DAY NINE

I thought I'd follow up on my meltdown post from Sunday.

Yesterday was amazing.  It was warm and sunny, so we scrapped school and the bigs played outside all day.  Meanwhile, I started tackling the house.  Actually, I started by mowing the lawn, then headed inside.  The whole place was a disaster and I didn't know how much I could get done, so I decided to do one room at a time until that room was completely done.  My day may have ended without getting the whole house taken care of, but I knew having some rooms looking great and some looking bad would feel more productive than every room looking half done. 

And that's how our morning went.  Kids playing, mom working.

About 12:30 I offered to let the nappers stay up and play outside, but they'd have to go to bed early at night.  They were enjoying the beautiful day and took me up on the offer.  And I kept working.

On Sunday I had asked for help from my friend Tammy and she was planning on coming over yesterday afternoon,  but life interfered and that plan got scrapped.  I wasn't feeling so overwhelmed and discouraged, though, so it was fine.

However, my friend Orma called right around the time Tammy would have come and said she was on her way over.  What a treat that ended up being!  She came in long enough to see my blue walls and check out the house (she hadn't been here yet), then told me to get back to whatever I was doing and went outside with the kids.  She played with them for three hours. Three hours of happy adult attention.  They've barely had 20 minutes of that for the last .... oh, eight days. 

It was perfect timing, as it was right during their usual nap time.  She brought a parachute and beach ball, which they played with for a while.  The kids brought out croquet and she played a game with them.  Then Silas came in to decorate a cake, Devon played alone, and Orma read books she's brought and some of our own with Naomi for a while.  Then it was back outside for some more croquet.  What a treat for the little Ws!!

I worked my tail off while she hung out with them, taking one break to feed Teebs.  By the time she left my house was under control.  Sure, there are some things I still need to take care of, but they fall into the realm of normal clutter.  The paint supplies that had soaked in blue water for ten days got cleaned up.  The slipcovers that had been hanging to dry for five days got put back on the furniture. The dishes that were spread all over the kitchen counters got washed.  The dining table that was buried in random stuff got cleared.  The floors got swept.  It was wonderful!!!  So very thankful for a chance to work uninterrupted and for my kids to have fun at the same time.

We wrapped up the evening with stinky, sweaty kids taking baths and showers, the bigs cashing in gift certificates for mini Papa Murphy's pizzas for dinner, three kids in bed before 7:00, and one kid quietly reading and watching Tim Hawkins online until hitting the sack. 

Needless to say, it was a much better day than Sunday!!

The bottle issue got put on the back burner because I just couldn't deal with it.  While I don't have enough milk, I do have some and it's enough that Teebs won't starve between now and whenever Tim is around again.  I did, however, give him a little bit of banana, his first solids.

Today is day nine of no husband or father in the house and I think it will be a good day.  The sun's out.  The kids have swimming lessons this morning.  Rachel offered to come visit this afternoon and will try giving a bottle.  We snagged Sword in the Stone from the library and will watch it (for approximately the 839,036th time) this evening.  Then we'll call day nine a wrap.