I Make Plans, and God Laughs

Monday, I was on fire. Fire, I tell you. Everyone was on routine (I hesitate to use the term "schedule"), schoolwork was getting done, chores were getting caught up, it was glorious. I got more done than I have in a long time, and I was feeling motivated to keep it up. Yesterday was co-op day. I planned to drop the big kids off, run errands with Jack during the morning, and head home to do my aforementioned laundry round-up. It was a beautiful morning, temps in the 60's. I was at the height of organization. I had my grocery list all ready, all the kids' co-op stuff gathered up, directions written out to a friend's house I needed to swing by, library books gathered, dinner in the crockpot, I had even checked the weather and had seen that a cold front was moving in and had the kids throw their coats in the car...I was stoked. Jack was still coughing, but seemed in a good mood and had no fever, so I carried on.

Jack and I had a pleasant stop at the library, ran to the friend's house, swung into the Walmart Neighborhood Market, and I was well on my way to getting home in time to make use of Jack's nap. When I was leaving the store, it was incredibly windy (though still warm), so windy I could barely keep the trunk from wacking me in the head or my cart from rolling away as I was unloading groceries. Then, when I went to start the car, I found it completely dead. Dead, dead, dead, and for no apparent reason. We had just had the alternator replaced a few weeks ago. John was off work and at home, so I called him to make the 20-30 minute drive to where I was and jump the battery. Then we would take the car back into the dealership. I fumed briefly at the change in plans, then decided not to let it ruin my mood. I would persevere. I was the paragon of organization, now I would throw flexibility into the mix and come out swinging. I pulled our lunches out of the trunk of the car, pulled Jack up front with me, and we ate lunch, read library books, and sang B-I-N-G-O about 247 times.

An HOUR AND 15 MINUTES later, John calls my cell phone and says he can't find me. He went to the supercenter instead of the neighborhood market. In the meantime, the cold front had moved in and the temperature had dropped like 30 degrees and that warm wind had turned bitter and biting cold. After a couple of hours of charging the battery, taking the car in, waiting around to find out that it was just a LOOSE BATTERY CABLE which my husband found hysterically funny apparently but I did not, especially since the dealership had just worked on the car and must have left the darned thing loose thereby ruining my day, it was too late to make it worth heading back home, so we hung around some more waiting for the kids to finish their classes instead. Jack, who had been coughing like mad all day and now had missed his nap, was now wheezing and exhausted and in a horrible, horrible mood. Finally, around 4:15pm, we were home. The car got unloaded in that horrible cold wind, John gave Jack a breathing treatment, then another when the first didn't help much, while I put away groceries, unpacked lunch bags, sorted through co-op papers, sorted through mail and found out that our water would be turned off in the morning while the city worked on the water line, finished preparing dinner, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Once the kids were in bed, I gave myself a pep talk, told myself I could still catch up the laundry tomorrow if I really busted my hump, and went to bed early so I could start out right again, back on top as the paragon of both organization AND, now, flexibility. Then, at 11:15pm, Jack was up, coughing and wheezing, and so I was on the couch, watching Signing Time and giving him treatments. At 5:30am, he was up again. And Maria was up with another stomachache. I told Maria she could watch something she had recorded, put on a dvd for Jack in my room and tried to sleep a little longer, but without much luck because Jack wanted to lay on top of me. Like, really, right on top of my big pregnant belly, which, by the way, now has very frequent and not very comfortable Braxton-Hicks contractions and definitely does NOT like to be laid on. Around 7am, I was exhausted but gave up and started laundry, caught up on emails and later on, phone calls, though I finally gave up on that because Jack was so miserable and just wanted me to hold him. I did go ahead and cancel Maria's vision therapy for this afternoon. It's supposed to be at 1pm, and I figured Jack didn't need to miss another naptime today, and neither did I. At 9:30, I decided we'd just have to start school as best we could and set the kids to finishing up their morning list. I sat down with my to-do list to re-prioritize my day. I could still use reading and rest time to fold laundry and finish it this evening after the boys were in bed. Everyone was feeding off my lazy tiredness and bad mood (I am not yet the paragon of patience..one step at a time), and I needed to get things moving and lift morale. So, I got the laundry rebooted and set Kain to unloading the dishwasher when he came to tell me that there was no water. I'd forgotten...the city was working on the lines, and I'd forgotten to fill any containers with water. So now, here I am, it's got to be like 10am, I haven't had a shower, the laundry is on hold (again), we can't flush toilets, do dishes, and I can't even brush my dang teeth. I'm going to start school anyway, and hope that the water will be back on quickly, and then re-re-prioritize my day. I will salvage what I can. I must. I am a paragon of flexibility, you know. Somehow, some way, the laundry will get done, if I have to go wash it in the creek.

And the week started so well...