Thursday, September 13, 2012

This is My Life


Exhausting day so far. I swear the most outlandish things happen on the days that I resolve to take a chill pill and choose peace.

On less than 4 hours of sleep, I had to drag the kids out of bed to pick up the hubby from his 16 hour shift at 7am, which makes for an off-kilter day right there. Unable to fully comprehend the world or function like a normal human being (at least, as "normal" as I can pull off...), I somehow managed to get everyone home and fed and back out the door with Kylee in uniform and with backpack in tow (including signed permission slip for next week's field trip; I'm such an overachiever!) to get her to school on time (for the first time all week).

I even got laundry put away and the kitchen floor swept before meeting a beautiful friend for coffee.

The coffee shop we met at is literally 4 doors down from our house, which I absolutely love. The kids call this one "our coffee shop;" I get the impression that they seriously believe it belongs to us... Anyway, I walk down there with my two smallest mini people, thinking I have everything under control and this will be a breeze. Within 15 minutes of being there, my sweet boy used one of the crayons I brought as an attempt at adequate distraction to express his creative soul on the solid yellow wall. It was a black crayon, of course.

I very much enjoyed the luxury of actual adult conversation and interaction, which has been quite lacking for me this week; of course it was intermingled with so many questions and trips to the bathroom and assisting with getting the toys off of the very top shelf and then putting them back, but it was still very cherished, especially with such a wonderful friend and person.

And then, of course, more drama ensued when Chloe and Josiah decided to fight over one particular piece from a toy and Josiah fell off of his chair backwards, head first into the wall/window frame. Everyone in the shop stopped moving and held their breath as my son released a completely legit cry of terror and pain. A few people asked if they could do anything and the poor barista-boy looked so desperate to be of assistance that I asked him for a bag of ice, which he kindly and promptly brought out. Thankfully my boy seems to be fine, just a little bumped and scraped, which is entirely normal for him anyway. It was nice that everyone seemed so concerned for my poor, sweet boy and I even forgot to be embarrassed to bring such (additional) attention to the state of utter chaos my life can tend to become. He was back to curiosity and discovery in a few short minutes, acting like nothing had happened; that's my boy!

We chatted some more and my sweet friend gave me a whole bag full of brand new school uniform clothes for my Kylee, which is a huge help and a totally unexpected blessing! Then we parted ways so I could feed my tiny monsters, whose dispositions were rapidly deteriorating, and she could go home and mow her lawn.

Chloe fell into total fall-apart mode when we got back to the apartment, which helped push Siah over the edge into limp-noodle rebellion. Oh the joys... I managed to feed one and put the emotionally frayed one in her bed to discover the art of calming down so she could get her lunch, then headed back to the coffee shop to scrub the crayon off of the wall and also grab a short stint of peace and calm to gather myself. (Don't worry, Tom is home so I didn't just abandon my kids.)

Thankfully I got all of the crayon off of the wall (hooray for Norwex cloths!), but now there are some very clean patches on an otherwise not-so-clean yellow surface. Oddly, I wasn't flustered or embarrassed by any of this situation either, which I am totally impressed with myself about (if you really know me, you'll understand this isn't pride, it's sober judgment of how much I've grown).

Now every ounce of energy I might have had from my minuscule amount of sleep is completely drained, Chloe has calmed down and eaten and is now in bed resting peacefully, and I am counting my blessings and catching up on some reading.

A nap would sure be nice, but I probably won't even attempt that for fear of starting the whole de-groggifying (I made that word up just now...) process again to go pick Kylee up in an hour and a half.

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