Today is the first day of the Big One's summer vacation, and because of the many trips we are taking, and opportunities for camps, swimming lessons, and the general question mark surrounding my health, I made an executive decision not to place the Big One into day care.

I pictured her deeply engrossed in art projects, frolicking with bugs and lizards, practicing her reading, and charming me throughout the day while I toil away at the thankless job. I think a lot of things that have no basis in reality.

Let me digress a little bit. I've been sick for 60 days. That encompasses 4 separate colds, one right on top of the other. At the same time, angryhusband is insanely busy on a project that benefits the entire household. So I am doing 95% of the childcare, sick, while working whenever the kids are comatose or in school. Needless to say, nerves are frayed, legs go unshaven, and god knows what's in the refrigerator or from what era it originates.

Yesterday, on the Big One's last day of school, the Little One was home with what doctors call The Squirts. When I picked her up on Wednesday, a hint the size of a silverback gorilla was thrown my way that I should maybe keep her at home tomorrow while she "recovers." Yeah, I don't want to inflict that on anyone, but especially not the saintly souls that watch my child 25 hours a week for insanely low wages.

The Little One spent her day off playing this game where she alternates between asking me a question that she can then contradict and crying that she's cold when it's 80 degrees in the house and then refusing a blanket. I like to call it Post Labor Pain. Twelve hours of this game, which includes asking me if her shoes are on the right feet, and then switching them when I tell her yes so that she's walking all over the house like a duck that was conceived too close to the local power plant, and I'm spent.

But tomorrow is another day, and that day is actually today. I drop the Little One off at preschool and then come home, Big One in tow, with some happy thoughts about the learning and togetherness we will share.

Ten minutes later she's wedged her arm between two slats of our glider rocker, and she can't get her arm out. She's bellowing with pain and fear, and I briefly consider putting her down and ending her misery before remembering the array of tools anally organized by angryhusband in the garage.

I start with the screwdriver. No, wait, I start with the camera, but then I go to the screwdriver. I take out precisely three screws with no apparent function, and then head back to the garage for the hex keys or whatever they're called. I loosen and remove two bolts, and now I have a stuck arm that is slightly more mobile, but exactly AS STUCK as it was before.

I am a problem solver, so different thing cross my mind: butter, ice, the fire department. I know the Saws All is not at this location, and that's a good thing because I can barely lift it, and I've never performed an amputation before. I rummage through the garage, where the screams are much, MUCH fainter, and I find the perfect saw. It looks rusty and brutal, and when the Big One sees it, I think she might pass out from fear. Sadly, she doesn't, so I have to try and focus on sawing wood and not skin or eyeball and hope to god it works all while my eardrums are being assaulted. 

Ten minutes later, I've finally sawed through one slat. I bend it out of place, and the Big One is free. She turns her head toward the TV and is locked there, frozen in silence, as if the whole thing never happened. I'm still sucking my thumb over here and rocking myself.