Breathing, and a silver lining?

Today was day 6 of the Year of Me Driving. (To catch everyone up: the H, because he had a seizure, may not be able to drive for a year. Deep breath in. Exhale.) All the moms who have kids in school instantly understand the horror of this, if they live outside of Manhattan, or any other comparable urban center. Deep breath in. Exhale. Total f’ing nightmare.

Today, I drove all four of us to the kids’ school. The H and I had breakfast, then went to the market and I dropped him in Great Barrington while I went to see my shrink (how badly did I need that appointment today? Oh, badly.) I picked him up, and drove him an hour to catch the train to NYC where he has a meeting tomorrow morning. I drove back to the kids’ school (an hour and five minutes) to pick them up to take them to get their flu shots. I drove them to the pediatrician (20 minutes.) We drove back to school, so Dido could finish his day. The Babe and I went for lunch (for me) at 3 p.m., and then to her ballet class. We drove back to school, and then home. Let’s not even discuss my carbon footprint, shall we?

I am quite relaxed, actually about all this; my biggest dilemma is how to manage the animals: the dog can’t stay home alone all day, so she’s going to need to ride along with us most mornings; I will hike her (good for us both) and then leave her with the H at his office while I go about my day. The horses have to be fed and turned out in the morning, every morning, so I now have to do that before taking everyone to school, rather than my prior routine of doing it after they leave. But there’s no way for me to get up early enough (5:30? not happening) to do stalls before school, too. As a result, over the last few days, the kids and I have gotten into an evening routine. Dido does his homework, then we all go down to the barn together. They, who have steadfastly resisted much barn work for the last eight months, have suddenly gotten with the program (fear of maternal meltdown perhaps? though that’s never had an impact before, really) and have started helping, a lot, with cleaning stalls, feeding, watering and stocking the paddock with hay and water for morning. By the end of the half hour “shift”, they’re done working and are just running and playing by the barn while I finish the last details, but that’s lovely, too; then we go back up to the house for dinner. Between that and the time change, they’ve been falling into bed at 7:30, and mostly are asleep by 8, which is, no exaggeration, bliss.