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Fast forward or rewind?

January 18th, 2004 · 1 Comment

Yesterday was the kind of day I wanted to fast forward. Just get me to tomorrow somehow I prayed. And soon…

The girls had nightmares, waking everyone up at 4 am. Abigail had two more before she finally went back to sleep. I had gone to bed late anyway but had a hard time going back to sleep myself, lying awake for a while, staring up at the dark ceiling. I knew the day was already wasted, since we would all be tired.

We all woke up late – which makes me feel behind from the get-go. The girls were cranky and I felt exhausted at eight a.m. Already I wanted to skip the day and get to the next one, or at least to the night to get some sleep!

After breakfast I took the girls out to buy some new boots for Michaela. Both girls have outgrown their boots as we discovered during the recent snow and slush.

At the Bay Hay and Feed, a place with a great selection of boots, Michaela found a nice red pair but began crying as she put her shoes back on. I was looking at boots for myself and wondered why she was fussing so much. When I went over to see what was the matter, I discovered that Michaela somehow had gotten manure all over her brand new two-day-old white-leather tennis shoes. It must have happened somehow on the walk from the van to the store.

I’m grateful that the employees let us use their restroom for a bit of clean up. I left Abigail with the boots and took the two younger ones with me, trying to scrub the shoes, keep track of Elisabeth and comfort Michaela inside a small bathroom.

Getting back in the van, I noticed an awful familiar smell. Upon inspecting Michaela’s shoes again, I saw that I had failed to clean them completely. The velcro, buckles and little ridges on one shoe were still dirty. So we went back home to get Michaela a new pair of shoes to wear so we could go to the grocery store and buy food for dinner…

The day was only half done by lunch time but I wanted it to be over. Fast forward please!

Some days a Fast Forward button would be great. And some days Rewind would be wonderful. Or even Pause.

But with three little kids there’s no pause or stop. Even during the baby’s naptime, the other two want to play. So I played. I got on my knees and pressed my face against the girls’ faces to peer into Abigail’s desk. I played peek-a-boo with the baby from behind the kitchen counter. On the kitchen floor, the place of many pirouettes, I danced too.

No Fast Forward and no Rewind, but there’s always Play!

Tags: family

1 response so far ↓

  • 1 pts // Jan 18, 2004 at 6:02 pm

    There’s this video game for the Playstation 2, “Prince of Persia.” Instead of giving you “extra lives” or somesuch when you die, you have the limited ability to rewind time and undo mistakes. You can also do fast-forward and slow-motion when dispatching enemies.

    It’s just a silly videogame quirk, but after playing it for a few hours, one really starts to miss that rewind ability in real life… if only life imitated art to such an extent!