Mother's Day in the trenches

I haven't been blogging much lately - construction on top of motherhood is all-consuming.  Here's an e-mail I just sent off and decided to post because this is the real life we've been living lately.

Earlier this week I wrote an e-mail detailing some pretty great blessings that have come our way with our heavy load lately.  I went to write one last sentence and the whole thing disappeared.  Someday maybe I'll detail those again.  At least the angels in heaven recorded it.  We are exhausted and blessed and exhausted.  Nerves are running high - little people feel neglected - big girls feel overworked - we are all a bit sleep deprived.  Thankfully Callie's play ended on Tuesday, Hannah finished up her class play Monday night, and the first part of Callie's big geography assignment was turned in on Thursday morning (she slept from 1-6am and went in to school an hour and a half late). 

We are on the home stretch with the basement.  It is not unlike running a marathon - I was getting to the I-think-can't-do-this-inhumane-amount-of-work-and-still-be-a-mom-so-I'll-just-stop-running-and-maybe-even-sit-down-for-a-few-minutes mentality BUT kept pushing through it anyway.  With sick kids a lot lately I have to keep canceling people I have lined up to watch little ones so they get dragged around a lot to shop for vanities and carpet and lighting and whatnot while sick kids often get left home for a couple hours at a time to veg in front of the TV (only if they are 8 or older).  Last night we got the basement primed with a sprayer and then the adrenaline hit again.

After 5.5 hours of sleep last night (and before that I had been awake for over 20 hours) I went up to see my boys and found that Camden had thrown up in the night.  Jacob had the stomach flu earlier this week (Drew did a courtesy throw-up one night, too - we think he forced it to join in the "fun"), and had missed 3 days of school.  Poor Cam got neglected all day and just camped in his room and watched movie after movie on the laptop.  We had this sprayer rented and we were up against a 5pm deadline!

About 10am Tyler decided he felt yucky but bless his heart he kept pushing ahead with the sprayer.  Pepto Bismol helps a little, too.  The girls were alternating activities (soccer game for one, Serving With Smiles for another), painting, & sort of watching the little people.  After painting two coats in her room a fever & tummy trouble hit Hannah.  We were in a bind and even with a fever the poor girl had to watch Emmie for a little stretch until Tyler or Callie or I could relieve her.

Callie is finishing up coat #2 in her room this afternoon - I get to run around and go over all the edges.  We are tired.  Our entire first floor living area is covered in dust and grime - every horizontal surface, including the floors - I need to finish up the paint that we started - I need to think of food for people with sick tummies and people with well tummies - I need to pay attention to the little ones - I need to pamper the sick ones - I could use 5 or 6 of me right now.  I was supposed to teach Relief Society tomorrow.  That, I decided to pass on to someone else - my family needs me more.  Tyler is feeling about 30% of his usual strength and can't watch little people.  Sometimes I wonder why we even make plans in our family because 90% of the time we end up having to change them.

The good news is...we were able to spray all the ceilings and the hallways and family room walls and it was fast and wonderful !  I liked working beside Tyler even when I was so tired that my head was throbbing and I could hardly see straight.  It sure beats rolling for dozens of hours!  I'm sure I've got a good 6+ hours of cutting in and two rooms to paint that we aren't spraying, but nothing that can't be done in the middle of the night sometime, right;)?

Happy Mother's Day:).  

Suzanne

Some pictures - not because they are pretty, but because it's reality and I want to remember the construction mode to keep us from remembering things too rosily and wanting to do it again:).

Top two pics:  taped, mudded & color samples on the wall.  It took a long time to wipe the dust off of all the walls in a 1200 sq. ft space and they were DUSTY.  Hannah was a really hard worker and great helper.

 Starting to look awesome with some primer on the wall!  We sprayed first and then back-rolled.  We worked out a great system and once we were in our groove it went really fast.  Tyler did awesome at spraying.