On Vomit and Confession

My past week has really been something.  It's the kind of something that I'd choose never to experience again if I were in control of such things and I'd certainly go back and delete it if that were even a possibility.

Last Friday afternoon Anthony started spitting up huge amounts.  So much that I started to question whether there might have been oatmeal in his new box of rice cereal since he was reacting the way he does when he has oatmeal.  The spitting up, which we later realized was vomit, kept happening, and it wasn't until he vomited about two ounces of baby food that I was still in the process of feeding him for dinner that we realized there was something other than just regular spit up going on.  Almost immediately after the disturbing dinnertime display he began vomiting a lot and his color quickly turned very sickly looking.  He was starting to remind us of how Katie looked when she dehydrated from her bout with pneumonia so Bryan ran out and got him pedialyte and we began hydrating him every ten minutes with a few MLs of pedialyte.  After an hour or two he was seeming a bit better, but it was obvious that he wasn't feeling well.

Neither of us was comfortable with the idea of putting him to be in his room, so we set up a playpen in the family room and decided he would stay down there with us until we were certain the vomiting had passed and he was hydrated.  I had kept telling Bryan that I thought I felt sick, too, but he kept telling me that I was just worried about the baby and his impending business trip to Denver.  I figured he was right since I do stress out to the point of feeling ill when he goes away and I was also stressing out about the baby.

Around ten or eleven at night I started getting sick.  By midnight I was vomiting all over the bathroom floor because I had no other choice.  Within minutes Bryan was also sick and once the next wave of feeling sick came around Bryan and I were practically doing synchronized vomiting.  Then Anthony got in on the action and woke up wanting of all things, to be fed and held and neither Bryan and I were in a position to tend to him.  Nursing a baby while succumbing to a nasty stomach virus just isn't possible.

We ended up having to wake Madeline at 1AM and have her come down to take care of the baby and help us as we tried to clean up two bathrooms that were covered in vomit.  An hour or so later Katie woke up and had vomited all over her bed, herself and her carpet.  So Madeline had a new patient.  I tried as best I could to help clean up the mess, but that's not easy when you're also throwing up and running to the bathroom every few minutes.  We got Katie settled and an hour or two later Ellie fell victim to the same horrid fate as the rest of us [except Madeline].

I don't think Madeline got much sleep the rest of the night as she helped her younger siblings and did her best to get the loads and loads of vomit laundry through the washer.  She came through for us in a huge way.  I'm not sure if we would have survived without her.  She kept the baby hydrated, made sure Bryan, the girls and I had drinks, saltines and orange slices.

I'm amazed that the didn't get hit with the stomach bug, too, but we think she may have had it last month.  The day after Christmas she was sick and had very similar symptoms to the rest of us.  She was the only one to get sick with it then.

The timing for this virus was not ideal.  Bryan was getting ready to leave for a business trip and I had loosely planned out my Saturday.  Once I had gotten sick I realized that heading to Mass for the feast day of St. Francis de Sales who has become one of my favorite saints over the past year or two was out.  And going to confession was also out.  Soon enough I realized that there was no way I was able to teach my CCD class on Sunday and there was no way we could go to Mass and share our grotesque stomach bug with everyone else.  Even though we all stopped vomiting by early Saturday morning the fun of horrible body aches, fevers and dizziness were just getting warmed up for their two day stay.  I laid on the couch thinking to myself that labor, strep throat, ear infections, and possibly hand foot and mouth disease were all less miserable.  Of course, that last one is a misery in itself and I'd rather have the stomach bug for a few days than relive a day of hand, foot and mouth disease.

We were mostly all on the mend by very late Sunday night or Monday morning.  Katie and Ellie had some lingering effects for a day or two after, but were doing much better by today.  Anthony, on the other hand, will seem like he's doing just fine and out of nowhere have an explosive diaper.  That I could handle.  But this evening I fed him dinner and then loaded the kids into the car so we could go to confession.  All was going well.  We were there right at 6:00 when confessions begin and I was hopeful that we might not be at the end of a long line since the parking lot hardly had any cars in it.  Then I opened the door to get Anthony and was met with a baby sitting in a puddle of vomit that consisted of all the freshly pureed peas I had just fed him.

I thought maybe the spit up wasn't as bad as I thought but a quick attempt to clean him up with a burp cloth revealed that there was no way I was getting this child out of his seat and standing in a line for confession.  We would have had a slimy green trail following us.  It was that bad.  It was so bad that I took pictures when we got home so I could show Bryan.

