The best laid plans

I thought my confession of last night would force me to make a list today and get those thank-you notes knocked out. That was my plan. To take the kids to school, go to an exercise class, breakfast with an amazing friend of mine, and then do thank-you notes until I puked up goodwill and charm. None of those things occurred, which in the case of the projectile goodwill isn't such a bad thing. 

Kelsey woke me at three in the morning saying her neck really hurt. I was suspicious until I said she'd have to take some Tylenol and she did with no complaint. This is a girl I literally have to restrain to give antibiotics. Then, after she got in bed with me, she proceeded to snuggle against my side regularly bringing her knees up to beat me in the kidney's while she slept. If that weren't enough, she also would roll to the other side and drag the covers with her, brrr. The good news about the twilight type sleep I had was that I dreamed about Mom. In my dream, she was sitting on the edge of the bed wearing her white, terrycloth robe, with her hair all messed up like she had been in bed too. I was telling her about my rough night and that Kelsey hadn't slept. She smiled and made some kind of a joke. It was so nice to see her again with wrinkles in the right smiling places. I missed her when I really opened my eyes. 

Kelsey still hurt in the morning so Jeff took Christopher to school on his way to Knoxville. My friend couldn't meet which was fortunate since I couldn't either. Exercise class was out so I went back to bed in another room since I had not slept well since Kelsey joined me. Just after I drifted off, Kelsey's voice woke me.

"Mom?Mom!" 

I staggered out of the bedroom to find her looking like a trauma victim with tissue stuck in her nose and blood smeared on her hands and face, and matted in her hair. The nosebleeds have begun (something that occurs each allergy season). Only in this case, she hadn't managed to get up in time and it had gotten on the sheets and through the mattress pad. I tried to sound sympathetic but all I really wanted to do was go to sleep. I stripped the bed and washed out the iron smelling stains with cold water like Mom had always taught me. Is there a woman alive who doesn't know how to get blood out of sheets after puberty? Poor Kelsey, meanwhile, kept crying out when she would turn her head the wrong way because her neck still hurt. 

I went back to bed while she took a shower but then the phone calls began. Three of which were from Jeff and we got into a rousing argument about his health. We did resolve it, finally, on the third call. So I spent a non-productive morning continuing to return to the bed only to never really sleep. The day wore on and the most I got accomplished was canceling one of mom's credit cards and paying off her Verizon account, sending a much needed update to my drama class parents, and attending a Colledgedale city planning meeting to try to prevent them from building apartments behind my neighborhood. Oh, and I did make my appointment to get our taxes done. Just for the record, those last five things are on the list that I have not yet created. So when I do make it, I will put them on there so they can be crossed off. I guess that could be considered progress. Tomorrow, Jeff is out of town again so I plan to begin going through the filing cabinets. I wonder if that will actually occur? Anyone want to help? Hello? Anyone? Bueller?