The Abraham Family’s Journey to Russia to Bring Home Their Daughter

January 20, 2009

I had a bad day









Actually, Lexi and I both had a bad day. Sometimes when you try to do it all, it all catches up with you and then proceeds to run you over. The following is my very long-winded rant and rave. Feel free to move on the next blog on your list if you don't want to read about my crazy, horrible, no good very bad day. It made me feel better if nothing else. I'll probably delete it later. If you choose to read on, you need to play the YouTube song above to get the full effect of my misery.

It all started last night when Lexi decided she didn't want to go to sleep. She played in her bed for over an hour. When I came back to check on her, she kept signing milk. Over and over again. So, I got her more milk. What I should have done was change her diaper one last time after that bottle of warm milk. But it didn't occur to me at the time. She finally fell asleep around 10:00 p.m. which meant that she slept past 8:00 in the morning. I needed to be at depositions in Nashville at 9:00 a.m., but my little alarm clock (aka Lexi) didn't wake me up until 8:05. It takes 45 minutes to get to my appointment, get parked, walk to the law office and go up 18 floors. Panic mode!

I picked Lexi up to give her a good morning hug and realized that her diaper weighed about 5 lbs and had leaked out all over, and I mean ALL over, her pjs and now I was wet too. I quickly took off the pjs, but then she was shivering all over. (It's very cold here - the high was 31 degrees today and not much warmer in our bedroom. We are trying to conserve energy after our last outrageous utility bill.) Anyway, I rushed her to the bathtub for a nice warm bath. My plan was to let her play in the tub while I made myself presentable (because "presentable" was all I could manage with only 10 minutes left before I had to leave.)

Because the pipes to our master bathroom were so cold, the water would not warm up quickly. Either that or Martin ran all the hot water out and it hadn't had time to recover yet. Needless to say, her lukewarm bath was not very fun and she certainly did not appreciate me washing her hair when she was already cold. So I took about 30 seconds to put on some make-up before pulling her from the tub. I put a really cute new outfit on her (because it was the only thing clean this morning) and ran posthaste to the kitchen to get her breakfast ready. I plopped her into her highchair with a nice warm breakfast and rolled her highchair in front of Word World on TV. Not my best parenting moment, but I really had to go. I yelled bye to Martin and ran out the door.

When I arrived at the parking garage in downtown Nashville, the ticket machine was broken and it was not letting cars in. Finally, the attendant over-rode the machine and the gate went up. Whew! I was only 15 minutes late and the depositions hadn't started yet. So as I am heading for the main conference room, I see familiar faces in the small conference room and, being in the rush that I was, I headed on in there without knocking. Bad move. That conference room was full of the opposing side. They were having a meeting and I basically barged in on them. All eyes were on me. Oh, great! A couple of people were nice and said "Come on in and have a seat." But, I politely made some lame excuses and backed out of the room. Can you say - embarrassing?

The depositions went okay, but were longer than expected. Making me late getting home to relieve Martin from Mr. Mom duty. I excused myself a little early to try to get home by 1:00 as promised. As I was rushing home, I checked my v-mails and discovered that I was about to miss an important deadline for a contract at work. On top of that there was a message from the babysitter who keeps Lexi on Tuesdays telling me that she was not available this week. (This is the sweet lady from our church that kept the boys on Trip One and I'm happy that she has a full-time job sitting for an elderly lady in the next few weeks. Just too bad for me, that's all.)

I dash into the house to find Lexi sitting in her highchair in front of the TV again. Granted, she hadn't been there the whole time and she had taken a 2 hour nap before I got home. But still. I hated the idea that she was parked in front of the TV. Again. Almost as bad, she was not wearing a bib and her cute outfit was a mess.

I take her up to my office and tried to put her in the exersauser while I finished up a contract. She was having nothing to do with that! I got her out to play on the floor around me. Instead, she clung to my leg and was crying. Then, I put her up on my desk and gave her a crayon and paper. She liked that okay, so I started typing a work email. That must have looked fun, because she wanted to type too. Then she started clicking the mouse and closing my email. Ugh! This was not working! When I stopped her from clicking the mouse, she started crying again. Big, huge crocodile tears. I guess I reached my boiling point because I told her to hush! A little louder than I meant too. Of course, she has no idea what hush means so she cried harder. I felt so bad. At that point, we thought it would be better to put her in her bed until I finished my work. Thank goodness it only took about ten more minutes.

I hit "send" on the urgent email I had been working on and went to get Lexi out of bed. She was happy to see me and I found one last clean outfit to change her into. [Note to self: Please do laundry tomorrow!] Now, it was 2:00 pm and the boys have an enrichment class at 2:30 and it's a 25 minute drive. I cram everyone into the car, including Lexi, and head out again. That went fine even though I wasn't able to help out in Nolan and Liam's class because I had company with me (Lexi). We were home again by 4:15. I opted not to put Lexi down for an afternoon nap that late (normal time is 3:00). I thought we would finally be able to relax and have some fun playtime in the living room floor.

