Josh is in Jordan, Carter was struck with strep, and the sky is a hazy, windy mess. I’m having sympathetic throat pains and can almost feel the germs creeping back in my body. Today, our first day of the week, Calvin had early practice, the dog had agility training, the kids had Bible club after school, and Camille had soccer practice this evening.
Around 2:30 pm I realized the last thing I wanted to do was be outside for another hour at the end of our day, breathing in who knows what and then rushing everyone home to quick do homework, eat something and then race to bed before it got too late. They need all the sleep they can get to fight off this strep epidemic that has wormed its way through our community.
I tried texting Josh to ask him if it was OK to not take Camille to soccer, but he was probably in a meeting so all I got was radio silence in return. I wished I could message my mom because I knew she would tell me to stay home without thinking twice about it, but she was fast asleep in the middle of California nighttime. I was having trouble with this particular decision because Camille loves going to soccer and it’s one of the few things that we do just for her. She had even pulled out her soccer cleats and uniform and was prepared to change over after club was over.
The reason I wanted permission goes back to the days when I would make excuses not to do something because I was nervous. As I got better I decided to bounce my “excuses” off of Josh or someone else to see if I had a legitimate reason to pass on something or if I needed to suck it up and go. But today I looked around, saw there was no one else, and decided we’re going to club and then going home. Sure, I could have made it all happen, but 45 minutes from now when they are all in bed instead of stumbling in the door after practice, I’ll be breathing a sigh of relief and thinking, “Thank you, wise self. I’ll be letting you make my decisions more often.”