As I stood in the cold parking lot completely defeated, I told the girls to get back in the car.  They were more than happy to comply.  I was just left with the feeling that if I didn't need to go to confession when I pulled into the church parking lot, I certainly needed to go now.  Patience had officially left the building.  Inside my head I raised my little white flag of surrender to God, all the while grumbling that I now had a phenomenally bad mess to clean.

When we got home I made the unhappy discovery that Anthony needed bath number two in four hours. The kid was covered in green pea vomit.  Can I shock all of you and tell you that I've bathed Anthony three times in the past two days which is more times than I've bathed him in the past month.  Bryan is much better at washing babies than I am, so I usually propose to him that I'll dry and dress the baby if he washes.  So yes, he's cleaned regularly, just not by me.  I will say that I'm feeling more confident washing him after the last two baths I gave him today.

Once he was cleaned I set about getting his clothes sent down to the laundry room only to discover that the dog decided to try washing them.  Arrgh!  Why are dogs so gross?

The real fun began when I had to pull the carseat out of the van.  That cute cover that can be pulled off for washing so you don't have to remove the harness is a load of crap for people who don't live in reality land.  When junior pukes all over the harness and there's so much vomit that it dribbles out of the car seat and onto the car upholstery, the easy remove seat pad is worthless.  I had lots of choice words and thoughts about the engineers and designers of the Britax Marathon 70-G3.  Ignore my 5 star review of it on Amazon.  I obviously didn't have real world baby disaster experience with the seat when I wrote the review.  My recurring thought was "What genius makes a car seat where the *@&%@*$ harness cannot be removed?!"  It's covered in green pea sludge and the omnipotent owners manual is telling me to "sponge clean" the harness if it needs to be cleaned.  Ok, Britax manual writer....you're drunk, you probably don't have any children and have never had to clean up green vomit; it's time to pack it up and go home.

So picture me dear readers at the kitchen sink with a giant car seat sitting on the counter top with the harness, dripping with green oozy grossness hanging out of the bottom of the seat and into the sink so I can wash it with mild soap.  The seat and the fantastic design that does not allow the harness to come out is an occasion of sin, my friends.  Plain and simple.  On the bright side, I kept all the expletives that I had regarding the seat, and it's designers in my head so the kids were at least spared that nice little show.

Madeline had very kindly offered to clean the puddle of green slime off the car upholstery, so that was a huge help.  I was really impressed to see that the got it all up.  I guess she gained some practical life experience this past weekend.

I was going to attempt to put the carseat cover back on the seat tonight and get it back out in the van, but it's not dry.  I hope it will dry sometime this evening so I can get everything back where it belongs.  I'd really like to get to Mass tomorrow morning.  This is one of those times where I wish I didn't keep our spare carseat in Bryan's car.  Since he's out in Denver until tomorrow, my spare seat is sitting over in the Philly airport parking lot.  Some days it just seems like nothing can be easy.  Too bad this happens to be one of those days, right?

I'm looking forward to tomorrow.  Bryan will be back and I don't know about you, but I'm confident that it's going to be a vomit free day.  If it's not, I'm going to go and eat a lot of chocolate and have a glass of cranberry wine.

If you made it to the end, thanks for sticking with me.  I promise not to talk so much about vomit next time.  Maybe I'll talk about the upcoming name change for the blog.  Oh and how happy are you that I didn't share any pictures with this story?  I almost did.  Sure they aren't something anyone really wants to see, but the watermark on the picture would have revealed the new name for my blog.

A Long Day Two Hours In

Do you ever have days where so much goes wrong so quickly that instantly a day that you thought would be decent enough becomes just the opposite?  I woke up to the alarm this morning and still felt tired, but I wanted to get to Mass because it's St. Augustine's feast day and he's one of my saints, so I knew I had to go.  Not going would be like bailing on your friend's birthday party because you wanted to take a nap.  And while he's not going to give me crap for it, I will.

By all accounts, this should have been a great morning.  Anthony slept through the night, I got to bed a a reasonable time so I had plenty of sleep, even if the alarm clock and I didn't agree on the waking time, and I was right on track for getting everything done in time to get out the door for Mass with one kid, Anthony.

