What Did You Do Yesterday?
A Tuesday in April
Following on from the popularity of last month’s What Did You Do Yesterday? (which was about a random Thursday in March), I’ve written another and this time it is about one Tuesday in April.
6:15: I’d set an alarm because I had a notion of cleaning the kitchen before everyone got up, like one of those inspiring women on Instagram that provide tips on how to create some #metime, that mostly involve single-handedly doing the work of the entire home. The lobotomy I seemed to have had when setting that alarm though, had thankfully fully healed by the time it went off because I thought “fuck that”, turned off the alarm and got up at 7:15, like a normal person.
7:15: All the usual getting-the-show-on-the-road stuff: I put on a wash, made breakfast for the kids (Rice Krispies with a side of mango), made their lunches (pita, hummus, cheese, raisins, peppers - for the 5 year old, apple slices - for the 4 year old).
I had spinach and banana pancakes with blueberries, yoghurt and coffee.
The 5 year old dressed herself and I conducted an outfit check that involved turning her dress the right way round. I brushed her teeth and plaited her hair. I dressed the 3 year old, adding a pair of modesty shorts under her dress because her teacher specifically asked me to. I felt like I’d sent her to school with no knickers the way they’d said it.
(I did once realise the hard way (coming down a slide at a softplay birthday party) that the same child was wearing a dress with no knickers. I had volunteered to take the kids to the party, to give David a morning to himself, and in his eagerness to hurry us out the door, he offered to dress the kids. But he missed one very important step in the process, and his morning off was rudely interrupted with a call from me telling him to get down here right! now! with a pair of pants.)
8:00: Turned on the TV to babysit them while I got showered and dressed.
8:15: We left with just enough time and the usual instruction: “OK kids, we are walking quickly today”. The elevator stopped on our way down to let in a father and son, also walking to our school. This sped us up nicely because the kids ran on ahead together. We’ve been walking to/from school most days with this family and I only very recently learned that the dad is a lawyer. “Really? You know I am too? And so is David”. I was delighted that we’ve known each other this long and it has never come up. On today’s commute, I learned he once took a screenwriting course and I told him about the one that I did.
8:30: We arrived right before the school doors closed and I braced myself for the drop-off drama. This past month, the artist formerly known as the 3 year old has become the 4 year old and has started in 3K in her sister’s school, midway through the year. She is two weeks in and the results are mixed.
You’ve never in your life seen two kids more different in their attachment than my two kids to me. I don't know how it happened but I think they just arrived with two entirely different personalities.
From the moment my first was born, it was pretty clear, she didn’t really care if I came or went. Yeah, she’d lie comfortably on me but her face said “I’m lying here because it’s cosy, I’d lie on anyone if they were comfy too”. And she did. She never “made strange”. She never cried if I left the room. At baby classes, she was the only baby that didn’t cry when every other baby was crying. I was pretty happy with this until someone said that babies cry when they hear other babies cry because they are empathetic and I started to seriously wonder if I had a 6 month old psychopath on my hands. She started creche at 11 months old and leapt from my arms into the arms of a complete stranger, without so much as a backward glance. “Wow, I'm so glad I took a year out of my career to create this unique and special bond”, I thought, as she slammed the creche door shut in my face. “I’m so happy she’s so secure”, I’d tell myself at collection, as she comfortably stayed in the carer’s arms, looking at me like she’d never seen me before in her life. “I did such a good job”.
Her younger sister, on the other hand, is a completely different kettle of fish and to this day, would crawl back up inside me if she could. Her first day on this earth, she snuggled right up into the crook of my neck and whenever I spoke, looked up at me like a little birdie, her face saying: “I’m so glad I'm here and I can’t believe it’s you”.
This is a kid who just wants to hang out. Specifically, with me. She was born for retirement/ladies-who-lunch life and is really, very frustrated that she has to go through all the other steps first (starting with pre-school). On her third day of school, she said she didn’t want to go, she wanted to stay home with me. I told her that I wasn’t staying home, I was meeting a friend for coffee. (This was the wrong thing to say because going for coffee and a little treat is her favourite thing to do). “WHAAAT!?”, she cried.
Separation from me has always been a problem and being dropped off has rarely gone well in any of the iterations of school we have tried so far.
