Car Trouble

Suzanne called this morning at 7:55 am to tell me that her car had broken down. Suzanne, the world's most reliable babysitter who was supposed to be there at 8 am was going to be late on the one day I needed her to be there on time.

I immediately went into panic mode. I was worried about Suzanne but mostly about myself. How was I going to find someone to watch Owen and still get Josie and I to school on time?

"Do you need me to come get you?" I asked, immediately thinking how awful that must sound. Like she was going to leave her car on the side of the road just to get to her babysitting job on time.

"I called Triple A." she said calmly.

"Okay,"I said, calculating on average AAA takes 30 minutes to get there so I was definitely going to be late. The Easter bags were definitely going to be undecorated for the hunt at 10am. I definitely wasn't going to be co-op mother of the year. Oh, but back to Suzanne's car. I needed to really focus on the person with the real problem. Suzanne.

Suzanne. The babysitter who had single handily saved me and my family from complete ruin. One of the few people who walks in the room and causes so much joy that my children don't even care if I leave or for how long. When Suzanne leaves in the afternoon, my children are happier children than they were when she arrived in the morning. My focus right now needed to be on making sure Suzanne was okay - not on whether I was going to get where I needed to be on time.

"April Fools!" She screamed breaking the silence. She was laughing hysterically. "I am right around the corner. I will be right there."

I was in shock. The wave of emotions that overcame me in the last minute felt like a tsunami crashing against a shack on the beach. I had to laugh. But I also wanted to kill her. She knows me. Well. She had to have known there was no way I would possibly know todays date. No way I could have been at all prepared to call her on her bluff. Which is probably exactly why she played the joke on me. Duh.

In the minute that it took Suzanne to pull up in front of the house and come in the door, I was already done being mad. The truth is, she could have called and told me she was pregnant with Norm's love child, on April 2nd, and not been joking, and I probably would still love her and welcome her with open arms.

Its hard not to love someone who brings so much joy to your children lives, even if she does find it funny to cause sheer panic at 7:55am on Thursday morning before the Easter Party, just because it happens to fall on April Fools.