What A Day!

Phew!

I'm glad it's almost 9 and all is quiet in my kids' rooms.  Today was a day.  Yes, I've had worse, but my venting today is too long for a facebook status so I came here :)

My husband had to go to CA for a meeting today, meaning he flew out at 7:30 this morning and was scheduled to fly back home at 8:05 tonight (which means he should be in the air right now).  Definitely a long and tiring day for him!  I am incredibly thankful for how hard he works to provide for our family as the only wage earner.

This morning, after the kids woke up, I had them grab several books and we all crawled into my bed where we read stories.  In my mind we were going to have a blissful morning spent cuddling and reading books.  The reality is the kids got ansty after 3 books and we moved onto the next activity.   My son's preschool class is planting flowers in the school flower bed and the students will be tending to the flowers for the remainder of the school year (about 6 weeks).  My son's teachers asked each student to bring in a flower this week to plant in the flower bed. Because of Good Friday my son doesn't have preschool Friday and tomorrow is the last day he'll attend this week so I knew we had to go buy his flower today.

We have been having problems with our dishwasher and the repairman was scheduled to come install a new motor today between 12-5.  I finally was able to get the kids fed, dressed, and out the door around 10 when my husband called saying he just received a phone call from the repairman asking if it was ok if he was early because he could be there in about 30 minutes.   I said, "Yes" and figured we could go buy my son's flower after rest.

After the kids had lunch and rested I tried getting them out the door, but again they were dragging their feet and we didn't actually leave for Home Depot until about 4pm.  The three of us fought the evening congestion around an industrial park to head to Home Depot--the closest store with a nursery.  Once at Home Depot my son picked out a marigold and we headed to our next few errands---Costco to get gas and then to the grocery store.  We got to the grocery store around 5pm and it was pretty crazy.  I managed to survive with some of my sanity in tact, considering at 5 and 3 my kids are too old to ride in the cart, but too young to not get distracted by all the interesting things in the grocery store.

The kids and I got home around 5:30 and I began to unload the groceries from the car while the kids ran inside.  Before I finished unloading the groceries I noticed my son had broken the flower off his marigold.  I had kept the potted plant in the front seat during our errands and I carried it inside once we got home telling him not to touch it, so I was a little frustrated knowing time was running out before he needed to deliver it to school.  I considered telling him, "I'm sorry.  You didn't listen to me and you broke it.  That's the plant you're going to take to school.  I'm sorry you won't have a pretty flower in the garden", but in the end I decided to load the kids back up and head back to the store.  Home Depot is only about 3 miles from the house, but the errand took us 45 minutes because of traffic.

I had been hoping to get the kids in bed early, but I didn't.  I did manage to feed them and get them in bed at their normal bed time (in part because we skipped baths tonight.  Shhh . . .don't tell anyone), but I was pretty emotionally drained from our hectic afternoon.  To top it off, when I picked up the mail I saw that I have been summonsed to serve jury duty with the City in May.   I guess I should be thankful I don't have to serve on my birthday, which is that same month :)