THE PAST SIX DAYS ~ IN A NUT SHELL

Very, very long post, filled with ramblings about my very long week that most likely will be boring for most to read. Just wanted to warn, so that if you choose, you can skip it altogether.

Wednesday Morning, the Mr. got himself up out of bed at the ripe hour of 4am and left on a little road trip to Ohio. What for? To deliver a boat to a customer.

Me? I got up at about 6am and started the daily routine. Drag kids out of bed, dress them, feed them, and race to get them on the bus by 7:30am. Then it was on to Anthony. Pull the PSP out of his hands, get him dressed, lunch made, and off to preschool for the day. The rest of the day was spent with Sam and Liv - play, lunch, nap time. Kids off the bus at 2:45, Ava with a friend for an afternoon playdate. Snacks are given, pizza ordered, quickly eat, drop of Ava's friend, race to Lucas' Karate graduation. Thank heaven for the little miracles known as Grandma and Grandpa, as they were there to help me with the kids. Lord knows I needed it seeing I had to reenact some moves with Lucas on the mat, and take pictures. I would not have been able to do either if I didn't have them to hold Olivia and keep Anthony entertained. Thankfully Ava is old enough now to sit down quietly and behave. After the little ceremony, we made our way home got the kids in jammies, settled, and into bed.

Thursday morning, up again at 6am only to repeat Wednesdays activities. (minus the playdate and Karate - oh, and instead of Pizza for dinner, I threw them all some happy meals.) In place of Lucas and the whole Karate thing, we had Ava's dance class. I loaded all the kids (pajamas on) into the car in order to get Ava to her class at 6:50pm. As I raced in I got some weird looks from people, most likely wondering why my children were dressed for bed.

Why the pajamas? Well because the dance class goes until 7:40pm, and by the time I would get them all home they would be asleep in their car seats. SO, it only makes sense to have them in their pajamas when I go - then I do not have to wake them all up and try to get cranky, sleepy kids into their pajamas and back to bed. This convienence trumps all the weird looks I was getting, so I simply disregarded them.

So, the dance class ended, I got the kids loaded into the car, and home. As expected, they all fell asleep in the car enroute to home sweet home - so I spent the next 10 minutes carrying each one up to bed, and having to wake Ava to get her in pajamas as she was in her leotard. [No, I did not put her in her pajamas before going to dance class, as even I know, that would have been going a bit too far.] Finally everyone was in bed, with me following shortly after.

Was woken up at about midnight to the sound of Mr. Shelton crawling in bed, back from delivering the boat. Only problem was, he still had the boat. Turns out he drove 12 hours to Ohio, delivered the boat to the guys door only to find the guy did not like the trailer the boat was on. The trailer. So he decided to go back on his word, and not buy the boat. Never mind my husband taking two days out of his schedule to deliver the dang thing. Nope, he didn't care, he decided he didn't want it. Douchebag. Two days away from family and work all for nothing. Grrrrrr, I say, Grrrrrr.

Friday morning came, and again, I repeated the activities of both Wednesday and Thursday. Afterward, I drove Mr. Shelton to the airport. Yes, he was leaving us again, this time for a fun trip to Las Vegas with a friend. surprisingly a pretty uneventful afternoon followed. The kids came home from school and we had our neighbor friends come over to play. After playing for some time I was somehow convinced to take all four of my kids to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. So we piled into the car and headed over to the kids favorite restaurant to meet our friends for a nice, peaceful, relaxing dinner. [Yah, right.]

The kids were pretty great, sat and colored, the food came they started eating, and then one of them [Ava] realized they did not have balloons and crowns yet. Oh the outrage. A nice girl working there (not our server, let's just say patience was not her strong suit) came over and gave the kids the balloons. Immediately two went right up to the ceiling, crying ensued. The nice girl brought two more balloons over - this time tying them to everyones wrists. By this time the kids were done eating and thought it would be fun to run in circles around the table. We were trying to pay our bill, but our ever so lovely server was no where to be seen. Finally we gave the bill to someone else and got the heck out of there. We made our way home, played for a few more minutes with friends, said our goodbyes and started the bedtime routine. Another day done.

Saturday morning came all too soon. I was up again at 6am, dragging the kiddos out of bed as well, dressed and fed them all, piled them into the car and raced over to Grandma and Papa's house to drop everyone off but Anthony. Anthony and I had an appointment at the Early Childhood center to have his mandatory screening before starting Kindergarten. We managed to make it to the appointment on time and started in on his testing. As I suspected, Anthony was nervous and a had a bit of anxiety going on. He spent most of the time sitting in a seat, head down, biting his nails. Occasionally he would whisper an answer to a question that the lovely lady who was testing him asked. It was all frustrating to watch, knowing he knew the answers but was too nervous and overwhelmed to answer many of them. I guess it all went well enough, as he did "pass". After all that rigamaroll, we headed home, I got myself all gussied up and again we headed over to grandma and papa's. This time I dropped Anthony off and picked Grandma up.

Where did we go? A Bunko party. I had never played Bunko before, did not really know much about it, but at this point in my week I was just so happy to get out of the house sans kids I did not care what I was doing. Turned out to be quite a fun afternoon, rolling dice to play a mindless game, drinking wine, eating food, talking with adults... what's not to like, right?

Alas, the party ended, so we made our way home to relieve Papa of his duties. I headed home, did the whole bedtime routine as usual, and drifted off to dream land in the hopes of a nice relaxing Sunday.

