Today Was Epic

[We've been staying in someone's guesthouse for the past month and a half while we finish the last work on our home remodel/addition project. The whole experience has been, well, stressful.]

September 20, 2012

4:40 am - The alarm goes off. Aaron hops in the shower. I put his pillow over my head.

5:15 am - Aaron kisses me goodbye.

7:30 am - I find A, lying on the bathmat with his pajamas around his ankles. "Good morning, Son."

8:00 am - E asks for breakfast "right now" for the third time. N walks in with a droopy dirty diaper.

8:17 am - A complains of stomach pains.

8:24 am - A throws up in the kitchen.

8:25 am - N unscrews his full sippy cup and dumps the entire cup of milk over his head and onto the queen bed.

8:30 am - Laundry time.

8:31 am - E asks about breakfast...again.

8:42 am - N unloads the dishwasher and finds a knife for each hand. Because of his siblings' "excited" reaction, he begins running through the house with said knives.

9:00 am - A throws up (in a bowl, this time).

9:17 am - Everyone enjoys breakfast, sans A.

9:23 am - E clogs the toilet.

9:25 am - A, sitting on a kitchen chair with the up-chuck bowl, looks at me with wide eyes and starts screaming "potty! potty!" I scoop him up and hurriedly run him to the bathroom, pulling his pants off as I run. We arrive at the clogged potty in record time, make a quick dismount, see our mistake, and then haul like crazy across the house to the other toilet. "Hold on little guy! Can you squeeze it in for a second more?" We make it--just in time.

9:30 am - Everyone gets dressed.

9:40 am - E wonders if he could "have a snack."

9:41 am - I start H on some math work. He complains and spends the next fifteen minutes crossing out math problems and throwing his math book.

9:45 am - I try to ignore H while E and I do his reading lesson in the living room.

10:00 am - A throws up again. I retrieve the bowl from the dishwasher just in time. "Let's just keep this thing out for the day, shall we?"

10:30 am - H finally finishes his math work. E finishes his reading. A emerges from the bedroom seeming brighter. "I feel much much better, Mommy!"

10:40 am - I find N unrolling the end of an entire roll of toilet paper.

10:45 am - I gather the kids in the car for our long trip of errands for the day.

10:50 am - A throws up in the car (in the bowl, thankfully).

10:51 am - I stop and empty the bowl.

10:55 am - Unbeknownst to me, H gives an apple cinnamon breakfast bar and a bottle of juice to N.

11:02 am - A throws up again.

11:05 am - We stop at Daddy's office for an errand. I empty the bowl and clean the apple cinnamon breakfast bar off of N, the car seat and the window. I stuff an extra shirt around N to sop up the spilled juice.

11:10 am - I eat the rest of a can of Pringles as I drive.
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2:30 pm - We pull up to Lowe's, spend ten minutes getting the children's shoes back on, and wonder "what that horrible smell is..."

2:35 pm - E discovers the source of the odor (while I am trying to get him to find his shoes). "It's A's carseat Mom!"

2:36 pm - I ask A if he had an accident. He thinks for a minute and says "No." After some prodding, he replies, innocently, "I just passed some gas, and then it turned cold...like cold gas" Hmmmmmm.

2:40 pm - We hurry into Lowe's to make our return and then hop quickly over to Target to buy new underwear and new shorts for A.

2:50 pm - H disregards all direction I give him and leads his brothers directly into the path of oncoming traffic.

Mom is not happy. Not. Happy.

2:52 pm - H pouts in the car and refuses to come into the store.

3:38 pm - I buy a giant cookie and rice krispie treat.

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5:23 pm - We arrive home. The air conditioner in the house appears to be broken.

5:25 pm - E asks if dinner is ready, for the fourth time. "No, son, I just barely walked in the door..."

6:00 pm - We have a quiet dinner without Daddy (again) while watching "Chopped." Everything is quiet for a few minutes.

6:39 pm - Aaron comes home. The kids play outside.

Clean up

Do the dishes

Finish the laundry

Bathe the kids

8:00 pm - Aaron walks over to the neighbor's house (the owners of the guesthouse) to have an awkward conversation about the broken A/C unit.

Neighbors were more than sweet. "Someone will be by first thing in the morning to fix it."

8:10 pm - Aaron leaves to go work on the remodel.

8:15 pm - I put the kids to bed with wet washcloths on their backs, open the windows, and set their fans to full blast.

At least it is not July--it might actually cool down outside at night.

9:33 pm - Aaron calls from the remodel. Our painter has just spent the last three hours painting the doors and trim a light pink color. "Wait a second....that's not exactly the color we asked the paint store to match..."

9:35 pm - Aaron pays the painter and they both call it a night.

9:47 pm - I can hear all of the kids still tossing in their beds. It is 86 degrees in the house.