Sometimes it’s the Best of Times over here. Usually my kids wear bathing suits in the swimming pool, and their mommy goes through the motions of having her act together.
This week has not been the Best of Times. What would the opposite of that be?
Oh yeah. Worst of Times.
Thanks, Dickens. You’re a literary genius.
To recap: Usually, it is the best of times.
This week has been the worst of times.
(Always remember the disclaimer…if you’re dealing with actual problems today, click away to a healing prayer website. My whining over fake problems will just depress you more.)
I’ll just start with the climax about why this week has been the worst of times.
At 9 AM I found myself in a hot minivan in Garden Ridge’s parking lot crying in front of my four kids and two dogs.
I never cry in front of my kids. I never even raise my voice. I never lose my cool in front of my kids.
It’s part of our silent agreement: they can act like emotional basket cases most the time; I remain strong and stable as long as they promise to remember that when they’re teens and need advice about all their friends doing drugs.
But today I had HAD IT. First and foremost was my fatigue. M was out of town this week, so I was on hyper alert, guarding our home from the ninjas who surely want to break in and steal all of us. Manny (Greyhound) shared my vigilance for the ninjas and woke me up every hour on the hour to nudge me with his wet nose and “make sure everyone is cool.”
Let me tell you, after three nights of nudging: I WAS NOT COOL.
I was (am) tired.
Plus, where did all these kids come from? Don’t they have anything to do? Summer has blindsided me. Suddenly four kids, who are used to the constant instruction and interaction of school, are looking at me saying, “MOM?WHATCANIEATWHATCANIDOWHATISNEXT?!”
Did I mention I’m solo this First Week of Summer? When everyone is transitioning and it’s ugly?
Yeah.
Plus, we put Best of Times on VRBO this week! Which is great! Tons of queries of fine families who would love to rent it.
But, oh my goodness, with the questions from renters. We are trying to book ten weeks of renters in about five days, rather than five months. It’s a tidal wave of questions.
Not to mention, each one seems to have a special situation they want to chat about. Or they want a contract.
Oops. Still working on that.
The beach house also isn’t *totally* done yet. Then, a few days ago, I got this TREMENDOUS idea to enlarge and frame canvas prints of old Galveston businesses that have been destroyed by hurricanes. Turns out this is a tremendous amount of work. The only existing pictures of these places are poor image quality. The photo tech at Walgreens and I are on a first-name basis.
This is how it’s gone so far…I upload a picture with crappy resolution; she calls me to tell me just how crappy it is; I drive over there to see the crappiness and decide whether it’s too crappy for the walls of the beach house.
Then the kids and I wait around Walgreens with all the sick people picking up prescriptions. Thirty LONG MINUTES later we go home.
Repeat seven times.
So, this morning, after a 7:30 AM swim practice, I loaded the tired kids and dogs into the car to drive down to the beach house and hang the pictures and finish the rest of our to-do list. Everyone was whiny and cranky and needy. And I still had to figure out how the HECK I was going to get a porch swing and a queen-sized headboard out of the cavernous abyss that is Garden Ridge and into my hot minivan.
I had no answers. But I did have fatigue.
I also had four kids telling me how hot their feet were or how much they needed a movie.
That’s when I lost it and cried and cried and cried.
The kids and dogs just kind of stared at me.
Then Elisabeth piped up she was sorry.
Sam offered to help me carry out the wooden swing.
Catie promised they would all try to be better.
And Nate stopped howling.
You know what? I felt better. Everyone chilled out, and I felt a little less overwhelmed.
Like I might even be able to put a bathing suit on my toddler before he gets into the pool.
Progress.