Well, it didn't work out that way. She had a really stinky diaper. I was trying to change her quickly because she can be a real wiggle worm. As I pulled a wipe out of the Huggie's wipe box, it didn't tear off the way it was supposed to. Instead it was still connected to the sheets of wipes still in the box and the whole box was hanging in the air. This may be hard to picture, but I was pulling the wipes out with my left hand, while I was holding her legs up in the air with my right hand. Her bottom was covered in poo. The box goes up into the air and since my other hand was full (with her feet) I tried to shake the wipes loose. The box came down and hit her in the head right next to her eye. She's screaming again and looking at me like I'm a monster. Can you blame her? I couldn't immediately scoop her up to comfort her because her rear end is still covered in poo. Good grief! I wiped as fast as humanly possible and then hugged her, but she was mad as a hornet at me.

I didn't even know it made a mark until an hour or so later:






Bless her heart, as soon as she finally calmed down and started to play with me again, Martin came home and asked me a question about my computer. I thought I could go check real quick and come right back. When I looked at my computer, I noticed that my urgent email had not been "sent" because it got hung up with spellcheck. Curses to spellchecker! I sat down at the computer to finish the email. Lexi came looking for me and when she found me at the computer again, she started crying all over again. The girl's too smart for my own good. She made the connection - mom on computer, child gets ignored. I handed her off to Martin and made a quick phone call to cover the delayed email and hopefully all is good with that deadline.


Meanwhile, Nolan has a meltdown because Liam sat on his penguin habitat made from sofa pillows. Liam was crying because Garrett quit the game they were playing. Preston was giving me a play by play report of his brothers' offenses. The dog smells terrible and is in desperate need of a bath because I think he peed in his crate and then slept in it. And our internet connection went out four times while I was typing this post.

After the fiasco of a day we had, plus no afternoon nap, Lexi was very cranky and no way was she going to let me cook dinner. Well that, plus all we had in the way of food was left-over meatloaf, made us brave the cold and head out to Applebee's for the kid's eat free night. My happy girl was not so happy anymore and barely ate any dinner. (At least it was free ;0) As soon as we got home I put her to bed early with extra hugs and kisses. I hope all's well that ends well.

Tomorrow will be a new day for a fresh start. We sure don't need any more days like today! Maybe in addition to finding a few extra hours in a day, I need to figure out how to clone myself too.

But hey, nothing like a song from Alvin and Chipmunks to cheer yourself up!

11 comments:

Ryan and Katie said...

Been there! Hoping for a better Wednesday!

Barb said...

I feel for you! Hope Wednesday goes much better! I know what you mean about the computer . . . Sofia's the same way, and she's 6! I usually don't use it while she's around. She has interrupted me about 15 times while I was trying to read your post - basically to show me that she weighs 49 pounds every single time she steps on the scale! lol!

Lindsey Carney said...

We had a rough day too yesterday, lots of whining. But I think the clinging to us is a good sign of attachment, they're looking to us for comfort :) Hope you have a better day today.

Mama Fish said...

Oh Kim! I sooo feel for you! I'm getting ready to write my own post on bad days. lol! Don't delete your for awhile, it really does help AP's know they are not the only ones going through it... and I think it gives PAP's an idea that every day isn't going to be sunny with blue skies. I know I appreciated it!

I am so glad the Lord's mercies are new every morning! I need a fresh clean slate... :-)

Carey and Norman said...

The Joys of Parenthood. Just glad that their sweet, angelic side comes through once at home and sleep in their beds :o)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for keeping it real -it's nice to read an entry thatis true to life!

Anonymous said...

phew! i'm tired and stressed for you! if it makes you feel better i had a few days like that this week myself. i was very edgy. i'm hoping that today was a much better day for you.

Janine said...

Hey that's not bad if it's only once in awhile. I think I had a bad month from Nov through Dec. It's tough being a parent and the spread of ages with a young baby is hard. I'm always feeling guilty about Emily getting a good nap in and not living in the car and getting enough of my individ. attention while still driving the other 2 around just to their school stuff. Getting to school and home seems to eat up a big part of the day and unfortunately they are at 2 different schools right now.

You're doing great Kim! I'm sure impressed that you are working too and managing your large group and you still seem so mellow and sane even in your bad day post. My hat is off to you. :-)

Becky and Keith said...

If you re-write this post and insert "Andrew" everywhere you have "Lexi", then I could post it too! We had a nightmare of a day on Saturday which I'm getting ready to post about. Days like that are SO, SO hard and you feel like you'll never survive. Then, a great day comes around and you wonder what you were so upset about! Thank you so much for sharing!!

Troy and Rachel said...

Oh my stars - what a day! I can tell you, I undestood exactly what was going on with the wipe box!! Hoping the days have been better since~

Laura said...

Wow...your description was so on that I felt like a fly on the wall feeling all your stress along with you!

Hopefully everything is back on track. Really makes you appreciate the "calm" days, eh?

~Laura :)