David brought her in the first day back after the Easter break. He arrived home in tears and kept repeating what she had said: “Don’t go Daddy, don't go. Don’t leave me Daddy, don’t go. I want my Mommy”. Jesus…how the hell do we leave her?? I had a meeting with her teacher about how best to handle drop off and today we put the plan into action and it went well - wahoo! I told her I’d read one story, give her a hug then walk to the door and blow her a kiss which she would catch and then I’d leave (and come back at collection time). Thank God - and the teacher - for the plan. The teacher swooped in when she looked like she was starting to wobble and it was a major improvement on two teachers holding her body while I tried to dig each of her fingers, one by one, out of my arm so I could go. (Again, Jesus, how did we leave her!?)
09:00: I walked home and put on another wash and blitzed the apartment while listening to My Therapist Ghosted Me.
10:15: I called in to Breads to buy some rugelach then jumped on the 1, heading up the Upper Westside to meet a friend for coffee. I say ‘friend’, I'd never actually met her before. She put a text out to the Irish Moms in NY Whatsapp, saying she was thinking of not going back to work after maternity leave - did anyone have any advice? And because I am like a Born-Again-Christian, spreading the message not to work, I answered her call. She mentioned that her husband was a lawyer that worked all the time and I said oh I have one of those too. “But you seem so happy?” I asked her, confused. And yes, she said she was really happy. In a split second, I wondered, should I be more grateful for my life? Or should I, instead, point out to this woman, all the reasons she should be bitter and resentful? I went with the latter but she was not for turning. And good for her. Though I made a mental note not to tell my husband that there are spouses of workaholics out there who don’t complain.
12:15: I left because I had a 12:30pm appointment for a facial nearby. (It’s hard to complain so much when you go for facials in the middle of the day but I've always loved a challenge and I’ve risen to it well).
12:30: I was starving and had to decide between arriving on time (but famished) or grabbing a slice of pizza in Ray’s Pizza (and being 10 minutes late). Well, there was no decision really, was there?
12:45: Rosacea chat with beauty therapists - shoot me in the face. You can use the red patches on my cheeks as targets, just put me out of misery. I'm just a bit pink, OK? When I've makeup on, you can't see it and if I don't have make up on, I still couldn’t care less. (I’ve just come across a UCD School of Medicine paper called “Rosacea: the Curse of the Celts” and this is how I will be referring to it from now on).
“What do you do to treat your rosacea?”
“The Curse of the Celts? Oh nothing. No Pam, I'm going to stop your suggestions there. I said there's nothing I can do. It’s a CURSE!”
13:45: I went to Trader Joe’s and picked up green beans for dinner, fruit bars and Babybels for an afterschool snack for the kids and a protein bar for myself.
I haven't yet figured out a time of day where the lines in Trader Joe’s aren't longer than Christmas Eve in Super Valu. I went to the Big Tesco on the Navan Road, March 12th 2020, right after Leo told us, live from DC, to all stay at home. The place was packed. I couldn't find a trolley anywhere. Every bay was empty but I spotted a man returning a trolley and holding up a €2 coin, I intercepted him saying “Hi, could I get that from you?”. But it was the first day of Covid, and we didn't really have a clue how it worked so the man looked at the €2 coin and at my hand touching it and abandoning the trolley, said “You can have it!”…like we were in a really low budget version of the Last of Us, set in Cabra.
Well Trader Joe’s on a random Tuesday is busier than that day.
14:45: Collected the kids at school.
15:00 - Playdate with a friend in a nearby playground. It is 26 degrees by the way and we are baking hot. Wilting. We are not able. The 5 year old keeps sitting under the slide because she says she doesn't want to burn. It’s the first day of real heat and the playground is mayhem. We have no water, no suncream, no shade and I seem to keep getting pelted by stray balls in an older group of kids’ game of soccer. It is hell.
16:05: Because I came straight from the supermarket, I didn't get home to get the buggy. Did my kids graciously make the 10 minute walk home without complaint? Did they feck. Were they carrying their own schoolbags at least? Of course they weren’t. Pack mule here was doing that. We hadn't even reached the gate of the playground before the whine had begun. “My legs are tiiiiiiired. I’m hot! I’m thirsty! Why did Daddy take the stroller?” (I probably should have stepped in to say it was my fault (not his) but I had enough on my plate.
