With the exception of preparing their lunches, which Nightingale does, I am in charge of getting the kids ready and off to school. Almost every day is a challenge, but different than the day before. I get them up at 7 and ask what they want for breakfast. They rarely, if ever, want the same thing.
Once they are sitting and eating breakfast, I pick out Boris's clothes. Natasha picks out her own, but left to his own devices, Boris would put on the worst mismatching clothes possible.
Then they brush their teeth and have some screen time. Then it gets tricky. Some days they are ready to go, other days I have to keep after them to finish getting ready.
I try to leave the driveway by 8:00 AM. If I catch both traffic lights (small town, yo!), we get to school -- or prison, as they affectionately refer to it -- in exactly six minutes. They call it prison because school hasn't been fun since the 3rd grade. They are restricted on when they can talk among their peers. They have a very short amount of time for lunch relative to everything else. And they have to carry everything back and forth in their backpacks (11 lbs) because the school refuses to provide on-site storage like they did in previous years.
Drop off takes exactly 1 minute, even with Boris dilly-dallying. And I'm back home six minutes later.
Pickup takes longer. It took me over a year to realize that if I leave the house later (say 3 pm) then I don't have to wait in line so long because it does move quickly once they open the doors. We generally get back around 3:30 pm and even earlier if I do get in line sooner.
*****
I'm a little giddy because the Bears are 6-3 and tied for first place in the division. They are doing about how I predicted at this point, though not the way I thought. Except for the game against the Cowboys, every win was close and could have easily gone the other way. In a way they are looking like the 2001 team that went 13-3 but got exposed in the playoffs. Heck, the last two games could be the equivalent of the 2001 Browns and 49ers games (whom they play later this season).
When the Bears win, I spend the week reading everything about them. When they lose, I avoid the write-ups like the plague. if the Bears play like they did in the last four games, they will lose this weekend because their luck has got to run out.
I have been able to watch at least half of the Bears games down here and will be able to watch at least three more that I know of, including this week's game against the Vikings. This validates my decision not to invest money into being able to watch all the games.
*****
On 10/28, the recruiter for Big Bank called me. He said they hired the person who got the contract job and wanted an additional member for the team, and asked if I was available. I said I was, but big surprise I have not heard anything in the last 16 days, I don't expect anything from that one anymore.
Meanwhile a new recruiter has reached out to me about another contract role but I'm not holding my breath on this on either. He reached out to me late Wednesday afternoon wanting to talk "today" and when we talked yesterday, he didn't really have a lot to ask. He seems like he was just collecting resumes.
Update from the future: He actually reached out late Friday via LinkedIn Messaging:
apologies for the delay in feedback. They are going to pass for now, but will circle back around for more functional roles open up! I will send you out to all our other Account Managers for openings!
Nightingale insists it's okay that I don't have a job and focus on being the primary child care person. But I sense judgment from the family and a loss of power from not bringing in a paycheck. While my kids refer to school as prison, I refer to Living in Mississippi as being in purgatory.