Best laid plans, right?  Obviously something had to go wrong.  You know why?  Because I thought to myself that I had a decent day yesterday all things considered.  I didn't whine and complain to Bryan when he was at the office for about 12 hours and gone for about 14.  I didn't lose it with any of the kids yesterday and I could have several times, but I didn't.  I get some bonus points for being more patient than usual, right God?  If not, that's cool. just make sure You remember I pretty much rocked it yesterday.

So the morning started to unravel right as I got out of the shower,  because I refuse to count getting annoyed that my book was once again missing when I sat down this morning to read it as part of the long two hour day.  Worse things could happen.  So I step out of the shower and almost instantly I hear that the baby is awake and not happy.  He's hungry and I'm rushing as fast as I can to get dried and dressed so I can go feed him.  Once he's cared for I go to wake Katie and discover that she once again has opted to use a pull up for #2 instead of the toilet.   I expressed my displeasure.  And then proceeded to do waste management which included a bath minutes before heading out the door.  Awesome way to start the day!

Ellie was dressed and ready so she was coming along with me and Anthony to Mass.  Just as I'm walking out the door, Katie who just sat down for breakfast started crying because she wanted to come, too.  So I had Madeline grab shoes for her and a granola bar and all four of the kids headed to Mass with me.

We got to Mass on time, so that felt like a success.  Katie was relatively well behaved, although she did have a few moments where she was a bit too loud for my liking.  And then, out of nowhere Anthony got me with a massive spit up that soaked my pants.  It just kept coming and coming.  I honestly don't know how this baby gains as much weight as he does with the amount of spitting up he does.  It doesn't add up.

By the time Mass was over I was exhausted and ready to call it a day.  Not exactly how I want to feel at 8:38am.  I'm hoping the rest of the day is a little less trying.  I know it's going to be a long day just because tonight's a soccer practice night which means the little ones and I will be hanging out while Bryan and the older girls are out of the house for about three hours this evening.  Feeling exhausted with 12 hours to go isn't exactly encouraging.

Organization and Detachment

I think it's been about a year or two now that I have been wadering around the house complaining to Bryan that we have too much stuff.  This little fact becomes irritatingly evident when I walk into the basement and find a play room strewn with toys that are so plentiful that my children can't put any of them away.  Sometimes I try to walk away and ignore the mess and other times I hit the roof and go on a clean and purge rampage.

Bryan was in Vegas last week for a business trip and while he was gone I did my best to try and get the house clean.  The main level of the house looked pretty good when he got home around 1AM on Saturday.  Early Saturday morning I woke up pretty early and decided that I'd go and take care of the laundry and a few other things before anyone else was awake.  I was feeling pretty good about the main level of the house being nice and clean so I wasn't at all prepared for what was waiting for me down in the basement.  The playroom which my children assured me was clean and straightened for their dad's return home was not clean.  No, it looked like a bomb had hit that room.  At first I was just going to try putting some of the toys away, but the more I tried to straighten things, the angrier I was becoming.  This room, this total monstrosity littered with hundreds of choking hazards is where my two year old had spent hours playing with her sisters the night before.  The older girls know they can't have this room like this with a toddler in the house and yet here it was in all it's horrible scattered glory.

All over the place I was finding things that shouldn't be.  Legos were all over the floor.  A loose screw that had been knocked out of a rocking moose was just left on the floor.  Nerf darts were everywhere. Polly Pocket and her dimiutive accessories were all over the place and made me realize that like her friend Barbie, she and her friends had just earned the status of personna non grata.  Glass bowls that aren't even supposed to be in the basement were precariously perched in the most unlikely places.  Let's not forget the cache of dirty socks and candy wrappers that were also stashed all over the place.  I wanted to scream, but since everyone was sleeping and Bryan was jet lagged I didn't.  I went and grabbed a trash bag instead.

Like Barbie before her, Polly and all her friends were rounded up and stuffed into a zip lock bag destined to be donated.  I don't like to trash perfectly good toys just because my girls won't put them away.

Barbie was banished years ago, but I spared a few select dolls.  Since the great Barbie round up during Advent of 2011 I have had a take no prisoners policy with Barbie accessories and dolls that are left out where they do not belong.  They get picked up and tossed either in the trash or the donation pile.  At this point we have two Barbie cars, an Ariel doll, two or three outfits and a giant Little Tikes doll house.  I'm at the point now where I want to dismantle the doll house and put it in the attic or just sell it.

