Is it 2011 yet?

Monday was ok, I think. I can't actually remember it.

Tuesday at 5:30pm I found out that our child care was ending on Friday, 2 weeks earlier than anticipated. I also discovered that despite months of assurances that they were looking for a new family day care place for Charlie and Elissa, the organisers had not actually started looking until that day. We had missed all the opportunities as new carers had started and kids had moved on to school.

Tuesday night Elissa got croup, so as well as an hour up with her waiting for the steroids to work, she couldn't go to day care the next day. I put off my client and rang around long day care centres. Most of them told me they had 2 year waiting lists. One told me they had places and I went to see them. The only time I could get there was during rest time, so it was hard to gauge much about the kids, but the staff seemed friendly and warm. On the other hand, it smelled more strongly of disinfectant than I would like. It was the only place that was an option unless Family Day Care came up with something plausible, and the woman had not sounded confident.

On Wednesday night, the steroids got Elissa through the night without incident, but Charlie woke with a leg cramp that took quite some time to resolve.

Thursday I got a call from Family Day Care telling me they had only one possibility and it was at the absolute limit of the distance I had originally (2 years ago) specified. That was before I was taking Charlie to preschool as well. Looking at what the drop offs would be like on the 3 mornings that Charlie is at preschool, taking this option was guaranteed to add significant stress to the morning routine. So I now had a choice between two child care options, neither of which I was wild about. And I had 36 hours to resolve it.

Either way, I rushed off to see Ben be the assembly leader at school. After inviting the parents in to the hall with his co-leader, he was looking distressed and then disappeared. Painful moments went by while his co-leader stood in front of everyone wondering what to do. Eventually he reappeared and I was called over. Standing next to the sick bed, his teacher asked him if he was ok, he said "No" and promptly threw up all over the floor.

So I took him home, fobbed off the client again and had an email exchange that resulted in me needing to sack a contractor. By that time I was feeling just about as ill as Ben, and couldn't go to belly dancing. I also needed to make a decision on child care, and decided on the convenient unknown option rather than the inconvenient unknown option. Thankfully my kids are old enough to tell me how things are going at day care, but making such a significant decision with so little time and information is still stomach churning.

Friday morning I finally went to see the much-fobbed client, which didn't go as planned (due to a weird problem whose cause is still only guessed at). This would not have been nearly so bad if Elissa hadn't been sent home from her last day of day care (thereby removing the chance for Charlie and Elissa to say farewell to the carer they've been with for a year) because she was sick again. I needed to call my mother to come from Campbelltown many hours earlier than intended so that Crash didn't need to wake the sick 2 year old to pick up the 4 year old from preschool.

Last night I was going to the Singalonga Sound of Music at the State Theatre (which is why Mum was headed city-ward eventually). To say I wasn't in the mood would be world's greatest understatement. I've never actually seen the movie for starters, so I was already at something of a loss when it came to the audience participation. Add to that the fact that I'd had a splitting headache since 2pm, and the general shittiness and sleeplessness of the previous week, and what I really wanted to do was curl up in a ball. I did ok until someone wanted to know what was wrong with me, at which point I dropped my bundle and went home.

I'd just about got to sleep when Elissa woke very distressed and very feverish, which took another half hour or so to sort out.

So this morning I woke to realise that I had utterly failed to organise baby sitting for tonight.

This week I've pretty much failed at being a parent, a contractor and a friend. Maybe 2011 will be better.

ETA: My fairy godsister waved her magic wand and said "You shall go to the dinner", thus fixing my baby sitting fail. She is a wonderful being.