Today I got a 6:54AM wake up call from the school district. It was a recording letting us know that the Spring Fair was on for today. Yesterday we had some cold, miserable, rainy weather. I was actually banking on either a rained out fair or a chilly day outside. I was hoping for the chilly day with a side of ominous cloud cover. The day started off glum enough. We had cool temperatures and plenty of clouds. By noon it was warming up but some of the clouds were still kind enough to lull me into a false sense of security. I decided that a short sleeved shirt and no sunscreen were the way to go. Five minutes later I pull onto the field to park and realize that it's a little warmer at the school than I expected. Figures. We live essentially two blocks from the school, and every single day I find that it's always colder at the school than it is in my front yard. So, of course, I'm perplexed that it's warmer over there today. Then the clouds decided that they should make their exit. As a result, Ellie and I both have sunburn now. I can deal with myself having it. I know better and it's my own stupid fault that I have it. What I can't deal with is Ellie having a burn. I knew I should have put sunscreen on her before we left, but I started rationalizing all the reasons why I didn't need to. I wasn't planning to be there for very long, it was cloudy and it wasn't that hot out there. None of these are or ever will be valid reasons to not use sunscreen when you have very fair skin. So thanks to me, Ellie has some very red skin. I have a nice heaping pile of Mommy Guilt. Someday when my skin cancer ridden daughter granny-dumps me at the worst nursing home she can find and never looks back I'll have no one to blame but myself (let's hope this scenario never actually comes into play).
We had a pretty good time at the fair. I met up with my friend Amy while we were there. Her daughter was in Madeline's class last year, and she has a little brother who is around Ellie's age. Amy and I had a pretty good time wrangling our crazy three year olds and trying to keep tabs on Madeline and Angie.
I mentioned to Amy that I volunteered to teach a CCD class this year, but I was waiting to hear back from the deacon about it because I was going to have to bring Ellie with me to the class. I've been trying to figure out if I could get a neighbor to watch Ellie and I would take their kid to CCD with me and bring them back in exchange, but I hate to burden someone like that. Amy perked up when I told her about me wanting to teach and she actually volunteered to watch Ellie for me provided the deacon will put Angie in the same session that I teach. How awesome is that? If the deacon agrees, then Ellie will get to play with her friend every week and I'll get to volunteer like I wanted. Not to mention, Amy's generous offer just sets off a nice chain of good deeds.
I'm so happy to be surrounded by such nice people like Amy and my neighbors. I actually feel like I'm part of a community now. I haven't felt like this since I moved away from my hometown nearly 9 years ago. After almost two years in this town, I can now go places and recognize lots of familiar faces on a regular basis. I love it!
I know how you feel about the sunburn - it happens at least once a year with me. I think the stat is if you get more than 3 blistering sunburns during childhood the risk of skin cancer is increased - so if it happened just once and it was just red I think you can rest peacefully.
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