WeekEnd

I like change, but not change that I'm not in charge of!!

This week, the tides of change began to lap at my feet and eventually sucked me under.  I'm not handling this well.  But I will be OK.  Eventually.

So...here's another WeekEnd post, and I'm warning anyone reading...it's VERY long!

Since the week is still swirling in my head like a tornado, I don't have the presence of mind to break it down into days, so I'll be spitting it out smoothie-style!

We started out the week with a fun art project.  We're studying Mexico right now, so we made a pinata out of a balloon, newspaper, and that wonderful homemade glue that requires white flour and water and lots of wiping.  I also started out the week with a very deep conversation with a close friend that shone a way-too-bright light on a very painful area in my life.

From there, we moved on to more school and two more Mexican inspired art projects, string art and tissue paper flowers.  Art was fine, school was fine, Mommy was not fine.  For some reason I thought it would be OK to schedule three play dates (at my house) three days in a row before a fourth day of another social activity involving the whole family.

For the first play date, I had the privilege of meeting a new friend who has more in common with me than she knows and I'm sure will become a very good friend with time. (Hi, Jill!) My kids played nicely with hers, (Whew!)and it was short but sweet.

The second play date was late in the evening, and involved a very dear friend and her generous offer (in her words) to "bring me dinner since I'm consumed all day with teaching my kids"! Our kids spent the evening filling up empty trash cans in the backyard with dish soap and water from the hose.  Much fun, and the only casualty was a pair of shoes.

The third play date was a curious friend who nursed her squalling baby in my now filthy kitchen while I answered all her questions about my Everything Natural Obsession and cranked out four loaves of bread and a pizza crust.  She laughed with me when I coughed and peed my pants, and I laughed with her when her daughter suddenly appeared wearing a giant glowing headlamp and a pair of fairy wings.

This doesn't sound bad so far...maybe a little overboard with the friends, but not too bad, right?  What I"m not telling you though, is that by the third play date on top of schooling, I was so wiped out that I had just stopped picking up and stopped doing the dishes and laundry.  I think maybe I vacuumed before the first play date, but after that I just gave up.

In the middle of the third play date and my very messy house, Marvin called with what sounded like happy news.  His office had won the tickets to the company suite at our local NHL arena and he had an extra ticket, and a babysitter so I could go with him.  I was thrilled for an impromptu date, and my good-humored Third Playdate Friend watched me get all of us ready with a grin on her face and told me that the crazy blue nail polish on my toes really did look OK with my sparkly flip flops and then left saying that she really did want to come back some time soon! Ha!

So, we packed in and drove to my MIL's house for dinner and to leave the kids so we could go to the game.  In the middle of dinner, Benji's face started to turn red, swell up, and itch.  It was so sudden and got so bad that we gave him some Benadryl and decided to wait till it got better even if it meant being late for the game.  After a while the redness subsided, and Benji seemed to be fine.  We headed out the door and Benji just threw a F.I.T.

It was actually more than a F.I.T. and so much so that we drove a few houses away and waited for 10 min and then called my MIL to see if he had settled down.  I was just super worried after our ER incident last week, and the the itchy swelling incident, and he never throws a tantrum like that when he's at grammas.  When we called after the 10 min, we could hear him screaming still in the background.

I just couldn't bear it, and made the agonizing decision to stay at my MIL's house while Marvin went ahead to the game.  That was a depressing couple of hours, let me tell ya.  Here I was in my cute, out-with-hubby outfit, my hair lookin' good, thoughts of the comfy chairs in the suite and a chance for some grown up talking swirling around in my head, and sitting on a couch between two children, one sweaty and one tearful, watching Max and Ruby.

This brought me to this morning.  Needless to say, I was very skeptical about getting out of bed.  I actually entertained the thought of giving the boys free reign in the kitchen, turning on a Dora marathon for Ava, and staying in bed in my pj's with a book for the entire day.  After all, the public school kids here in town had the day off, so why shouldn't we?

Real life called, and here's what happened today, in no particular order: late breakfast, math test, a peed in bed, spray paint, forgot lunch, shower me and Ava, pack into the car, glue gun and fun with a screw driver, grocery store, chili for 15, pack into the car again, late at friends house with lots of other friends, sick Dad, potty mouth Benji, 2nd black eye for Ava, headache for mommy.

I'm where I thought I'd be the first week of school, not the sixth.  I feel completely drained and alone.  Although I have many friends who home school their kids, I have no one near me who is doing it for the first time. I feel like no one understands how I feel, heck, I don't even understand how I feel.  I love home schooling, it's the balance between that and the rest of life that's suffering.

To make matters worse, one of my best friends (who was going to start home schooling for the first time this year also, and we chose the same curriculum so we could kind be new at it together) has temporarily moved VERY far away, and my other best friend has started nursing school and is consumed into another world altogther.

Don't get me wrong, I'm totally happy for them, my nursing school friend has wanted to do this for all of her adult life and I'm thrilled that she finally gets to do it.  It's just that at a time when I need stability most in those around me, it's completely gone.  I know, I know, there's some big life lesson for me to learn in all this, and that God is stable when everything isn't. But, it's still hard.  And I still don't like it.  Not at all.