A Peak Into My Day Today...

Today was a bad day. One that I just need to write down. It was stressful and long, tiring and hectic, and just... bad.

"Mom... Mom, wake up," is what I woke up to my 7-year-old whispering to me at 6:30am this morning. I knew whatever Maya needed was important because she is NOT a morning person and never wakes herself up in the mornings. When I finally rolled my 39 week pregnant self out of bed, Maya informed me that she absolutely needed homemade chocolate chip cookies baked to bring to school... today... for 30 children. I told her there was no way I could make that happen for many reasons: 1) the notice was just too short, 2) it was not possible for me to lug my very pregnant belly to the grocery store with 7 kids at 7am to buy cookie ingredients, and 3) there was not enough time for me to bake chocolate chip cookies for 30 kids within an hour. She began crying, but I told her I was sorry and she'd have to wait for another day, but she was convinced she needed to have chocolate chip cookies made for her class. Ten minutes later, Maya came into my bedroom and said she called her aunt and convinced her to watch the kids while I ran to the store to get ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. A couple minutes later my sister was at the house and, yep, an hour later I was home baking chocolate chip cookies. Oh, the joys of having a very independent, quite bossy child!

The flu has definitely been going around our town, and bad, so I have been quite the nurse lately and working to prevent any viruses from entering our house. Basically, i've been making everyone washes their hands every a million times a day and we've been socializing very little with other people. Well, today after breakfast Amari said he wasn't feeling well. He looked a little pale and said he was tired, so I put him down for a nap. A couple minutes later, BOOM, he had thrown up all his breakfast... and probably all of his dinner from the night before. He continued throwing up and has been throughout the day. And to make matters worse, Gianna's sick now also. The two of them are my hospital patients right now, camping out in the living room together with jello and Spongebob, having very little contact with the other kids because I do not want them getting sick. Hopefully tomorrow will be better and I do not have another sick child on my hands.

Today the little girls (Ira, Arlet, and Elaina) were supposed to be napping in their bedroom. All was well until I heard giggles coming from upstairs. I ignored them for a few minutes because this isn't the first time the girls were giggling and playing together when they were supposed to be napping, but I finally went upstairs after a couple minutes. When I walked into their bedroom I was in absolute shock. The girls decided it would be fun to play "painters" but they couldn't find any art supplies in their bedroom so they decided to use the PETROLEUM JELLY found on the nightstand. There was petroleum jelly everywhere. On the walls. On the bedroom furniture. On the girls. The girls looked up at me and stared at me in surprise, as if they knew they had just been caught doing something sneaky. To try and make me feel better, Ira even said "but Mommy, we were just making you a masterpiece!" I did get upset, but reminded myself that these things happen and I shouldn't have left the petroleum jelly in the reach of my little ones. I quickly got them in the bath and then spent two hours getting the jelly off of every spot in their bedroom. I guess Wren and I saw this coming when we decided to stick the three of them in a bedroom together. My sisters and I always got into the most trouble together!

Today, when all the kids were playing quietly and I was finally having a moment of peace and relaxation, the fire alarms went off throughout the house. I stayed calm panicked and quickly tried to get all my kids outside. I didn't see or smell any smoke, and I wasn't cooking at the moment, but i'm a very cautious person and wanted to keep my kids safe. The fire department showed up and went inside, but they came out a couple minutes later and reported that the reason the smoke detectors went off was because they were dusty. Odd! We went back inside, I called my sister, and said, "I've just had a terrible day. I need some help... and some quiet. Do you think you could come over?" And my amazing sister came over and took the kids to her house for a couple minutes while I took a nap. In absolute silence. It was blissful. I think Wren was surprised when he came home to a quiet house and me passed out on the couch. "Um, honey, where are the children?" he said. Haha!

My stressful day is definitely impacting my impending labor! Labor is near, I can tell, but has not yet come. I am having painful braxton hick contractions, but no "official" signs of labor. I am getting a bit tired of being pregnant, but it is definitely worth it and I cannot wait to meet my baby girl!

Today was just a bad day. And everybody has them. But at the end of the day, I am reminded that the bad days are small and insignificant compared to the joys and blessings I have in my life.

My kids are happy and healthy.

My marriage is strong.

My family is fortunate to not be so affected by the bad economy.

A new baby is joining our family any day now.

My family has a roof over our heads and food on the table.

We are living a beautiful life.

And the bad days are so, so worth it.