A Year Without - Day 8

I have been up since about 3:30 today. I heard Sammy miserably crying "Maaaaaama!" several times. He told me his feet hurt. When I asked where, he pointed to his arches. I massaged them, and he said they felt better. I covered him up, turned up the heater because it was FREEZING in the house, and he went right back to sleep.

It is extremely drafty in this house this year. We are having to set the heater higher than normal in order not to be unbearably cold. Even our guests commented on it. I guess I need to get window film from Lowe's and cover the windows.

I couldn't get back to sleep, so I tried to write, get some laundry done, and work on the mail. But when I got to the laundry, B heard me and decided to investigate. When he saw me, he said his usual "Eeeeeeeat!"

So I cooked breakfast. We had a little bit left of the "natural" pork sausage Costco started carrying. I really like this one, and hope they don't go back to the other. I decided I REALLLLLLY wanted eggs over medium and some toast to dip in the yolks. I overcooked my eggs, and set the oven on fire making the toast. (It was quite pretty. The heating element on the bottom lit up and burned around like a sparkler. Unfortunately, as we found out later, it left me with a non-functioning oven. And untoasted bread.)

We didn't get to talk to the Daddy when he got off of work this morning (night time for him) because we were already gone to music class. :(

Sammy had a poop accident in his pants during Benny's music class. And didn't tell me. Later, during his class, the teacher came out and asked me if I had any extra pants for him. When I went to clean him up, oh the mess! He had nasty, thick, sticky, sandy poop down both legs, almost to his socks. When I asked him why he didn't go to the potty, he said, "I was having too much fun playing with the toys." I was very lucky that the teacher's daughter had extra pants for her kids, that she let us borrow. And wipies. It took nearly half a pack to clean him up.

It was not a good day for me. Waking up at 3, ruining my eggs, the flaming oven, and now this. I was the camel's back, and that was my straw.

When they started giving me flak about getting buckled and being hungry in the truck, I yelled at everyone. I could not take any more. I told the kids we were going to go home, they were going to eat whatever I decided to fix them, and they were going to take a nap. And THEN we could talk about reading our new books. They must have figured out that I meant business, because they were all silent on the way home. Even though I turned off the music. Because I was so past the end of my rope, I couldn't take that, either.

B fell asleep on the way home (not surprising considering his wakeup time) so I put him down to nap on the bed as soon as we got home. Then I tried to figure out what to do about lunch. My original plan had been to grab lunch at the Costco deli and do some shopping, take Sammy to get some arch supports for his shoes at Junior Bootery, and a half a dozen other errands that are about to go stale. But now we had to go straight home. I was so exhausted from being hopping mad and being up since 3, I couldn't figure out what to fix. So I opened up and warmed up a can of beans. And told them that's what they were getting, and I didn't want to hear anything back except "Yes, ma'am." or "Thank you, Mama." When it was heated up, I apologized for letting my anger get the best of me, but Katie sat on the couch harumphing and crossing her arms as tightly as she could across her chest over and over, and giving me the stinkiest stink-eye that ever did stink. (I highly suspect that my picking up on/assuming the feelings of those I'm close to has passed on to the next generation. Great. I'm going to have to be very careful about controlling strong emotions now.)

We had a playdate scheduled in the late afternoon. I was SO drained I thought about cancelling it. But I was SOOOOO drained, I thought it might be better to have someone else entertaining the kids so I could nap, cool down, or whatever else might bring me back to an even keel.

After lunch, I had Senor Poopy Butt take a bath, which he wouldn't do without me in the room to supervise. Then I sent him and his sister off to watch a movie so I could nap with the baby. Not sure how long I was out (maybe 50 minutes?) but when I woke up, I was alone, and heard them all 3 playing elsewhere while the movie was still running in their bedroom.

Our playdate came, and the company helped my blood pressure a lot. Zachary distracted Sammy and Katie in the basement. Benny popped back and forth between the kids and the grownups. I was going to make steak and sweet potato fries for supper, but when I turned on the oven, it never preheated. So we went to plan B - pizza & wings from NYPD Pizzeria. Kerry worked on her Jesse tree ornaments, and I just sat around like a bump on a log. Because that was all I had the energy to do.

The Daddy had said he might try to get up early and Skype with us, since he missed us that morning. But we didn't hear from him. That's probably okay. I collapsed into bed shortly after the playdates left, about 8, and was asleep before my head hit the pillow.