Fourth Week

Apparently I was looking a little draggy on Sunday. Three people stopped to ask me if I was okay and C said I looked sad.

B, the mother of one of C’s friends who is also a nurse, said with confidence, “Well, it’s the fourth week, after all. Everyone is crashing.”

I looked at her a little sideways.

“No, seriously,” she said, “it’s the end of the fourth week of school. It’s been just enough time for all the germs everyone brought back from their summer vacation to make one pass through the kids and now on to the parents. And we’re all run-down from trying to master and keep up with the new fall schedule. It’s also when all the families will drop one commitment from their list – or at least think about dropping one. I’ve been tracking this for a few years now. You’ll feel better in a few days.”

We went on to talk about carpooling the boys to a couple of shared activities. Then, as I stepped into the car, I realized B probably was right.

On Thursday I was looking at schedules considering what could drop. We were just too frenetic to master the schedule. Too many different directions. We’ve had sinus congestion in the house for a week or so now. Nothing major, just many tissues used. M crawled into bed with me overnight on Thursday and was hot to the touch. Motrin cooled him off, but he passed the low-grade fever and sore throat and headache on to me by late Saturday. Of course, my husband was out-of-town during this.

I looked around as I was driving through town and later at the grocery store. There were some seriously tired looking moms around. In spite of the gorgeous weather, we all looked like fading remnants of summer, not people enjoying the season.

The long weekend coming up is happening at just the right time. We all need a small break, a little regroup. Even though we’ll be going away for the weekend, it’s still three days without alarm clocks and appointments and commitments – and hopefully with some restorative rest.