altarflame | (no subject) (Reply)

I really wanted to be this strong independent woman while Grant was gone, and do all our normal activities and lessons and meals and things, and clean the whole house spotless in a deep and organizing way that would be a big surprise when he got home. I even had grand ideas about writing and crafting in the late night hours I'd normally spend with him. There was this whole plan where each kid would cheerfully tell him about their day over the phone in the evenings and he would feel free to gallavant around knowing we were doing great.

Instead I was miserably sad and overanalyzing my sadness for the first and second day. He's been working so much that he walked out the door just as I was dying for my weekend help/break/company, and so it sucked a lot to think that rather than getting that, I'd spend a whole next week totally alone and then...he'd go back to work. This trip was my idea; my present to him; I really did/do want him to have a good time and yet I felt like I didn't know how much I could deal. I hate feeling sick of my kids, but it happens, usually around the end of the week at a time when everyone is asking me for things at once, in the evening when I'm feeling done for the day.

But then the third day, I really did it. Cleaned and taught and went places and cooked good food and felt fine. I was like, alright, a speed bump at first but now we're off. I even did some deep organizational work and sat all the kids down for an apology and talk about how I'd been depressed over the weekend and why.

It was still super crappy trying to go to sleep that night, it was the first night I had the bed to myself when laying down. Eventually Peter (Aaron's cat) came and curled up with me.

Then on day 4, as I flipped pancakes, Elise suddenly threw herself down in hysterics screaming "DADDY HOME!!! My DADDY HOME!!" over and over. We called him, which she usually loves, and she refused to talk. I apologized for making him feel bad. We had a really good breakfast around the table together.

And then Ananda said their bathtub was mysteriously filling up with green water. It began to storm, and just as I went to google info on septic tanks, the power went out.

And then my cookies came out like round rocks.

We packed up the rock cookies (seriously, ROCKS) and piled towels in the bathroom in case the tub kept backing up and headed out.

And then Jake threw up A LOT in the van while we were up in Miami and A and A were in science class. It could have been worse: I happened to have a change of clothes for him, and some bottled water and a towel to clean him up (thanks frequent trips to the beach and my own slovenliness with the van...)

While I was standing there in a church parking lot flinging excess vomit off of things into the grass, my brother called, asking if I'd seen the news. THE NEWS?! What? Terrorists, oil spills, what?! "There are like 20 or 30 cop cars here at JobCorps" he said, "Can you guys come and get me? It's kind of freaking me out" "I wish I could Bob, I'm half an hour away with puke everywhere, and Ananda and Aaron don't get out of their class for 40 minutes". (He never did figure out what was going on at JobCorps that day and came home as usual on the bus later)

Jake was very sweet and patient and seemed like he felt better as I strapped him back in. They all watched a movie as I bagged up everything disgusting and put it all in the hatch. A and A came out super excited, they loved their class. Jake was acting totally normal.

We went to a nearby picnic area with the rock cookies and some chocolate almond milk. Aaron announced he could not handle hip hop because he was feeling sick. Then Isaac said he was feeling sick. Then Jake threw up a whole lot more and I couldn't do much beyond telling him we'd be home soon.

Back at the ranch, Jake and Isaac continued throwing up all as I worked on dinner for the rest of us. My brother was doing dishes next to me, and when he turned on the garbage disposal, there was an insane racket and then water started pouring onto the floor from under the counter. Twenty minutes of frantic phone calls to Grant and my father in law and finding things to wedge in there to keep stuff from falling out and breaking pipes...the meat I had thawed for dinner turned out to be rotten.

So I had to rush out to the store for more. When I got in the van to go, THE FLAT TIRE LIGHT CAME ON. I ranted and raved about voodoo dolls and curses.

Eventually I got dinner made, baked bread with it that came out really well, FAR TOO LATE and even though only a couple of us ate anything. I was consistently soothingly talking to someone as they vomited, wiping it off the tile, scrubbing it out of carpet and couches, washing it out of bowls, putting on new movies and running for cups of water and more laundry until about 6 am. I stopped many times to think how lucky I am that both of them were handling it very well. Because there was almost no crying, or complaints, really, it was kind of amazing - Jake kept leaning way out from himself to keep his pajamas dry and things like that. *sigh*

Then at 6/6:30 I layed down to try to sleep but was immediately overwhelmed by nausea. Do you see where this is going? In and out of the bathroom and trying to sleep totally upright and reading even though I was barely able to hold my eyes open because it distracted me from the nausea.

From like noon (when my kids were waking up) until 4 I dozed when they weren't fighting, saying the movie was over, asking for something to eat, etc. Then Aaron came in and told me he just passed out and slept in his puke in the night because he didn't have the energy to get up after he threw up for the first time. Could I come help him with his bedding? And Annie told me she had forgotten to tell me she threw up THE PREVIOUS MORNING and could I please clean it off the wood of her bed? So I was getting up and down slowly, taking a lot of breaks, and finally around 7 pm broke down and wrote Grant the epoch of dramatic, woebegone emails telling him I couldn't take it anymore. And cried hysterically on the phone to my sister and tried to act like I wasn't crying hysterically on the phone with my sister when Gloria, bless her heart, called to say she had seen my lj and thought maybe I could use some help. I COULD use some help, but Gloria, if you came over you would just end up vomiting everywhere and/or I feel better about being a total mess in privacy even though that makes no sense :/ I keep meaning to write you a grateful email. I will do that in a minute.

So yeah. I made dinner eventually last night, the first food anybody had really eaten all day. We were all ravenous but ate like, a few bites and then kind of pushed our plates away. I stayed up late even through crazy exhaustion to take a long bath and get all my sheets, pillowcases and blanket through the washer and dryer because really, EWW I felt so gross. Went to sleep at like 3 am feeling grateful for cleanness with the phone by me cuz I'd been semi-conscious talking to G for awhile.

Woke up covered in the stinky sweat of "now you're not sick anymore" and feeling extremely irritated. Everyone starving, nothing in the house except things I have to cook. So not going to PATH today.

I did not want to be the fragile wilting flower, pining away and waiting for her man to return home. TOO BAD, I am.

So I'm sitting here feeling so irritable and tense with my peeling sunburn and my lack of appetite and thinking of all the cleaning I need to do as kids come to me ONE AFTER THE OTHER repeating pleas for me to hurry up and bake the muffins as though I did not just boil them eggs within the last 15 minutes. He's supposed to be back late, late tonight. And it sounds like the greatest thing in the whole world to just have him here to watch LOST (I'm 2 weeks behind now...) and The Office with and talk to and go to sleep in his arms. I told him on fb chat that he is going to pull me into him in bed and start trying to talk to me about his time and I'm gonna be like "Mmmhmmmmmzzzzzzzzzz".

Some kid quotes from this week:

Me: You are a gimp.
Aaron: *gesture where finger snapping turns into finger gun pointed at me* I think you mean pimp *then looking down blushing and biting his lip in humilation*

Isaac: (miserable, in the dining room) I'm tired! I don't want to walk!
Me: So sit down.
Isaac: (whining) But I want to eat some raisins, and I have to walk to the raisins to do that.

*Aaron is standing on the step stool, which is near the stove*
*Elise walks up and lets out an ear-splitting high pitched scream*
*Aaron leaps off and runs out of the kitchen, fingers in her ears*
*Elise climbs up on the stool happily to see what's cooking*

Thanks Andrea/