It has been nearly a week since I left my house. Saturday the older kids and I took down the Christmas tree while the little three napped. Let me tell you, pine water does NOT clean like pine-sol. We tossed the tree over the back deck and the plan was to take it to the dump the next day. I ended up not going because I had someone coming to buy some furniture from Craig’s List. When Liam woke up from his nap, the moment he saw the tree was gone, he burst into tears, poor little sweetie was so sad his tree was gone. That night we got some snow, not a lot, but enough that I didn’t want to leave the house, as I need new tires.

By Monday it was a huge mess, we kept getting more and more snow. They canceled school on Tuesday, and the kids were so happy to have a four day weekend. Wednesday we got a huge storm and had over a foot of snow. For this area, that is a lot. I had the boys shovel the walk, in case it iced over, and it did. Thursday morning I heard my sleep number bed clicking, which told me we had lost power. And indeed we did. I knew we were running low on staples, and the only gas in my home is a gas fireplace that we did not have the gas key too, and that has never worked. We had enough cereal for that day, and we had stuff for sandwiches, but none of my meat was thawed, so I BBQed some potatoes in foil and we topped them with cheese, sour cream, and bacon chunks. The sun had set, so we were enjoying dinner by candle light, with plans of all the kids and I sleeping close in proximity, when the lights came on.

Now, we were excited, but not convinced they would STAY on, because they had been flickering on and off all day. One time Austin said “I hope we have lights by bedtime” and I said “I hope we have lights right. now.” raising my hands to my ceiling… and just then the lights turned on! But were off almost immediately. As soon as it was clear the lights were on to stay, we sprang into action. One kid heated up leftover meatloaf and green beans to go with our dinner. Another kid plugged in all portable electronics, cell phones and the space heater. I turned up the furnace and made sure the pilot was on. We did not have high hopes it would last. 200,000 people in this area were without power, and could be for up to a week, so I did not think we would be one of the lucky ones to get lights within 12 hours. The new housing development behind us was not as lucky. A full 24 hours later, their windows are still dark.

In the night we lost most of our tree branches on our shade tree in the front yard, all barely missing my car. My neighbor was also fortunate that her large tree, that lost its largest branches, also missed her cars. Our enormous tree in the back yard was leaning, and it was clear it would probably come down. There were concerns it would take the fence with it, but my neighbor and I watched as it tipped, and then broke off, landing a few inches from the fences. Until the ice melts and we can move the branches, I will be stuck in my driveway. The kids have had a full week without school. Power flickered off again this afternoon, and I let out a string of profanity, but thankfully it came on before I could add a 6th word to my diatribe.

I also got a nice long nap this afternoon which was MUCH needed as I have been sick since earlier this week with a cold that has now settled deeply into my lungs. Christopher and Matthew have also been sick. Between the three of us, I think I have lost half a bottle of Tylenol, and most of a box of Kleenex.

Because he missed Thanksgiving because he was traveling, I made him a complete turkey dinner with all the fixings. We also had a great Christmas and got our very first live tree, and went to a tree farm to get it. Then, for new years, my sisters and I all went to my moms house and had an incredible weekend together. The kids did an ornament exchange and my mom made a huge, wonderful, dinner for the 22 of us. Today, the fun was all over. The kids went back to school. Bobby boarded a plane back to Afghanistan (via Paris and Dubai). Thankfully I was so busy with driving to Seattle, and first of the month errands that reality has not yet set in. I am sure as we transition back into our old routine, that will change and we will all struggle in our own ways, until once again we get back into routine and it will get easy again. Until then, I will continue to hug my kids extra close, and remind them how special and loved they are.