16:15: We were almost home. Just one pedestrian crossing to go. The pedestrian lights were green. I was holding the 4 year old’s hand. The 5 year old was right beside us. We were about three quarters of the way across when the 4 year old let go of my hand and made a dart for the sidewalk ahead. Which should have been fine because she was on a zebra crossing and there were still 7 long seconds on the pedestrian countdown clock. Except that a car started to turn right onto the crosswalk as the 4 year old was running across it and not only did the car not stop when it saw us but it didn’t even slow down and appeared, actually, to speed up. I screamed out my kid’s name in horror and roared “JESUS CHRIIIIST”. By some miracle, the car stopped in time and we all made it across unharmed but tensions, in the heat, were now even higher. The 4 year old roared crying the last little bit of walk home and to explain the hysterical scene to our doorman, the 5 year old told him: “SHE RAN IN FRONT OF A CAR”.
16:20: We had five minutes to decompress and hydrate with water and popsicles and we all just sat in complete silence.
16:30: We brought the 5 year old to her swim lesson in the building next door. Parents have to sit in a nearby corridor which has a monitor on the wall displaying the lesson. We found a table and I opened up my laptop to check my email for the first time in about a week and the 4 year old sat beside me and watched Youtube on my phone. I got my unread emails from 242 down to 142 and the only one of interest was one that said my credit score had dropped 3 points. I couldn't tell from the explanation if it’s because I’m using too much credit or not using credit enough so I’ll just keep doing exactly what I have been doing and hope for the best.
17:20: We live so close to the pool that the kids throw on a hooded towel and a pair of crocs and we walk home (even in the depths of winter), avoiding the faff of the swimming pool changing room. The doorman remarked we were much calmer now than we were an hour ago and never a truer word was spoken.
17:25: I have just an hour to wash my hair and make dinner because I’m going to see Jarlath Regan at 7pm and 6:30pm is the absolute latest I can leave and I never leave earlier than the absolute latest. Fish fingers, chips and cherry tomatoes for the kids (thank you air fryer) which they ate in front of the TV while I washed my hair. The first day of Spring Break last week, I was so unbelievably exhausted by 6pm that I told the kids they could have dinner in front of the TV. I loved that they thought I was treating them. When I was the one grabbing a 10 minute lie down in my room because I thought I might die of physical and mental exhaustion if I didn’t. That one-off treat turned into a whole Spring Break thing. Then their first day back at school I said “Ah the first day back is hard…how about one more day with dinner in front of the TV?” Well yesterday was the second day back and I’ve run out of excuses. I think our transformation to TV dinner family is maybe complete.
All the fun things we did over the break by the way and this was what got reported at school:
18:00: David came home and I asked him could he make us sandwiches out of the bacon I’d just made in the airfryer (God bless that airfryer) and I dried my hair as much as possible and ate the rasher sandwich as much as possible, then legged it.
18:30: Three trains to Gramercy Theatre got me there right on time (18:58). In front of me in the line outside the theatre was the Tipperary bride, the original subject of my most popular Substack post. I hadn't met her in over two years but I tapped her on the shoulder to say “Hi, I met you before…can I tell you something crazy? I met -” “- my mother-in-law on the subway!”, she finished. “I know! She told me!”.
The friend I was meeting joined the line and we went in.
19:00: The show was really good. Lots of relatable ‘Irish in America’ content like “We’re not built for today’s heat” and I, on the 21st of April, sat there thinking: “Preach, Jarlath, preach”.
21:00: We went for a drink and a few appetizers in Comodo across the street. My friend’s colleague joined us (10pm) and we stayed, chatting about New York, life and love until we could no longer ignore that we were the last people there and the staff had fully cleaned up the restaurant around us.
23:15: We walked together towards 20th Street and 6th Avenue where we all parted ways. One for the L train, one on foot for home and me for a CVS to buy contact lens solution.
23:30: I hailed a taxi and yellow cabbed it home, slipping into bed at midnight, thinking: I'm definitely not going to that 6am yoga class tomorrow. Goodnight.
Somehow reading your posts I picture you as a real-life Sharon Horgan. And I mean this in the very nicest, Sharon-and-you-admiring way possible.
Ah, so good. I really should do a day in the life just to be able to look back on this stage of my life with littles. Thanks for the real life.