In The Last 72 Hours

I've had an interesting three days. And by interesting, I mean crappy. It started Wednesday morning when William ran out of food at breakfast. I was elsewhere in the house helping children get ready for school when he grabbed onto the tablecloth (there was someone's leftover breakfast still on the table) and pulled and pulled until said leftover breakfast and ceramic Halloween bowl were smashed to pieces on the kitchen floor.

Fast forward to MULTIPLE poopy diapers and a very ouchy looking bum all because he his cutting four teeth at once. He's hard core.

The rest of the morning was dedicated to cleaning, for a potential buyer, who was coming by to look at the house that afternoon. At lunchtime, my "oh so clumsy" daughter spilled milk all over the table, herself, and the freshly swept and mopped floor. A bath was in order. I was loving and patiently waiting for the water to reach her desired temperature, when, as I bent over to plug the drain, my iPod fell out of my pocket and into the water. I might mention that I have a very close personal relationship with my iPod. We're rarely separated. She's always in my pocket soothing me with audio books or motivational music. I toss her into a bunch of rice (per Internet instruction on how to save a wet iPod) and commence with the cleaning.

Potential buyers are late, which almost makes me late dropping off Preston at piano. Trevor comes home none to happy about the iPod situation which puts my defensive nature in overdrive. After Abby spills all her juice at dinner, I decide a trip to the store for Desitin is in order. I come home to a much more sympathetic husband and the rest of the evening goes by without incident (however, the kids were in bed so what could really go wrong while the little angels sleep?).

Then, Thursday morning arrived. Abby had her preschool Halloween party, so most of my morning was devoted to primping my little princess. The boys were awesome and got ready without complaining and we were ready to go well before the car pool showed up. I dropped Abby off at school and went to work in Carson's classroom.

It was on my way to Carson's classroom that I got the voicemail from the carpool reminding me of Preston's field trip to the Discovery Museum and also reminding me that I had forgotten to pack him a sack lunch. I was told not to worry, they had their son split his lunch with Preston. They must think I'm so incapable...which might be true.

Abby's preschool party was adorable and we went home to change out of her costume. You see, Thursday is Chick-Fil-A day. My favorite day of the week next to Saturday and Sunday. We were almost ready to walk out the door when I reach to scoop up William to put his shoes on. Speaking of shoes, I had misplaced (or my children had) one of my flip flops, so I had to borrow Trevor's. The over sized toe on that darned flip flop caught the edge of my rug and I fell full force onto the floor, landing with all (and I mean ALL) of my weight on my left knee. ON WILLIAM'S FOOT! Poor baby was hysterical! I was in shock. Or at least my knee was. I couldn't really move. The pain had shot all through my leg. But the mama adrenaline kicked in and I was able to comfort him, examine him, and deduce that he was not seriously injured. Off to Chick-fil-a!

It was on my way into Chick-fil-a that I felt like something was maybe wrong with my knee. I hobbled in, ordered and sat down. After twenty minutes or so of chatting with my friend (the fabulous Jamie) and feeding my littles, Abby wanted an ice cream cone. So, I hobbled up to the counter, got her the cone, and hobbled back to the table. As I was sitting down, Abby tried to squeeze into the booth behind me and I sat on her cone. My ice dream booty was now covered in soft serve goodness. I scooped up the smushed remnants of cone, slapped it on our tray and told her to eat it with a spoon. The lady in the table next to us declared Abby "charming" when she scolded me with a deafening, "Mom! I told you!". What she "told" me is a mystery since she hadn't spoken a word, but whatever.

15 minutes later, my "charming" daughter alerted me to the fact that William was stinky. That was an understatement. Frothy, foamy poo (sorry, I have to tell it like it was) was oozing out his diaper and up his back. Panic. I have no wipes, no diapers and not even a clean napkin on the table. The fabulous Jamie rushes to her car and comes back with wipes, and a swim diaper. As I race to the bathroom, with William at arms length, the lady at the next table burst into gleeful hysterics.

With my baby all clean, I resume my "restful" lunch. Trevor called somewhere in the middle of all this. When I told him about my knee, his first reaction was, "Brenda! Don't you know you don't have insurance?". My reaction was this, "No Trevor. I forgot until I was halfway to the floor and thought, 'Dang (I didn't say dang) I can't fall. I don't have insurance.' I was going to stand back up but, the flight to the floor was so fun, I decided to go through with it". Then he apologized.

As we were leaving, I hoisted Will onto my hip and immediately feel wetness through my sweater and shirt. My thoughts were that he had had too much to drink and soaked through the flimsy swim diaper. We rushed home and I whisked the diaper off to discover it's not "wetness" but was, rather, explosive diarrhea. A quick clean-up, and he is off to nap time, while I plop down on the couch with my cantaloupe sized knee.

Oh how it was throbbing! The boys came home and joyfully? started in on homework. Then Mimi called to say she was 10 minutes away. This was a happy, yet unexpected surprise. I paid the boys $2 each to speed clean the downstairs (luckily she didn't look behind the office door where they stashed everything). I didn't move from my cozy spot on the couch.

Trevor came home a couple hours later. My memory fails me but I think this might have been when I mentioned that the air conditioning had gone out in the van. Had I not mentioned that yet? Well, the air conditioning is out in the van.

Friday morning dawned...with no milk in the house. Off to the donut shop we went. The boys get dropped off at school and I hobble into WalMart seeking a brace for my sore injured knee. I'm thinking it's a sprain but Trevor is convinced it's a torn ACL and will only be healed by a $50,000 surgery. Who would've thought I'd be the glass half full one in the relationship? After WalMart is Carson's field trip to the pumpkin patch and home again to rest and ignore the sink full of dishes and explosion of toys in the house. I was successfully resting when my carpool buddies call to see if I can pick up the kids even though it's not my day to pick up. Not a problem.

At 3:00pm the realtor calls and wants to bring by another prospective buyer between 4:30 and 5:30. Not a problem said I, as long as he can make it 5:15, so I can get my munchkins ready for the ward Halloween party that night. He ASSURES me they'll be done at that time.

At 3:05 I pack up Abby and Will to go get the big kids. I place my key in the ignition and...nothing. Dead van. I had left the power on in the car, because I had to get a DVD out of the player that Abby wanted to watch inside...for 4 hours. The fabulous Jamie had my back and picked up the big kids, dropped off the car pool kids and helped me jump my van. After all that drama I had exactly 27 minutes left before the realtor showed up with the prospective buyers.

Enter more cash bribing to the kids to speed clean. They rock at speed cleaning. I rock at speed dish washing and vacuuming. We are out the door at 4:31. The realtor is there and is waiting for the prospective buyers. We leave and head to McDonald's for a treat. We drive past the house at 5:10. I was hopeful that the prospective buyers had already come and gone. The realtor was still waiting outside for them to show up. We continue driving around the neighborhood for 20 more minutes until the prospective buyers finally show. Luckily, they are good at speed house hunting.

That's about where the drama ends. There were a few scoldings from Trevor about me not taking adequate care of my knee by resting, icing and elevating it. But after a few times of me spatting at him about the last three days he's stopped trying.