Long Day

Today has been one thing after another. I'd hate to sound whiny so I'll try and muster up as much post traumatic humor as possible.

Yesterday I ran around town running errands and picked up all sorts of stuff to fix on the house. The whole nesting urge has set in with a vengeance and rather than flit around with straw and twigs I've decided to do all the Honey-Do stuff myself because I just can't stand it anymore.

So, after I got all my fix-it stuff I installed the hole cover for the sink and the new soap dispenser that the boys broke months ago. Michael came home mid installation and finished it himself with much grumbling for having to crawl under the sink and made the parting comment, "Hurry up and have that baby so you'll knock all this nesting crap off."

I was thinking to myself, "You think THAT was bad.... if you knew about all the building materials I've got sitting in the truck right now...."

One of the things I picked up from Wal-mart yesterday was a two gallon dispenser for the milk. We've been doing powdered milk recently, which I've found I absolutely LOVE since I don't have to run to the store as often. We are using the Bishop's Storehouse brand which of all the powdered milks I've tried is hands-down the BEST. You can't even tell the difference. The trick, I've discovered is to add heavy whipping cream in the right proportion to give the milk the right percentage of fat content. Depending on how much you put, you can make anywhere from 1% to whole milk. I swear you can't tell the difference! It's AWESOME!

I mixed up two gallons this morning and put it in the fridge before the kids woke up. A little while later I opened the fridge again to get some eggs out to make breakfast and an entire gallon of milk came gushing out all over the floor. When I shut the fridge, the door shelf compressed the spigot and started to drain the milk out into the shelves and drawers below. I had quite a mess to clean up.

Last night I wrapped up some presents for a Princess birthday party that Elle was invited to. They looked fabulous, if I do say so myself. I was excited to show Elle when she got up. She was very impressed and liked how pretty they were. I even had enough foresight to lock them in my bedroom while I was in the shower so no little person would be tempted to open them. Unfortunately I did not re-lock the door after I got dressed. When I went upstairs to get Elle's clothes and came back down she was on my bed unwrapping one of the presents. She knew she was in trouble. She said, "For Sophie? I'm sorry mom. I'm sorry mom." Fortunately there was enough paper to salvage the presents and re-wrap it.

With re-wrapping and the milk incident, breakfast was slowly being pushed later and later in the morning.

I drug the kids off to go vote, dropped the boys off at a friend's house and took Elle to her Princess party. (Refer to next post for all the pink and girly details!)

After the party I started doing my next round of home improvement which involved electrical work and sheet rock repair. We lost/broke the porch light cover some time ago and so we have just a lone light bulb in front of the house. To me it looks very trashy. I've asked Michael to fix it, but he'll just start spouting off about how all the windows need to be replaced and the siding is rotting and needs to be replaced and painting that needs to be done, not to mention the gutters that still need to be addressed. Rather than make progress on any one project, it's all one big thing that apparently must be accomplished all at once before a stupid porch light can even be considered.

Fine I'll do it myself.

I hunted around the house trying to find the right electrical switch box. The one upstairs didn't turn off the porch light, but all the computers had to be shut down when I tried it. I finally located the correct electrical box and disconnected power so that I could re-do the wiring. I feel so pleased with myself for figuring this all out. I used different colored tape to keep track of the white and black wire connections. Just as I was going to put the last nut on to finish the installation, it slipped out of my hand and went somewhere on or under the porch. I looked and looked. In frustration I put some muscle into it and moved the porch out of the way since my enormous belly precluded me from climbing under the porch. I couldn't find it amidst all the debris and with the porch pulled away the children suddenly had an overwhelming desire to run in and out of the house as much as possible.

I did finally find the nut. It was stuck between two of the wooden slats of the decking. After I got it out and put it on I discovered that the porch did not seem as easy to move back into place. Perhaps my frustration in loosing it gave me just enough muscle to get it out of the way. I had the boys come out and heave with me. It wouldn't move. We finally did figure it out and got it moved back into place, but my muscles felt it, for sure.

I came in to find that the tape dispenser that I had used for wrapping the presents had been discovered by some little person. They had generously taped all the walls in the kitchen, the kitchen chairs, the table, the refrigerator. When I questioned those present, Hunter told me that Ethan did it. Ethan was upstairs on the computer. After Ethan got in trouble, it turns out that Hunter was the one who did it, but blamed Ethan because he saw Ethan take a piece of tape first.

The sheetrock work was my final undoing. I had dinner going in the oven and in the meantime I went around with my little jar of patching compound fixing all the little holes and dings all over the house. The stuff came out pink but dried white so you could tell when it was dry.

The biggest hole was from when the front door stopper came unscrewed and the door knob made a big hole through the sheetrock. I got a patch repair kit especially designed for that kind of hole. The damage from the baby gate and the exposed metal edges that have been driving me crazy were finally fixed. Hurray! I used every last bit of the spackle compound.

I went upstairs to take a break and download the pictures from the princess party before dinner. Years ago our computer crashed and I lost all of Hunter's baby pictures many of the precious digital pictures I had of Ethan. It was devastating. We also lost many e-mail addresses for old friends that have never been recovered. As a precaution we use an external hard drive to keep all of our digital pictures and bank files. I got on the computer and called up the file for pictures on the external hard drive, but nothing was there. It said that the folder was empty. I looked at all of the root file folders and they all said that they were empty. Years of memories, precious irreplaceable pictures....gone? Was it because I turned the power off? Did Ethan do something? I tried starting our finance software, hoping that it would find the file stored there. The program opened as if we had started it for the first time. I experienced the most enormous pucker factor with horrible flashbacks of all that we had already lost, only this time it would be much worse. Before panic set in, I decided to turn everything off and reboot the system hoping and praying that we didn't just lose EVERYTHING.

Once the system rebooted the drive recognized all of it's contents and I finally exhaled. I think I need to have a double back up system and put our pictures on a DVD-rom. I don't EVER want to experience that again.

I went back downstairs and the pink spots on the walls were too much for the children to resist and somebody had drug their fingers through the patch work that I had just done. The spackle was half-way dried and couldn't be smoothed back down and I didn't have any more. I knew I could get more, but that meant an essentially unnecessary trip.

You know that scene in The Incredibles when Mr. Incredible slips on a skateboard, crunches the car roof then slams the door and the window breaks and he "has a moment"?

I had a moment.

I told Michael that dinner was ready, all he had to do was serve it up. I'm leaving. I'll be back after the children are in bed. I'm turning my phone off.

I went to the library. I didn't actually go inside. I just sat in the parking lot and cried.

My mom told me later that when she arrived for dinner Ethan was in tears thinking that I wasn't coming home again.

After I got home I went up and talked to him about all that had happened. He took the brunt of getting into trouble for most of the stuff that Elle and Hunter did. I apologized for blaming him so quickly. I gave him lots of hugs and kisses and we said a prayer together. I hope he feels better. I know I'll have to show him extra love and attention to make up for today.