The 48 Hours That Felt Like A Year

I don't often write about my life as a military spouse.  It doesn't really define me; it's just a part of who I am and there are days I love it and days I hate it.  One of the things I have to deal with, as a wife to a husband in the line of work in which mine is employed is a "Duty Day" wherein he works overnight and I'm lucky if I get a text from him.  I'll say goodbye to him at some ungodly pre-dawn hour on a Monday and won't see him again until some time near dinner on Tuesday.  It's a total bummer.  Other women in my position (like Tanya!) jokingly (but not really) call them "Single Married Mom Days" because we're really totally on our own... they're like little mini-deployments and things have a tendency to go awry during them.

Now, my Single Married Mom Day began on Wednesday (Happy St. Patty's, anyone?) when I had to take all 3 kids to the doctor for their well-child visits.  Though the appointments went smoothly enough, it's still a 3-hour plus ordeal when you count the time it takes to load everyone up and the time spent waiting for and getting their immunizations.  It also entailed not only missing morning nap for the girls, skipping a nursing session, but also receiving the boosters that I (oops) skipped at their 6-month visit.  So we left the medical center in less than super moods.

And everything went down hill from there.

I got the girls down for naps well enough, but Jordan only slept for about 30 minutes and woke with a horribly runny nose and corresponding bad attitude plus two very sore thighs from her shots.  The rest of the evening was a caccophany of crying wherein at any given time 2 of 3 children at minimum were in tears.  It ensued until 4:30 am with Jordan crying almost the whole time.  I was so strung out by the time she fell asleep that my head was pounding from my own sobbing.


My alarm (Jordan) started in on the day at 6 on Thursday and I was so exhausted I could barely see.  But I needed to function to get all the kids up and get Jack off to school.  So I chugged some coffee and went outside to set up the stroller to haul the kids to school.  I was waiting for a call so I took my cell with me.  On the bottom porch step, I stumbled and, like an ass, reached my hand (holding my cell) out to stop my fall.  If I hadn't, I'd have probably bruised my (significantly padded) rump.  As it was, however, my fist came down on the edge of one of the steps, and I caught the space between the knuckle of my middle and ring fingers on my right hand.  Ouch.  Very ouch.  My hand is either broken or very badly bruised but it's not awesome, either way.

Also didn't do much for my exhaustion.  For the rest of the day I was essentially in one-handed crisis-resolution mode.  Not preventing them, just solving them.

I was totally fuzzy-headed all day and minimally functioning.  Observe:

 I started the water in the sink because I neglected to take dinner out of the freezer until afternoon, and I forgot that I had turned it on, then wandered off to do something (?) else.  I went back to get more coffee and saw the water had reached this level and quickly turned it off before it overflowed... barely.

 While I was pouring that cup of coffee, Jack took it upon himself to modify my lunch of ramen noodles to create a noodle/Dr. Pepper soup for me.  Note that the brown broth from my original soup is the same color as the Dr. Pepper.  Well, as I was not thinking clearly, I didn't notice the bowl-swap and took a nice big bite and nearly barfed, much to Jack's utter delight.  I would have been thrilled with him and his awesome sense of humor if I hadn't been so exhausted.  I took a photo of him doing it again because it wouldn't have made sense without a picture.  Instead of laughing, though, I started crying... which set this off:

*sigh* I just couldn't win.

Oh well, many people have much bigger problems. I just need a damned nap... but it isn't going to happen, as the babies are up early again today.  Oy.