Last night, it looked like we might be clearing up, so I decided not to wash diapers and to wash and hang them in the morning, so I can sun them in the afternoon and dry them in a couple hours vs. overnight, and naturally bleach them. Mistake #2. I KNEW the forecast wasn’t calling for sun this week. I had one clean cover left, and he had already had a big poop earlier, I would be fine. I washed and hung his diapers and I noticed him turning red. I guess the poop earlier was just a warm up, and this was the main attraction. I cleaned him, got him nice and doubled up, went to grab a cover and none was to be found! I looked on the rack and four were hanging and I just put the 5th into my soapy bucket so I could wash it too. So if I really was without a washer and dryer, today I think I would have run screaming to the laundromat or to a friends house. Since this was an emergency, I decided to think of a way to rapidly dry the diaper that the average family home and the only thing I could think of was the hair dryer. I may have been cheating, but while the baby happily chewing on his feet in a diaper sans cover, I was washing the newly pooped in diaper and had the hair dryer angled to blow on the dryest of my 4 covers. It got done just in time too, after he nursed, Liam was exhausted and went to bed.

Overall though, I still wish I had known about flats when I was a new mama. My hubby had just joined the Army and we were struggling and living paycheck to paycheck. I remember letting him wear his diapers an extra hour or so because I knew how expensive they were. I remember counting change and hoping we could scrape together enough for a small bag of generics because we were a few days from payday. Even if I had cloth diapered part time, it would have really stretched our budget. However, in 1997, I didn’t know anything about cloth back then outside of the diapers my mother used one me. Even back then, I would have had options outside of the rubber pants my mom used on me. That is a picture of my mom and I in 1980. I was 15 months old.

Oh wait, I need to back this up…. WAY up.

Back in February I learned my grandma was ill, in and out of the hospital. I won’t go into details, but I will say we all had faith she would pull through this. When I say my grandma was someone we expected to live forever, I mean it. She was still driving a motor home at age 79. She had no limitations. She took amazing care of my grandpa who has had a lot of health issues since he broke his back 20 years ago, to include rods slipping from his back surgery, major heart attacks, and Parkinson’s. My grandma cooked him 3 hot meals a day, kept the house spotless, the laundry immaculate, gave him all his medications, and still found time to do the daily crossword. Her mother lived to be 88 and died peacefully at home, in her sleep. I expected another 10 years out of my grandma, at least. Unfortunately, the treatment that was supposed to make her better, made her worse before it could make her better, and she just was too sick to handle the backslide. She passed away Monday. She was a little over 6 weeks away from her 80th birthday.

With Bobby in Afghanistan, and the funeral on the other side of the country, there was just no way I could make it. So I have been in a pretty bad mood. I am mourning the loss of my grandma, missing my husband, not getting much sleep at night, and my patience is completely shot. Just normal kid behavior is driving me up the walls. Now, add to that errands at Lowes, Costco, and K-Mart. Now sprinkle in 2 hours, two trips back into the store with a fussy baby, a major headache, and a Facebook friend invite from my dead grandma. Wait, what? Yes. I got a friend request from the afterlife.

My grandmother was a pretty hip woman, and had been on Facebook for over a year in order to keep updated on pictures and goings on with her friends and family. My mom isn’t even on Facebook (but my dad is), so I thought it was maybe a memorial page added by one of her two daughters because they didn’t know her password or something. So I added it, and sent a little note asking who was managing the page, and I get this back “it is me lois how r u”. So now I am pissed, what kind of sick joke is this? I don’t recognize the email, the birthday is wrong (’56, by 1956 my gma had already had my dad and his sister, and they were in school), but the name is right, and the profile picture is directly stolen from her profile.

About this time I get an IM from my cousin, who also could not get to the funeral. She says the person added her, and like me she assumed it was a memorial page. But then gets an IM from the person claiming they have “exciting news”. K wishes she had played along with it, but obviously was so shocked by it all she told the person off and they unfriended her. She tried to report the page to Facebook, but the request has to come from my grandma’s profile. My aunt reactivated the profile just to report it, but as of 19 hours after creation, the profile is still there. I have contacted all the people that received a friend invite, but cannot find any other way to get this profile removed. I am going to give this person the benefit of the doubt and say they didn’t know that the profile belonged to someone who had passed away 48 hours earlier, and they did not set out to freak out the only two granddaughters who could not attend her services, but still, what kind of jerk makes a fake email (the email was created using the name of my gm’s niece, also a FB friend), then a fake profile, and then tries to pass themselves off as someone else? Whoever you are FB-impersonator, I hope you are ready for a big old heaping spoonful of some negative karma.

