There is no denying the historical significance of today. Monumental and exhilarating. This is an inauguration day that I will never forget, for sure. At the same time, in all other respects my day was quite frustrating. Thankfully it began with the frustrating, and ended with the exciting!
This morning was decent enough, but I had so much preparation to do for the crazy afternoon! There was simply too much scheduled for the day. Last week I arranged a play date for Paul Luis and his friend Sammi for this afternoon. Later Torsten planned a play date for Emma Sophie with her friend Sofie, which wouldn´t work of course, because I needed to drive Paul Luis to Sammi´s house, and Emmi also has English class on Tuesdays. I also need to be at the house as much as possible on Tuesday afternoons, because Natalia the housekeeper comes. But Torsten and Claudia were determined to make Emmi´s playdate work, so they had Sofie come here early enough for lunch and a bit of play time before Emma´s class. This also meant that Paul Luis and Sammi needed to play at our house instead of his, so I could stay here with the girls instead of driving. I´ll admit I was a bit irritated. They pressure me to keep a clean schedule and make my own plans for the children, which I had in excellent order last week. But once they start to add plans of their own without consulting me, the schedule becomes a big mess. This afternoon was SO stressful in our house. Poor Natalia could hardly do any cleaning with so many children running about. And of course the girls threw fits when it was time to leave for class, because they couldn´t squeeze enough enough play time after lunch. Tuesdays are NEVER good days for Emmi to have play dates - I know this by now! I wish they would either give me total responsibility for making the children´s plans for the week, or none at all. This was just too messy. And I was so distracted this afternoon keeping an eye on Paul Luis and Sammi, helping Natalia, and other household chores that I didn´t yet have time for - folding laundry and such, that I COMPLETELY forgot to pick up Emmi from her English class at 4:30. It was nearly 4:50 when I made it there, and luckily Christianne, Tivan´s mom, stayed with her until I arrived. I´m such a terrible au pair! What kind of person just FORGETS a child? And of course Torsten had just come home when we came back to the house. Emmi was very excited to tell him all about my big failure in picking her up....
HOWEVER, after all this I was so thrilled to come back and see the live CNN footage of Obama´s inauguration on my computer! After a while, Claudia called and asked if I wanted to watch the speech on their big TV with them in the main house. So I ran over and we watched the event together. I was almost in tears, I was so excited and happy!! I will definitely never forget this oath of office. I have never felt such pride and hope. After 8 long years of anxiety, worry, disappointment, and sometimes embarrassment, I have hope now that I can remove that shroud and embrace my patriotism and love for America the beautiful. We have some difficult times ahead, and a LOT of work to do, but I have to believe that the steps we are taking in this new chapter will be in a positive and productive direction. In this we must trust.
2 comments:
I forgot to pick Maggie up from Kindergarten a couple of times--and she belongs to me! Don't feel too bad, learning to manage everyone else's schedule is a lesson you'll come to appreciate later.
I can't help but think that everything you ever do in life after this year in Germany is going to seem a lot easier than it would have otherwise....
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