Annie’s stomach, as there was a pile near Eli’s feet. Thankfully, she did it on the floor and not the rug, and I managed to wrangle her out the back door before she deposited round two.

At this exact moment, Jonah started yelling from the bathroom, “MOM! I’m done pooping! Come wipe meeeeeee!”

Who to tend to first? If I clean up the dog puke first, I run the risk that Jonah will tire of waiting and try to take care of business himself, which he’s  not quite ready to do, and I know will result in toilet-seat-scrubbing and probably some laundry. If I tend to Jonah first, there’s a very real chance that Eli will hurl a puddle to meld with Annie’s.

Russian roulette, Mommy-style.

I told Eli, “I know it’s gross, but you’ve got this. You’re not going to be sick. Just close your eyes and think happy thoughts.”

Then I ran to the bathroom and wiped the hiney, and Jonah kept asking, “Did Annie throw up? Did she? I want to see it!” (Could my two boys be any more different?)

Then I ran to get paper towels and a bag and disinfectant spray and all the while, the dog was barking to come back in (ummm…NO!) and my phone was ringing.

Ten minutes later, everything was clean, Eli was able to eat again, Jonah was playing, the dog was gated into the laundry room and I sat back down to write.

But then I thought, this might make a fairly entertaining post, so here I am.

Oh well. Blogging is more fun anyway.

Now, back to work!