But back to the mountains of scattered toys.  I've come to realize that a big part of our problem is attachment.  I keep toys around because someone gave it as a gift and I know they spent a nice bit of money on it, or I keep them for sentimental reasons.  So while my kids are attached to some of these toys, I'm also attached to some of them.

I went through the toys on Saturday and decided that some things needed to be given away and other things need to be sold.  In all the years that we've been married, I've never once done a yard sale.  I've given away just about everything that we didn't want any more. But now with a new baby on the way I started thinking that perhaps some of the toys and baby gear that we don't need or want should be sold to help fund the things that we do need or want.

The basement essentially made me realize that keeping things for the sake of keeping them isn't working and only contributes to a horrible cycle of me freaking out about the messes the kids make.  If we don't have so many toys that they can't all be put away neatly then we won't have these cataclysmic messes.

So I started to look around and see how I might organize things better.  One thing that jumped out at me was the number of block containers that we have.  We had four bins of Duplo blocks, two huge containers of Mega Blocks, a stack of wood unit block sets, and more Lego containers than any family of ten ought to have (bearing in mind that we're a family of five with one on the way).  Madness.  Pure madness.  And then I realized that the manufacturer supplied containers, while they're very nice aren't practical when it comes to organizing and storing this products efficiently if you're like us and have thousands upon thousands of blocks in the house.  So I decided it was time to detach myself from original manufacture packaging.  It was time to face it, no one is ever going to say "Ooh, you have the Costco sized box of primary colored Mega Blocks from 2002!  Wow, that's worth a mint!"  Same goes for the 2003 container of Duplo blocks or even, the GASP, hard to find Mickey Mouse Duplo blocks that Katie just got for Christmas.  I decided to start out with a big clear (so I can see if the kids are stashing toys that don't belong) 66 qt container and see two sets of Mega Blocks would fit.  They did!  So that gave me the confidence to get another container the same size to consolidate all of the Duplo blocks into one bin, and two smaller ones to hold some of the girls Legos.  It really has made a big difference and I believe it is a big step in helping the girls get a handle on being able to put their toys away neatly.

I also thought about a post I recently saw on Like Mother, Like Daughter about a closet re-do that Auntie Leila did.  She brought up a lot of valid points with regards to stacking items and setting things up so you're not setting things up for failure.  So I took a look at the games in our under the stairs closet and the laundry room.  I decided to remove some games and toys that haven't been touched in years and likely won't be touched.  Games that I despise, like Pretty Pretty Princess, went into the donate pile.  And even games that I really like, such as Monopoly weren't safe.  I asked myself if I really "needed" five different versions of Monopoly.  After talking with Bryan I decided that I didn't and I chose two versions to keep.  I did the same with Candy Land.

I think with better organization and an increase in detachment things will bet better and my sanity will stay in tact.  At least I hope it will.

When Your Morning Stinks, Literally

I'm not sure why, but it seems like whenever Bryan goes away on a business everything descends into chaos.  For this reason, I dred it when he tells me he has a trip coming up.  I do everything I can to mentally prepare for the gauntlet I'm about to run and hope and pray for the best.  Some trips go smoothly and others are just a cluster of one horrible thing after another.

Early yesterday morning Bryan left for his trip to Denver.  My efforts to be proactive in making sure I got the day off to a good start were thwarted before I got out of bed.  The remote control for the alarm clock that is clear across the room wouldn't work so it screamed at me for a minute or two while I pressed every button on the blasted remote to no avail.  I would learn 13 hours later that Bryan had put the remote to our old alarm clock in our bed the night before.  Grr.

Following the alarm clock fiasco I had the displeasure of slipping and nearly falling in the girls' bathroom as I tried to rush Katie to the potty.  Why did I slip?  Oh, because my children decided to leave a path of destruction in the bathroom littered with towels, dirty laundry and hair accessories.  So approximately 10 minutes into the day I lost it.  Somehow we all managed to get fed, dressed, ready and out the door in time for Mass.  It wasn't until we go out of the car in the church parking lot that I realized that my kids were missing cold weather accessories like hats, mittens and gloves on this awesome frigid day of 18 degrees.  Sigh.  On the bright side they survived and I managed to not berate the ones who should know to bundle up.  Instead I just criticized myself for not putting a hat or mittens on the baby.  I did, however, remember to put my own gloves on.  Convenient, right?

