Not skewering chicken

... which is what I thought I would be doing at about this time until Lena threw a spanner in the works and scattered my carefully constructed house of cards, dealing me... a better hand that resulted in a much more relaxed and enjoyable day!

Poor Lena. Seems she is prone to tonsilitis. Actually she threw her first spanner last night, when she reminded me about her field trip today, and the lunch that I had to pack her it. So I flew off to the supermarket to pick up cheese sausages and broccoli. It's just not a 'real' Mum's bento without cheese sausages and broccoli.

Then this morning she threw the fever. When she flew into my room in a panic to tell me, I actually thought that with some meds she might be able to stagger out the door and onto the bus, but she lost her steam half way through breakfast, and didn't even finish her weetbix, even with brown sugar on top.

Kanji working until 1pm. An essay to check and the weekend shopping to do. Erica at kindy by 10am, but home again at 12:15, and me starting work at 1pm. Erica going trick-or-treating with her kindy class at 3pm, me finishing work at 4:10pm and a doctor's appointment for all three of them at 4pm. Then a visit to Kanji's parents to see Jiichan after his recent return home from another short hospitalization. Chicken skewering and oreo-witch-hat making sometime after we got home.

In case you haven't twigged yet, that's not doable with a kid with a fever. (In fact I doubt if it was actually doable at all). Usually we would take one kid to Baachan's if we were stuck between a rock and a hard place like this, but we couldn't expose Jiichan to germs in his current fragile state of health. So it had to be done... I called and *cancelled work* GASPhyperventilatepanicattack! You just don't DO that on a part-time short-contract job. You don't cancel when you only work a few hours a week. You don't cancel at short notice when your contract is coming up for renewal. And finding the time to do make-up lessons is always a hassle too.

And so I ended up walking around Jusco Mall with the Mad Hatter, 13 charming pre-schoolers and a gaggle of camera-toting parents, instead of coaching teens in the finer arts of octopus ring toss and Pin the Hat on the Turkey. The chicken was skewered at the more leisurely hour of 1pm, and the oreo witch hats were very enjoyably constructed with Amy's increasingly expert assitance after dinner. The only crunch time was the overlap between the end of the Halloween Walk and the doctor's appointment, which saw me running in to the hospital late with a mini witch in my arms, after the others had finished, and then being late at the chemist (and running into the take-kid-to-doc-after-work crowd), then late shopping for dinner, so I bought fast-dinner stuff (tofu, gyouza and packet soup with bread) as I knew I'd be met by cries of 'Mum, I'm hungry!' as soon as I walked through the door.

Now all I have to do is successfully coordinate packing and pie-making in the morning, and pray no-one else gets sick, and we might just get through the weekend!