The Secret to Clean Floors

Ok, I have to sum up what life is like just one of the four days when my husband travels.

August 5, 2010

I was enjoying a early morning snuggle with my little boy, who never wants me when my husband is around, when I heard my house guest and Purdy, the dog, on the steps. Thinking our guest was frustrated with me I went downstairs to take care of my dog duty. Our puppy was diagnosed with intestinal parasites three days ago, so I have been to the vet twice in three days. I fed the dog it's food, with it's medicine, and the yogurt, that the vet said would help, and it vomited it, and then played with it on the cement outside the back door.

The dog then plays in the mud, comes inside and jumps on the couch. My daughter locked eyes with me, wondering why I wasn’t screaming. Mostly because it’s before 7am and I was way too out of it.

I made biscuits and served them to the kids with my neighbor’s gift, Huckleberry jam from Montana.

David didn't like the jam. Said it was yucky. Into the trash went the biscuit.

I took the dog on a walk in 86 degree weather at 7:15. God, I ask, why do I live in Nashville, TN?

I washed the dog because it had played in it's vomit.

I washed the couch and clean the floor AGAIN.

The kids started fighting about what to do today. Anger because they couldn't go to the dentist as we all have colds that my pilgrim husband brought home to us. We decide on Paleta's, a really expensive popsicle joint, and the bookstore.

While in the car driving to our excursion David realizes that Paleta's is not the same as Gelato and insists that he is not going. In my sweetest Mommy voice I say, “Okay, you don't have to have any.”

We go to the bookstore where my easy going nine year old immediately picks out a 50% off Bible that she likes and David screams and throws Bible's on the floor because he cannot have the Bible that has a little door that opens like a Harry Potter book ($30). I commence to tell him that the cover is a gimmick, that this Bible doesn’t have pictures, and being as he doesn’t read, he’s going to want pictures. The store clerk follows me around the store picking up after me with the look of "Oh Brother". I check out and apologize for my children making a mess in her store.

Jesus would have apologized I am sure of it. Since there were WWJD paraphernalia everywhere I made sure I apologized.

We go to Paleta's where David gets the coconut strawberry and Sydney the cookie one. David ends up throwing his out the window because of the consistency of the Paleta is Yucky. I said I told you so, I told you 3 times to get the lime one. There went the $2.50 popsicle.

We go home and barely make it in the door when the storm came. Lost power and water. David is beyond the pale at this point because he was watching Starwars. David continues on his downward decline. He pulled the cat's leg in two and kicked Purdy in the stomach.

We go downstairs to the cool basement and I have a hot cup of tea when David jumps on me, which I then spill all over my front and have blisters on my chest. My daughter locks eyes with me again wondering, "what’s it going to take for my Mom to crack?" David decides he wants me to read him a book, thank God, however he decides to trap the cat in his stealth hands and strangle it to get it to stay. Okay, that’s it!!!!

I loose it with David and remove his little self to his room, where it’s 100 degrees because the A/C is not working . I don't know exactly what I said and I know a ruler was involved on his greater end, but he was a changed man.

FINALLY the kids make a tent and get distracted, I make their snack supper (the power is out), and take it downstairs where David breaks the glass cup that the smoothie was in all over the floor.

I clean it up, and come up and eat my dinner when Sydney somehow finds the one piece of glass I missed and cuts her foot, and bleeds all over the floor. I clean the floor for the 4th time today. Every-time I bend over with a head cold I feel like my brains are going to come out of my head.

After this I have to drag Purdy home out of the neighbors yard.

Make a new tent for David as I had to go hunting for glass. Then they beg me over and over to sleep downstairs under the new tent, I decide to be a 'yes' Mom.

By this point my body is just moving and the head is no longer attached. I drag Purdy's kennel up the stairs and set up the kids bedding.

I turn and smile as Sydney and David are reading their Bible's together in the lantern light like little Angel's. Remember, David can’t read, but he is looking at the pictures.

Now I have Chad's cat on my bed giving itself a bath and I would really like for it to take it's affectionate little fur ball self somewhere else, but he will Meow without Syd in the room across from me. So, after kicking it off my bed twice and chasing the cat out from under the bed, I extend my grace to the cat and it’s litter box onto the back porch. Where I give him my best goodnight you “b-e-e-p”.

Exhaustion!!!! And why do I feel tense? This is God's idea of testing? Perseverance? I don't know? I do know that I am not sure what curse words I said in front of the kids today. I will apologize tomorrow.