Today was pretty close to the opposite of Valentine’s Day at our house. This is where being open and honest about our daily life seems like a bad idea. The day was going fine until we were halfway home about 6 p.m. We had left work about 25 minutes later than usual. The toddler was screaming around the halfway mark and my blood sugar was beginning to drop making for a tired and cranky mom.
We made it home and decided that I would make hamburgers and dad would run to the store practically across the street to grab a tomato, head of lettuce, and some cheese, which he did. Then he came home. The entire time the dad was gone the toddler was around my ankles crying to be picked up, which I did when I didn’t need my hands to cut, mix, or flip things. The teenager was on the couch exhausted from his weather induced migraine. Dad gets home and sits down. Meanwhile I’m still fixing dinner and dealing with the crying toddler in the other room. Seeing dad sitting down and relaxing, I call his name using that tone, you know the tone that says, “why aren’t you helping”. He comes in to the kitchen complaining about how he doesn’t feel well, and why am I upset when I haven’t asked for any help. Well in order to keep some self-respect for the two of us I won’t continue with how the conversation devolved, but I’m sure you can figure it out.
We did manage to eat, but afterwards the toddler decided to go into full on meltdown mode. This led to the wisdom of the teenager being spouted on how the toddler was turning into one of those spoiled children who will forever scream to get what they want. This is a common comment any time the toddler cries for more than a few seconds. I tried to explain that the behavior is perfectly normal for a toddler and that as she doesn’t have the vocabulary to express herself yet, crying is still a big part of how she expresses herself. But, of course, I no longer have the wisdom I had in my teens and early twenties, so what do I know.
At this moment in time, the toddler is peacefully asleep having spent an hour watching Umizoomi and Dora with mom before taking her bath and going to bed. The very cranky teen is in the sitting room with a book. And most importantly, the husband and I are in the same room working on our different pursuits after having apologized for our earlier failures. We make mistakes.
This evening has been exhausting. I think part of it may be everyone not feeling well, but also that everyone has been too busy working in one way or another. I’m determined that we are going to go out of our house tomorrow to do something fun if it kills us.
As for the rest of the day… how did I do overall? Let’s look. Here’s a reminder: I’ll list the category, then the percentage followed by what grade I think I should get in each area. (Some things aren’t an everyday thing, so if I don’t have anything that needs to be done I get those points free. Yay, me! There has to be some benefit to making the rules.)
- Family – 30% – 15: I already confessed up above.
- Foster/Adoption Work – 10% – 10: On the phone with DHS today.
- Bible Study – 10% – 10: The Bible study is getting very exciting. I had a revelation today that was completely outside of the lesson. Yay!
- Writing – 10% – 5: Again nothing but blog.
- Work – 10% – 8: Didn’t finish posting the radio offer due to visitors. I’ll put it up this weekend.
- Health – 15% – 8: I ate decently, but didn’t post or exercise.
- Home Organization – 5% – 0: Did I mention that this was a nightmare of an evening?
- Church – 5% – 5: No church today.
- Social Life – 5% – 5: Lovely friends came by and visited at work today.
Well, there we are back down to a “66″ D. Honestly, I’m surprised to see it that high. The most important thing to me is my family and when that is not working then it should show that something is wrong. I may have not handled today well, but tomorrow is a new day. I have my families love and forgiveness. We’ll erase today with some better memories tomorrow. What is your favorite get away activity for a stir-crazy family?