I think as parents we all have irrational fears about our children. With my first baby I remember him sleeping past his normal 3am feeding time and waking up at 4am with engorged breasts and sobbing that my baby must have passed in his sleep. Rationally I knew he would eventually sleep through the night, irrationally I just knew SIDS must have claimed him. My husband was in boot camp and when he called the Sunday after that instant I burst into tears when I told him our boy was sleeping through the night. He also probably got an emotional letter in the mail as well.

Then my oldest son came into our life and I was always scared his birth mom was going to come steal him away. I knew her better than that, and I trusted her, but I was always so scared that I would pick him up from school and they would explain to me that he had already been picked up by the non-custodial parent.

Then my third baby came along, and I found something else to be irrational about. I wish I could remember, but he made it out of infancy unscathed. Our fourth baby, our first and only girl was born, and she scared me so bad that I would not allow my husband to get a vasectomy until she made it safely to her second birthday, ergo the reason we got our fifth and final child.

Today I was researching pediatric pulmonologists, allergists, and pediatric neurologists. EEGs, seizures, and breath holding spells (BHS). Logically, I know this was likely an isolated incident. Irrationally I have myself convinced I need to have him looked over by a room full od specialists. I think of unnecessary poking and prodding, tests, and procedures and I just cannot make myself put my little boy through this for something that happened one time.

When I heard my husband’s voice tonight, I realized I was still wearing my brave mask. I was falling apart and not allowing anyone to see it. I have not taken time to allow myself to process the fear; to deal with the feelings, and to let myself admit how scared I was. I can still close my eyes and see the events of Friday night so clearly in my mind. The moment where I realized something was wrong. I wonder if I was as calm when I called the emergency dispatcher as I remember myself sounding. When I remember back to that night, I am on the outside, looking in. I cannot remember a single moment where I was ever that scared before.

I remember moments when my husband was in Iraq, and I heard about a casualty from his unit on the news. The fear I felt when he explained to me a building he was next to exploded and shrapnel was hitting his vehicle and it sounded like hail. I remember when helicopters I thought he was on went down, and then I did not hear from him for 20 days. I still cry at movies where they talk about the war, military casualties, or when bagpipes play “Taps”. But if I have to put this in perspective, the fear I felt that night is 100x worse. I didn’t let myself feel it though. Now that he is over the hurdle, and all he has is a lingering cough as he continues to work the crud out of my lungs, I find myself going back to that moment, and I find myself wanting to fall apart.

So tonight when Bobby called and asked how the kids were and then asked how I was, I started crying. I am a mess. And I feel SO guilty for feeling this way while so many people have dealt with so much worse. My heart goes out to all the parents who have had to face the loss of a child, or a spouse. For those who have children with chronic illnesses or disabilities. For anyone who has had to hear that they, or a loved one has a terminal illness. So tonight, when I allow myself to cry, and to allow myself to process the events of this last week, I will be thinking of everyone else who has also had to put on a brave face while they were falling apart inside.

Through his tears he created fantastic stories of what could have happened. “Maybe she forgot her cat away, and the cat scared her?” “Maybe she is sick?” I offered. That was rejected. Then as if he was not sufficiently traumatized, wailing part two ensues. I guess he was playing with the tooth on the floor and it fell down the vent. Now he was facing another possibility.. not only did the tooth fairy forget him, but now she was never going to come! He decided that maybe if he wrote a not and put it under his pillow, he could get back into her good graces. The note read “I m srrye, I lost my tooth”. Thankfully his brother helped him dig it out. However I still had to figure out what to do. To buy some time to think up a convincing lie decent plan, I sent him off to the shower. Since he has a bunk bed, I put a dollar under a pillow in his top bunk. Silly mama, how dare I assume he didn’t overturn every pillow. He saw through my deception immediately.

