Small Crises Are For Laughter

There are days, and then there are hard days, and then there are hard weeks.

I thought last week was never going to end. I thought there was no way I was going to make it through. I thought that there was nothing left to do but roll over and give up [exaggerating is my artistic license]. I went through the motions and took care of what needed to be taken care of, but if I'd had my druthers, I would've curled up in a fetal position, eaten an entire tub of cookie dough ice cream on my own, and let the kids watch TV for an entire day straight. I didn't do any of those things. Well, I did eat half of the tub of ice cream, but who's judging?

Anyway, I realized that sometimes, on the hard days, there is nothing more for me to do but get through it and hope I find my sense of humor again on the other side.

Littles really does think that Bruiser belongs to him. And him alone. There is no sharing.

But I tried--really hard--to find my sense of humor in the moment.  Especially over the weekend when I realized that things were going downhill fast.

First, the boys and I moved their giant stuffed penguin around the house for a few days. He spent several hours playing the piano (he "doesn't play accurately--anyone can play accurately--but [he] plays with wonderful expression"). He tried out the twins' carseats (but decided safety was not his thing). He relaxed in the antique needle point rocking chair (though he preferred the recliner). And last night, as he was lounging luxuriously on the couch in the dark, he scared the ever living daylights out of me when I came in the living room to lock up for the night.

Saturday Sunrise Surprise You can't tell, but Bruiser and Bee were yowling their heads off here.

Then, trying to exceed expectations as a mom, I packed up a surprise breakfast picnic Saturday morning, and we went out to see the sunrise and eat banana bread by the "creek." But I forgot Bruiser's paci, and he was not okay with that, and I didn't think it was fair to deprive the neighbors of their Saturday morning sleep in, so it was a very speedy picnic, to say the least. The boys were more interested in tracking down the turtle who had finally put in his post-hiberation reappearance than eating the breakfast I'd packed, so not only did we track a bunch of wet grass into the house when we got home a scant half hour later, but they unceremoniously finished their breakfast when we got home, which solidified the slow Death by Crumbs of my kitchen floor.

Ready to go disrupt the church service.

Finally, I diligently dragged all of us to chapel, though by Sunday I felt that doing one more thing might just push me over the edge to Living Death. Of course, Bee was wanting to be held, which was all well and good until Tiny decided that he too must share in the joys of lap-time. And guys, my lap is just not that big. Tiny, of course, communicated his severe displeasure to me (and the last three rows of pews) in spite of my diligent shushing. I finally got Bee to sleep and did my best to sneakily put her down so that I could deal with Tiny more effectively, but she was having none of it and woke up with emphatic shrieking which prompted me to walk into the cry room until she calmed down. No biggie. Littles was in Children's Church, and I could clearly see Bruiser (sleeping angelically in his carseat) and Tiny in the back pew that was directly in front of the cry room window. What I didn't count on? The fact that I hadn't told Tiny where I was going. So, he screamed loudly for Mama and ran out of the sanctuary wailing hysterically at the top of his lungs until I managed to calm him down. It then took me another three trips in and out of the last pew to get all the carseats, babies, and diapering paraphernalia into the cry room with me. I then got to hear the last five minutes of the sermon.

It's funny now. It wasn't funny then.

I didn't realize that Bee was attempting to photobomb. PS Bruiser thought it was funny then.

But you know what? All bad weeks eventually come to an end. And the truth is that it wasn't a bad week in a big way. Nothing terrible happened. I was just not dealing with things emotionally the way I wanted to. And then today, I read this lovely post by Emily Freeman about finding hope when the fog rolls in--and I felt like I was reading about myself--and that was good too.

Be still, my beating heart. Now he can write "Mom" and his name: college scholarships are right around the corner!

In her post, Emily Freeman quotes Winston Churchill as saying "Never let a good crisis go to waste." I agree with Sir Winston wholeheartedly (see me blogging about last week so that it is thoroughly un-wasted), but I'll add on: Never miss a chance to laugh at yourself. I plan to succeed in both arenas. With pictures included. It may have taken me a few days to laugh about it--there was no laughter allowed for a few days there--but I turned the corner eventually. And here we are now.