The rest of the day went well for the most part.  The girls and I got the house in order before bed and I was confident that tomorrow would be better.  After all, I had the right remote for the alarm clock, the baby had just been washed so she'd be easy to get ready for Mass in the morning and all would be good.

Enter reality.  I woke up at 4:30AM this morning to an odd scraping sound.  What could it be?  I got up and looked out the bathroom window to discover snow.  More snow.  Not wanting to know just how bad it was I was determined to go back to sleep for the next two hours.  But the scraping sound persisted.  So I dragged myself out of bed and looked out front to discover my neighbor shoveling his drive way and sidewalk.  I was livid so I took to expressing my annoyance as charitably as I could on FaceBook and then sent poor Bryan a text at what I believe was 3AM his time.  Misery loves company, right?  Sometime shortly after 5AM the irritating sound of shoveling stopped and I was able to fall back to sleep.  While I was awake I decided to be proactive and grab the house phone in case the school decided to call yet another snow day.  6:30AM I was jolted awake by the alarm clock, and both my cell phone and house phones ringing.  School was delayed.  That meant I could grab an extra hour or so of sleep since we wouldn't be heading to Mass this morning and we could have a relaxed morning where I surely wouldn't lose my temper.

Enter 7:20AM.  I hear the girls loudly scuffling in their room but Katie isn't awake.  Wait, no.  She's up.  And within seconds there are screams of "Poop" filling the upstairs.  Katie woke up a complete mess and Madeline promptly carried her to my bathroom and began drawing a frigid bath for her.  Bathing Katie isn't fun, so the prospect of two baths in 12 hours is not the most welcome thought but I'm happy that she's pooped since she hasn't exactly been into that since she started using the potty two weeks ago.  I walked into the bathroom and found Katie with poo smeared pjs.  I had to transport her back to her room to get cleaned up before she could go into the tub.  As is always the case where there's some sort of disaster in the house, the phone starts to ring and Ellie feels the need to try and shove the phone into my hands while I'm wrist deep in waste removal.  At this point I lost it.  I finished cleaning Katie up, drew her a warm bath and got down to the task of restoring her to a clean state.  While I did that, Bryan talked to the older girls via FaceTime.  Madeline was a tremendous help as she stripped the crib and got everything sent down to the laundry room.  By 8:00AM Katie was cleaned and dressed.

A few minutes later Madeline was on her way to shovel out front per Bryan's request.  I was ready to just let it sit there.  She made it ten feet when our neighbor asked her where Bryan was and then told her to go inside and he'd clear our snow.  I know that made Madeline's morning and mine.

I've got two more mornings to go until this business trip is over.  I'm praying that things go better from here on out.

Oh What A Week!

This week really started off well.  I knew it was going to be a bit hectic, but I didn't think it was going to be anything I couldn't handle.  But, really who looks at their weekly planner and sees lots of blanks and thinks "Hey, this is going to be one of those weeks where I feel like I can't win!"  Not me.  I see a week that doesn't look over scheduled and I think I'm going to have a relatively enjoyable week.

Tuesday is when my week started to go south.  I'm the sort of person who seriously dislikes arriving late.  So I was annoyed when Elisabeth was jeopardizing my arriving to Mass on time.  Add to that that it was raining lightly, which makes me want to leave the house even earlier.  Once we pulled into the parking lot the rain started coming down a little harder and there was lightening.  Getting struck by lightening is NEVER on my to-do list.  But I still wasn’t deterred.

After dodging heavier rain and loads more lightening on our way back to the car after Mass, I did what every good Catholic does and I tried to get out of the parking lot as fast as I could.  Only my car wouldn’t start.  Sigh.  Lucky for me, Bryan was working from home that day so he was able to come and get us.  He wanted to jump the car, but getting struck by lightening is pretty high on his things not to-do list.  So after taking a quick look under the hood in the downpour, he got back in the car and informed me that I had a lot of corrosion on my battery.  Fun!  Four hours later my car started up without needing a jump, but it didn’t sound right.  This is where the week started to take a less than favorable turn.

Bryan didn’t want to leave me for three days with no working car, and we didn’t have the time to get my van repaired.  So we came to the decision that I would have to get up with him shortly after 5AM and drive him to the airport.  I’m telling you, my martyrdom crown is on it’s way.

