Friday, April 4, 2008

The First Fall-Apart Day

That was Thursday...I went into the day feeling confident but realized I was susceptible to frustration and irritability because I didn't get much sleep the night before - it wasn't Lillie necessarily, although she of course still needs my attention at least once in the night. No, this time it was Avery - he is just having a rough time of it in the area of sleeping peacefully through the night. I am now at the point of suspecting an illness is coming upon him.

So anyway, Avery awoke early that morning (like usual) after a restless night of sleep (how and why do they do that?) and simply crawled into bed with me. We eventually heard "baby sister" start to fuss for food and so we went downstairs. I got a movie started for Avery, fixed Lillie her bottle, got a waffle and a cup of juice prepared for Avery to consume in front of the movie (no syrup on the waffle by the way - he eats it like a piece of toast) and I sat on the couch and started to feed Lillie her bottle - pretty smooth, but it had only been 15 minutes. I was hopeful once again because the older two were sleeping later than usual. They would be rested - we could make it through the day just fine.

I knew I was in trouble when Huston awoke. The boy was whiny from the word go. It was going to be a long day. No one could play with the other without tears in the end - it was usually Avery and Huston that continued to clash. Avery was beginning to feed off of Huston's ill humor and become high-maintenance as well. I put him to bed at noon. I bundled the older two up and sent them into the cold, cloudy, and wet outside to hopefully run off some of the grumpiness in regards to Huston and some of the high energy in regards to Isaiah. They came in just before the freakish rain/hailstorm that dropped at least 1-2 inches of pea to marble sized hail. Oh, did I mention that throughout this same morning Lillie had some wicked tummy ache or something cause she pretty much fussed on and off - which is totally unlike her.

On top of all of this the phone rang continually (another rarity). So by noon, I was done. Avery and Lillie finally were napping. Isaiah and Huston had applesauce and cereal for lunch and started in with a movie - all of which was done by Isaiah while I tended to Lillie. Once everyone was settled, I turned off all the phones and crashed with the younger ones for about an hour. I again was hopeful that we would start afresh after rest.

Avery's nap was oh so short - I looked at the 1:30pm clock and the evening looked so far away. Then I discovered that I had 4 messages on my phone and cell phone - the one time I decide to turn of the phones, I am needed for something - really it turns out my boys were needed. A couple of the ministers at church wanted to film a clip of 2 of my boys doing something for some video they needed for Sunday. Sure, why not - come join the fun, but I guess that meant I had to get out of my pajamas. So they came and filmed.

By the evening 3 out of the 4 were crying. At 4:00 I called Steven - I rarely do this, I want the urgency of these calls to be felt, so it is always my last ditch effort. I got his voice mail...poop. Isaiah comes in the room after I left my message for Steven, pleading for him to try to make it home early and Isaiah says to me, "Let me take one of them for you mom, I can help one of them." I told him how sweet it was for him to offer, but if mommy can't fix it I didn't think that he could either.

Steven did make it home 10 minutes earlier than usual, big deal huh, but he did get dinner together for me and that is a big deal...Huston was in bed by 6:30 that evening...Avery got some cold medicine and went to bed at 7...and Isaiah got to run to Hobby Lobby with me to pick out some paint to use on a project we are doing. So the day ended pretty good after all. Lillie was eating and sleeping like crazy today, Huston slept until almost 8:00 this morning and was in a better humor. Avery is still acting like he is under the weather, but nothing major has developed yet and Isaiah continues to be my number one helper. So the bump in the road was just that, but I expect there will be more in the future of course. I am realistic...but I am hopeful.

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