A Day In The Life

Disclaimer:

If you are a parent, you will probably do a lot of nodding during this blog.  

If you don’t have any kids, you will probably do a lot of nodding off.

Either way, I hope you enjoy it. 

It is Sunday night and we just completed a marathon.

Not a real marathon, that’s too much work, but...

It all began Friday night with game one of my son’s weekend baseball tournament.

Following a satisfying win and an even more satisfying meal with the family, we got back home at around 9:30.

It was a quick lights out as the alarm clock was scheduled to go off at 5:50am to get us ready for game two.

A quick lights out for everybody but me.

I’ve always been a night owl and no matter what is scheduled for the next day, I always have a hard time getting to bed early.

I have this little unwritten rule in my head though, as long as I sleep five hours or more, I am fine.  

Four hours and 59 minutes or less and it is guaranteed to be a two coffee day.

For this night, my goal was Midnight 50.

This time I made it, but barely.

For the last five plus months, the highlight of my day is getting everybody to sleep so I can sit down at the computer and put together a new blog.

Hey whatever keeps you happy, right?

That process usually takes about an hour, but Friday night I was writing blog #100, so I wanted it to be extra special.

For this one I set aside 75 minutes.

Bottom line, I made it to bed just in time to satisfy the five-hour rule.

My son’s tournament was about 40 minutes from our house, so when you factor in a coffee stop and getting lost, we were up with the roosters.

Usually our coach wants the kids there an hour before each game, but with a quick turnaround, he said we could get to the 8:00am game by 7:30.

How does 7:42 sound?   Damn directions.

That was just the beginning of a Saturday to remember:

 5:50am -- Alarm clock goes off

 6:30am -- Try to leave for my son’s game

 6:55am -- Actual departure time

 8:00am -- Weekend baseball game #2

10:00am -- My wife leaves the baseball game to get my oldest daughter to her dance practice and my youngest daughter to her tee ball game

11:15am -- Dance Practice

12:00pm -- My son’s second baseball game of the day, third baseball game in 19 hours

1:00pm  -- My youngest daughter’s first tee ball game of the year

By 2:00pm I was ready for a nap, but there’s no time for that.

On the way home, my son and I stopped at my mom’s assisted living facility for a quick visit and to get her to take care of some monthly paperwork.

With my weekdays now being gobbled up by work -- what an inconvenience that is -- I needed to carve out some time this weekend for mom.

So my son and I stopped there, which was fortunately on the way home.  We spent about 20 minutes saying hello, how are you, sign here and be well.

From there, we made a quick pit stop at the gas station, followed by the grocery store to pick up some food to throw on the barbie.

Those errands got us home by 4:30ish, just in time to flip on the grill, make dinner for the family and inhale a meal.

But wait there’s more.

While cooking, the email came in from the other members of my new band, The Clearance Rack, that tonight was the night they wanted to practice.

Really?   Cool.

It would be pretty diva of me to say I was too tired for band practice, right?   Even though I am the lead singer and all that.

So after I got the kids to bed, I made a quick late night stop at Starbucks for a half-caf something or other and I headed to the studio.

(Well its actually a garage, but studio sounds more official.)

Two hours and three new songs later, practice was over.

By this point, the clock had struck, Sunday.

As in Sunday -- day three of my son’s baseball tournament, which brought another 5:50am wake up call.

If I left band practice immediately, I might’ve, just might've made it home just in time to get my five hours of sleep.

But nooooooooooooo.   We had to have a philosophical conversation in the parking lot about music.

That’s so Axl!

I love being in a band.

Thanks to the iPhone and youtube, we were able to watch and listen to both Nick Lowe’s Cruel to be Kind and Marshall Crenshaw’s Someday Someway without any interruption.

Of course by this point, the clock was ticking.

I got back in my car my Midnight 45ish, well aware that I would be lucky to get even four hours of sleep.

What an exhausting day!

And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.