We settled on a story that maybe the tooth fairy was just running late, his brother convinced him that maybe a lot of children in china has lost their teeth. After all that, the little turkey wanted me to put his crisp new dollar I picked out just for him, into his checking account. Love that boy!

Next time he loses a tooth, I am insisting he hangs his sister’s “Welcome Tooth Fairy” pillow on his door knob, as a reminder for her not to fly on by.

We had to get out of the line, unwrap all the tape, remove jeans, and then wait for the person in front of us to finish so we could pop back to the postal worker we were with. He weighed us again, 68 lbs, rings up the total, $125, gets to the point where we are supposed to swipe the card, and he realizes his coworker is logged into his computer… we have to go to the terminal 2 windows down. While waiting for him to weigh and put in the address and such again, some guy comes storming in. By his body language, I know he’s not a happy camper. He goes up to the worker in the window next to us and says “Did a woman just mail a package to Thailand with you?” I am assuming something got mailed that shouldn’t have or something.

So he gets up in the guys face and says “Listen *bleep*, you need to watch how you talk to people. You don’t have to be such a *bleep*. You better watch your *bleep* back. Do you hear me? DO YOU HEAR ME [Name on name tag]?? That is somebodies daughter. *beep* *beep* *beep*!” At young woman in line starts yelling “HEY! You need to knock it off! Show some respect!” She looks like she’s about to charge him. She’s all of maybe 100 lbs, but she ended up getting him to leave. Now I don’t know what was said or done, but I did notice she came completely unprepared. Her items had cardboard just wrapped around them, with two ends open and he had to help her make them into boxes by cutting and taping the cardboard. She occupied a lot of his time and was there for the time it took about 3 or 4 patrons to mail their stuff with other postal workers. The line was backing up, and the worker continued to help her prepare her package instead of just telling her to either come back with a box that would hold the contents securely, or get a priority mail box and pay more. There was no way her box would hold for international travel. This is the only post office in our city, so I have had stuff mailed with all four of the gentleman that were working that day, and they were always kind. He took his tongue lashing and never said more than “Calm down sir”.

By the time we left the post office, it was nearly 5pm, we had been there about 90 minutes! We needed to get a power of attorney notarized and the first bank we went to had closed 2 minutes earlier. The next place was open, but Bobby ended up in line 45 minutes before he got to the front of the line for the notary. He said he was not supposed to notarize POAs, but he would make an exception because he waited so long, and refused to charge us for it, even though we are not members. Sounds like Mr. Notary could teach Mr. My-girl-can’t-figure-out-how-the-mail-works-so-I-blow-up-to-defend-her-honor a lesson in manners.

Honestly, I am most worried about the first 4 months, once the kids are out of school for the summer and we are on a more relaxed schedule I think time will start moving faster.

My husband teases me for my ADD, I still have a cross stitch I made for my son who is 5 now that just needs cleaned and framed, I started it when I was pregnant with him. A blanket I started knitting for my daughter who is 2 1/2 now is only about half done. I just threw out a baby sweater I started when I was pregnant with her and never finished.

So to be this close to completion is HUGE. My husband asked me point blank today “will this be the first project you finished?” and I sheepishly had to reply that it was. Thankfully while I was cleaning out my craft tote filled with half-finished projects, I found the yarn needles I need, so I have no excuse not to finish today. Hopefully in a couple hours I can post a picture of a completed project!

Germany was quite an experience. He stayed in an amazing apartment that had a view of castle ruins from his balcony.

He was supposed to be there three weeks, but they ended up not using him like they planned so they sent him home early, however the sneak didn’t tell me and secretly booked his trip home, and walked in the front door giving me the shock of my life. He said my expression was priceless and it was probably the first time he has ever seen me speechless. I thought it was one of the kids walking in so I didn’t think much of hearing the door open, but when I looked up and saw him I could not even register it that he could possibly be home already. The reunion was short lived though, he arrived home on Thursday afternoon, and by Sunday morning (on Father’s day) he was back on an airplane to Oklahoma for a little over a week.