In order to get myself together and out of the house by the ungodly time of 5:30AM, I had to shower the night before.  Showering when I came back from dropping him off wasn’t an option since I had to take the girls to Mass shortly after getting home so they could go to the youth group breakfast afterwards.  This is one of those instances where I can claim that my Mom of the Year award must be lost in the mail. (I’ve given up hope of getting any awards for my humility.)  So back to the shower.  It was cold at first and then polar bear ice cold.  Guess what?  The pilot went out on our hot water heater and since Bryan can’t smell, he couldn’t light it until I got out of the shower and confirmed that I didn’t smell gas.  Cold shower, car that broke down, getting up at 5AM.  Yep, I’m getting that martyrdom crown! 

Dropping Bryan off went well.  I was home before any of the girls woke up.  It was probably Madeline’s easiest babysitting job to date, and I’m sure our babysitter across the street was happy she didn’t get a call from Madeline.  I was convinced by around noon on Wednesday that everything was going to go well for the rest of the week.  I just knew that it would.

Of course, that wasn’t the case.  Madeline was scheduled to altar serve for the 4PM vigil Mass for the Assumption.  It didn’t hit me until around 2PM that I was taking Katie to Mass twice in one day.  Bound and determined to eliminate any chance of meltdowns, I made sure I had Cheerios for her as a last resort, pacifiers and a sippy cup since I knew she’d be thirsty after her nap.  Oh, and since Madeline had soccer camp starting at 6PM we needed to do some super quick turnaround to get her fed, dressed for soccer and out the door by 5:30.  So all that awesome planning to keep Katie calm had one pretty big flaw.  I left the all-important sippy cup on the kitchen table.  And since I didn’t have my car, I had no way of grabbing any sort of backup for her like a bottle of water.  Somehow we made it through Mass with no meltdowns.  I spent plenty of time praying that she wouldn’t lose it as she rummaged through my bag looking for her cup.

Once the girls were in bed I felt like I had made it through a marathon day.  Oscar and I crashed in the family room.  I put on a movie after taking to Bryan and woke up to find that it was nearly 3:30AM.  Ugh!

I was hopeful when I finally made it up to my bed that I’d get to stay there until at least 7 or 7:30.  We didn’t have to go to Mass this morning since we went the night before and we didn’t have anything on our schedule until 6PM.  What could go wrong?  Well, for starters, someone could put her alarm clock on for 6:30AM which in turn could wake up Katie.  I stayed in bed hoping she’d go back to sleep, which I thought she did.  Fifteen minutes later I heard the alarm again followed by the baby.  A few minutes later Madeline who went in to get Katie was yelling for me to come quick.  We had a poopy disaster complete with a poo covered pacifier.

To say that I had a royally crappy start to my day would be a huge understatement.  Katie’s bedding had to be stripped, her crib had to be cleaned and she needed a bath.  All this before 7AM.   On the bright side, I became very grateful that Madeline had to serve the 4PM Mass.  I don’t know that we would have made the 8AM Mass this morning with our less than stellar circumstances.

The day seemed like it was looking up when I was able to get my friend’s husband to drive the van over to the dealership for service.  Both Bryan and my father-in-law didn’t want me driving the van in case it was the alternator so I needed someone who would know what to do if the car died to drive it.  A few short hours later, the car was ready.  Thankfully it was just the battery and another part that needed to be replaced.  A friend was able to take me over to get the van while Madeline stayed home with a napping Katie with yet another neighbor on emergency stand-by.

I was feeling pretty good about things looking up when I got home.  That’s when Madeline started yelling for me.  Katie was up and it was another poo incident.  This one wasn’t as bad as the morning one but it was bad enough to warrant bath number two in 9 hours.  Sigh.

I figured by 4:30 things that we were close to the end of the day.  Just four and a half hours to go until the kids would all be in bed.  What could go wrong?  Have you noticed that I stupidly keep assuring myself that I must be in the clear?  Well, you know this isn’t going to end well, right? 

I sent Madeline out to snip a few basil leaves so I could get dinner started.  Then out of nowhere I hear Katie screaming and Ellie is frantically telling me that she’s hurt.  We have no idea what she touched, but she sliced off a thin layer of skin on two fingers.  One of them was bleeding a little but neither of them look great.  So I did my best to patch her up and amazingly, I didn’t freak out.  Calmly handling hurt children is not my forte.  Katie spent most of the evening fixating on her band aids.

At this point I’m spent.  I just need to make it through the next fifteen hours or so and God willing, Bryan will be home from his trip and our little world will hopefully go back to normal.