Today is a new day…

This morning I did not want to get up and face the day. I just didn’t.

I was being rather childish about it, too. And I know that you all do this too… in your head have a temper tantrum about getting out of the bed… or maybe you don’t…

if this never happens with you, I want to be like you.

Last night, from about 5pm on was horrible… it was “one of those days” and I’m not sure where or why it started…

But it did… it started in Wal-Mart as I was scrambling to get the pieces (last minute of course) for the Pastor Appreciation gifts for this weekend… the kids were horrible and more than once, someone ended up on the floor…

By the time we got to church, I was already frazzled. We’re trying to plan a Pastor Appreciation day for Pastor Man. I needed to teach the little ones something, but that’s hard to do when Pastor Man works with the little ones on Wednesdays… so I dismissed him. I told him he wasn’t needed and that I would work with the little ones. But he tells me that I need to be in Youth for the latter part. I don’t question. I work it out.

The kids are bouncing off the wall, both age groups. I finally get the skit worked out with the younger ones and head in with the teens where I am greeted with “Oh, my police man is here! Thank goodness!” Apparently the teens were giving the youth leader some grief… and their lack of respect frustrated me even more.

When the end of youth hour rolled around, I learned why Pastor Man wanted me in there. Our Youth leader is moving… away… as in she won’t be here to do youth anymore… and of course, it sent some of our kids to tears. No one was expecting it.

On that depressing note, I went to round up my children to get them home and in the bed. I had a class I was giving at 9 and needed them in bed by that time.

As I was walking in to the gym to tell Samara for the gazillionth time to get her shoes on, I see Matt bawling. He’d gotten hit… hard.

So I calm him down, round her up… get them in the car, get home and I hear “Oh NO!!!” come from the little one’s mouth.

When I asked her what was wrong, she tells me… “I left my glasses at church.”

I glance at the clock. 8:15… there’s just no way that I can get back to church and home again, get them in bed, and be on that call at 9.

I shuffle them in to the house barking orders and call my friend who is still at church… and ask her if she would kindly drop them off to me after Praise Practice… she agrees…

crisis averted….

Realizing the dog has yet to be fed, I sent Samara into feed the dog… as she huffs off and rounds the corner in the office headed to the kitchen she completely wipes out… socks and hardwood floors will do that, ya know… so will laundry on the kitchen floor, but I digress…)

I knew she went down hard. Wailing. I quick scoop her up and get her on the couch and feed the dog. Then I grab the ice pack and get her in the bed with the TV on and head to Matt’s room to tuck him in.

When I arrive he shoves a piece of paper in my face and says, “This is horrible, Mom. Why can’t I just do well with my writing?”

And the tears come.

I glance at the grade… 94%

While there were some spelling errors and comma placement issues (which, I still have as well) the content was very good. In fact, it’s the best I’ve ever seen him write and I’m wondering why I want to get him tutoring on it.

While it is about beating up his sister, it was pretty creative…

The time I wished I could be invisible would be on a Saturday. I would sneak up on my sister, Sam, as she was watching TV, like a tiger watching for prey.

He goes on to talk about pulling her hair and making her do weird things, but all in all it was good. But he kept crying stating that he didn’t deserve an A with all the errors on his paper.

I hear her crying in the other room, and I get Matthew calmed down and tell him to gather his books for the next day while I check on her…

Drama Queen was only calling me because the ice pack fell off her foot… I screamed, “well, then, put it back on!” and went back to help him.

He’s crying again… It took everything I had to stifle the “Now what?” that I wanted to scream.

“What’s wrong, Babe?”…. in between sobs, I hear… “I can’t find my homework.”

I know he did it… so I started ripping out everything in his bookbag and folders and going through the trash… and we couldn’t find it. What I did find were papers from weeks ago that never made it to me.. tests that had Ds and even an F… tests that he could’ve corrected to improve his grades, that he didn’t. There were lots of As and Bs in there too, but of course, I got miffed and got on him… realizing too late that I should’ve waited to have this conversation…

and we never did find the homework, which was a new candy bar that he created. So, at 8:45… I sat him down to redo it.

At 9… I was on the call. I was composed, poised, and did very well… even though the kids didn’t listen to me and took advanatage of the fact that I couldn’t come in and yell at them to turn the TVs off and go to bed… but by that point, I didn’t care…

So, this morning, I knew that it would be a chore to get them out of bed… and I was scared about more meltdowns…

which was the reason for my temper tantrum in my mind about not getting out of bed.

But I got up… motivated by the fact that if I didn’t, and they didn’t get to school, they would be stuck adding joy to the home all day…

Shocker… they were pleasant…

Samara got right up and when I went to check on her she looked at me and said with a huge smile on her face, “Mom! Tonight’s Ugly Betty!”

I smiled… yes it is… the one night that we all look forward to…

So, within 5 minutes of being up, I knew that today was going to be a good day for two reasons…

one… it’s Ugly Betty day and two… I scanned the obits and my name wasn’t in there…

Until next time…

Heather