This is me, falling apart

warning: I copied/pasted this from another forum. it is not spell checked, punctuated or edited in any way.

Yesterday:
i took the kids to church, by myself. dowlan was home working on contract work. we're starting to get charlie used to being in the sanctuary, so i had all three in there. I got to sing hymns with charlie's hand stuck in my mouth. I'm sure God got a laugh out of that one. When it was time for the sermon, i took charlie down to the nursery.

After church, we had this once a month thing called LIVE where they do, well, a live show after lunch. I hate that they make us wait until EVERYONE trickles slowly across the parking lot before we can eat. I ran myself ragged keeping Charlie out of the food. I pass him off for a minute to take the girls potty. Then I get the kids' food, sat it down, get mine and almost get my second bite in my mouth when Dixie spills lemonade. I can't even get it cleaned before she is whining for more lemonade. I clean it up, I get more lemonade.

My butt is four inches from the chair when I notice the puddle under Charlie's chair. Apparently his dinner roll has been bathing in his water cup. Up again, clean again, almost down again. The girls need more chicken. Up again, fetch again, almost down again. Charlie is done eating and ready to make a break for it.

He is so tired. I make the girls PROMISE to not leave their chairs while Charlie and I run to the parking lot with the pile of stuff to drop off and to grab the stroller. Every ten feet, he falls into a heap on the floor. I have so much stuff I can't carry him. We're almost into the garage. These overly charming strangers want to chat about when their son was that age. I get the stuff dumped, I get him in the stroller, I shut the van, I hoof it back to the girls.

Who are no where to be found.

Thankful that the boy child is immobilized by a five-point harness, I begin looking. I find them in the bathroom. It had, after all, been almost twenty minutes since the last time i took them potty. I am furious. They are required to sit at the table and not go play while we wait for LIVE to begin. I stroll Charlie back and forth until no blue eye is visible.

LIVE begins. Due to technical difficulties, there is no sound. SO the people on stage decide to get every one to scream really loud. Seven times. Fortunately, Charlie is unmoved by their howls. LIVE is a little too long and the girls are a little too wild, but we make it through. It is time to go home and I am glad.

We keep getting invited to Super Bowl parties. I keep inviting people to The Super Bowl of Laundry and they all decline. Melody and Dixie realize that it is a good friend's birthday and that we will see her tonight and can we please get her a present and make her a cake. We go into Walgreen's, glaring at the Girl Scouts with their sugary boxes of dietary failure. We buy a cake mix and go home.

Daddy takes the kids outside and Melody won't go. She wants to help me. I get the cake pans in the oven while Melody starts to empty the clean dishes. Every single knife she finds, she pulls out, thrusts into the air, and shouts, "I fight this battle in the name of God!"




TODAY

I *almost* made it to the gym today. I got up, dressed, dressed three kids, fed them all, packed lunches, gym bag and backpacks, dropped the girls off. Charlie and I started to head towards the gym when I realized that I am beyond exhausted. I am coughing and sneezing WAY to much to go be in a pool for an hour. I come home and bum around. Dowlan works on his contract. Charlie plays, then naps.

everything was ho-hum until about 45 minutes before it was time to get the girls. we hear a thunk on the front porch and a weird noise from the laundry room (opposite end of the house) at about the same time. i run one way and he runs the other.

i have no idea what made the noise on the porch, but dowlan soon discovers the source of the laundry room noise. water is spraying out of the pipes.

fortunately, our hoses and pipes arent inside a wall.

water is behind the washer dryer and deep freeze in the laundry room and soaking into the floors on all four walls. it is under the inside part of the a/c unit. it is in the pantry and behind the fridge and soaking into those walls.

we have the water all up and the deep freeze out. im sitting for a minute while dowlan gets rid of the children, then it is time to deal with all the sogging stuff. then we get to figure out what is wrong and how to fix it. then i go to work for three hours. then come home and help dowlan finish fixing it and get it all cleaned up.

we cant turn the water back on until it is fixed. this might get tricky.