I woke up Sunday morning, and for some reason thought it would be fun to decorate the house for Christmas. 'Cause you know I have not had a busy enough week. Of course the kids were just thrilled, so I made my way to the basement and dragged up all the Christmas stuff. We spent a few hours decorating the house and the Christmas tree, and had a grand time doing it.

Then our neighbor friends called to play. So we played and went to lunch at Culver's. I guess I am a glutton for punishment with this going out to eat thing lately. We ate and everything went pretty smoothly. We made our way home and I was ready to relax when Lucas asked when he got to go to the birthday party. Uh-oh. I forgot about the birthday party Lucas was supposed to be at.... in one hour. So I got him ready, threw everyone in the car, and headed out to the birthday party. Driving there I realized what a long week it had been with the constant running and always having to be somewhere. As I was lost in my thoughts Anthony was crying and yelling because he could not pass a level on his PSP, Olivia was screaming out of sheer exhaustion because she was missing her morning nap, and Ava and Lucas were in the back arguing about something. I was feeling overwhelmed and very ready for the Mr. to arrive home.

As I pulled into the parking lot at the location of this party, I went to pull into a parking spot and realized it was much to tight for me to fit into. So, I put my car in reverse, stepped on the gas to back out - and CRASH. Apparently there was a car right behind me trying to park as well that I did not see. I swear it came out of nowhere. As all the kids were crying, clearly shook up from the little fender bender I just go intot, I looked in my rear view mirror to find a lady throwing her arms up in the air and yelling. I could tell this was not going to be good. I parked the car, got out, walked up and said

"I am so sorry!"

[Accompanied by a very nasty look:] " You better be!"

"Gosh, I did not mean to run into you, I just did not see you."

"This is a brand new car you know!"

"Again, I am sorry. It has been a really long week, I am feeling crazed and was late getting here."

"Well, I sure hope you have insurance."

Alright, now I was getting pissed. I had already had a very long week, and I did not need to end it like this. With a mean woman yelling at me over a small fender bender that resulted in a little nick to the front bumper of her beloved spankin' new Saturn.

"Listen lady, do you have to be so rude? Relax, it's a car and it can be fixed, no need to be so snotty about all of this. Oh, and yes, I do have insurance."

"My God, you are the one being rude, AND acting like this is my fault!."

"I clearly stated when I got out of my car that it was my fault and that I was sorry, so what part of that did you not understand?" I never said it was your fault as I backed into you. I don't need this, I have 4 little kids in the car."

"Well I have kids in my car too you know!" [From what I saw, she had 1 teenager in the front seat. Not quite the same as 4 kids age 6 and under.]

"You really don't have to be such a brat about the whole situation."

"Takes one to know one!" Yes, she did say that.

"Wow, how very classy of you."

This was getting ridiculous.

I made my way back to my car to get my insurance info, when my girlfriend (mom of the little boy who was having the birthday party) walked up and said to the other woman, "oh, it's alright, this stuff happens, really I don't even see any damage!" She was chatting some more but I could not make out what they were saying. I only heard the very end where she told her to talk to me because she sure wasen't going to. My girlfriend then walked up to me to ask how I was, which was when I started crying and babbling on about how crazy my week had been and how this was just topping it all off, etc. etc. She then said how sorry she was, and that she could be mean sometimes. This is where I stopped, looked at her and said:

"She? Do you know her??"

Well of course she did, it was her sister. Her sister. Of all people to back into, and end up having a not so pleasant confrontation. Truly unbelievable. Of course I apologized ten times over to her, but was assured by my ever so understanding friend that her sister was not a very nice person at times, and that she tended to overreact about things.

All this time the kids were sitting patiently in the car, wondering what was going on. I just explained there was a little accident, and hoped they did not hear the nasty exchange that went on between this woman and I.

I finally got Lucas into the birthday party and headed home to get my insurance info ready for when I picked Lucas up. When I arrived, I handed over my insurance info to my friend (her sister was no longer there, which was probably a very good thing) and apologized again, and was again told not to worry.

As we were driving home, Lucas told me all about the party. How he played, had cake but not ice cream and he did not want any ice cream, how it was a Pirate party and got an eye patch, hat and "sword hand thingy". When we got home, he did not waste a moment getting into his Pirate garb and showing it off to his brother, sisters and I.

I was happy he had a good time and that all the kids seemed unscathed by Mom's little ordeal.

And now we are at today. Today I again went through the whole getting the kids off to school routine. I have my little day care boy over, Sam. He and Olivia just ate lunch and will soon be taking naps. Grandpa will come over today at 2pm to watch those two, and get Ava and Lucas off the bus while I am at Anthony's preschool for Friendship day. A day where they sing songs and put on a little show for Mom's and Dad's and then end with a snack and some juice. I will then head back home, let the kids play for awhile, then get myself ready before the babysitter gets here at 5pm.

Yep, I got myself a babysitter. And let's just say her arrival has been much anticipated over the past few days. [She will be taking care of the kids until the Mr. arrives home from his relaxing vacation in Las Vegas at about 7pm.] I will then steal away to the Olive Garden to meet a very close friend of mine from Highschool for some dinner and drinks. A friend I have not seen for over a year and miss tremendously. I will eat, talk, drink wine, and take my time. Because come 5pm, I am officially "punching out" and putting Mr. Shelton in charge.