Calgon, Take Me Away

The specifics of my challenging week last week have pretty well faded into oblivion by now, but a couple of highlights still stick out:

Sunday: Terence wasn't ready for church when I had to leave (I needed to be there early to practice for a musical number in RS), so I left J with him and took off with the others. He planned to join us as soon as he could. Sacrament meeting passed with no sign of Terence. I shuttled the kids off to Primary and toted K off to Terence's primary class, assuming he must have ran in just in time to teach his class. No Terence. So I sat down and fumbled my way through a lesson for his very patient 9 year olds, and then sent them off for Sharing Time without me so I could run to play the piano for RS. I was late for that and Brandi had stepped in for me. I slid in to take over for the practice hymn then went to sit next to Kristi. She offered me her phone to try and get a hold of Terence-- you can imagine, by this point I was starting to get worried. I ducked out to call him but got no answer on his cell. Came back in only to find that they had had to start the musical number without me, grabbing someone else to play in a pinch. Oops! By this time I just started freaking out. Kristi sent me out to call him again. This time, he picked up the house phone and groggily explained he wasn't feeling well so he'd decided to stay home. I guess he just figured I take over his class for him. Lucky for him that I did! But by this point, I was a bawling mess.

"Why are you crying???" Terence wanted to know. Men.

Monday: Terence worked a sixteen hour off-duty job. Between juggling the kids, laundry, grocery shopping, and editing Ryan's book, I was exhausted before the older kids even made it home from school. My house was still a disaster from the birthday party, and since M had received several art projects from her friends, the kids decided to add to the chaos by adding glitter glue, stickers, marker and crayon to the walls, carpet, doors and every possible kitchen surface. We attempted to have a FHE without Daddy, but I seriously doubt that was in anyway worthwhile, because by bedtime I was yelling myself hoarse and then crying again. It was horrible. Finally, it occurred to me that it had been at least a week since I had taken a depression med. Hmmm. Any connection?

Tuesday: Tuesday was super-packed with errands and editing, and once again, I was a stress basket-case by the time the kids got home from school. In the evening, J had a "cottage fair" at school, which is basically an open house where they show off what they've learned for the quarter. The first kindergarten one is always a family potluck. This year there are 8 AM kinder classes, so imagine all those kids with their families. It was a HUGE crowd. And I took all four kids by myself. When it was time to move from the lunch tables to the classroom for their little presentation, I couldn't find B anywhere. When the panicking Mama finally found the missing little duckling, we returned to find J had run off from the stroller where I had sternly ordered him to stay (next to M and K.) Ugh. When all five of us finally made it into J's classroom, we ended up crammed into a back corner, penned in by the crowd. I grabbed B and held onto her hand with a death grip and desperately tried to keep a squirming K balanced on my hip. While J and his class were trying to sing some songs for us, B was yanking with all her might to get away and adding high-pitched squeals to her efforts. Needless to say, I hurried them out of there as quickly as humanly possible once J was done. Only to have J and B ignore my screaming and run into the parking lot right in front of a car.

Oh, dear. I think I may have had steam pouring out of my ears by that point. On the way home, more tears.

The rest of the week I didn't do much better, considering I was trying to meet an editing deadline. All I can say is that I am soooo glad September is almost over.

(Oh, and I have been taking those pesky meds again. Apparently I still need them.)