This morning I wake up to the smoke detectors going off, all 8 of them, out of sync. The 12 yr old decided to turn his bagel into a piece of charcoal. So I get up, life goes on, right? Call the bank for an issue, 24 minutes on hold I give up, decide the issue is not worth it. Hubby and I make a wonderful breakfast, go to watch some shows on the DVR, and the Medium I have been wanting to see stopped recording 20 minutes into it.

Ok, well then I will just hook up my Wii and play my new game, Wii Active. Find the new cord I ordered (red/blue/green, new TV only has one input for red/white/yellow). I get the cord plugged in and Wii working (unsuccessfully at first, no sound) to find that we already had the cord I just ordered and waiting a week for an overpaid on shipping for, it must have come with one of the aftermarket accessory packs. Oh well, no use crying over spilled milk. Put Wii Active in and my console tells me I need to update! ARG! I have a temper tantrum and get over it. I go to plug in my aftermarket Wiichargable (sorry, couldn’t help it) battery pack for my WiiFit board- no dice, the light won’t come on. The 13 yr old brings me batteries, no dice. I get new batteries and finally it works.

So I set up the game, strap on the leg holster for the nunchuck and immediately it finds the ONLY workout I hate, running in place. As I am running, the leg holster starts slipping off, I tighten it, and I can feel a shooting pain down my leg as it constricts my blood flow and I feel like I have a bad case of sciatica. I finish my “run” just to have the very next exercise require the same torture device. Oh well, I will just play another game, I have 3 or 4 of them.

I put in WiiFit plus, load my profile, and I get the message “To start, please step off me and press A”… ok, I am not stepping on you, but ok… press A it recalculates and says the same message again. Turn the board on and off and same message. So I find a forum talking about how to fix it, make it through all the steps just to have the controller die. Get a new controller, it too is dead, in fact all five of them are dead. I guess the universe wants me to give up and be slovenly; I will try again in a few hours of them on the charger.

With facebook not working right, I really should be using this time more productively… I mean I do have a house to pre-pack, and hundreds of pounds of stuff I don’t plan on moving gone through and tossed or donated. I have boxes to fill up to save money on packing. I have beef stew to start, a fridge and freezer to clean, not to mention an entire house to clean. I would really like to be out of here in a week, but is that realistic?

Alright, I need to wrap this up to get back to stressing, err working. This will be behind us soon, we will be settled and happy and it will all be a distant memory. We have moved before, and we survived, and we will move again, there is no doubt.

I cope by knitting another row onto an afghan I have been working on for two years. I listen to Bob Marley and remind myself that “every little thing, gonna be alright”, I drink tea and sometimes wine, and take walks and watch documentaries on Netflix. But no matter how much I distract myself, I am still frustrated that we still don’t have the information we thought we would have at the end of December; and every other Wednesday I am thankful that he still has a paycheck, and insurance, and a job, even if he is at home driving me nuts.

I used to romanticize the idea of working from home, but if anything, the last couple weeks has taught me that working from home is the equivalent at working in prison, with between one to five noisy cellmates hanging off of you like a bunch of baby orangutans. I sometimes wonder if he volunteers to go to the store in the evenings just to get away from it all, and even then he usually has to drag along a few primates with him. I really respect that he hasn’t gone all “Here’s Johnny!” on us and redrum-ed the kids and I.

So whenever I complain to myself that I am tired, frustrated, or frazzled (the trifecta of mommy-hood) I just remind myself that not only is he dealing with the same triple-punch, but on top of that has deadlines and reports and real-actual-get-paid-for-work that he has to complete without a nice, quiet space to run off to. Sometimes the silver lining is obvious, sometimes you have to dig deep to find it, but know that it is always there.

Of course all this would be easier if my teenager hadn’t lost my keys while I was out…. that is just my luck, huh?