over the hump

Sunday was not a reset.

I woke up planning to clean my house the rest of the way and then head out to mom's for lunch but mostly to keep my house empty and clean before the potential buyers came to check it out.

I had a hard time getting it clean, however, because the word of the day wasn't a word at all...
but more squeals, screams and tears.

Lance was working,
and mom sent me a text telling me what time they were planning on eating (which was in 30 minutes, so apparently without me)
so I sent her one back:
a video of a fit from Beckham and him removing his clothes in fury and telling me that I was mean.
And then another from Maddox:
Crying that he was not going to take his medicine.

Mom reassured me that the day would be better-- but I should just throw them in the car and leave.

These things alone were day-changing...
But the way I handled them was nothing to relive.

I reclothed Beckham twice-- and yelled each time he began to strip.
He cried.
No one won.

I wrestled Maddox all over the floor like an anaconda trying to force feed this nasty liquid into the back of his throat--
he in tears and thrashing about, trying to spit-- eventually bonking his head and pouring sticky liquid all over my freshly mopped floors.
Me, out of breath, because I have a muscle mass of zero.
And Beckham looking on in terror...
which bothered me more than any of it.

Finally we made it to lunch (with a pep-talk on the drive from Amanda).
And mom had made my favorite meal of all time.

David took me out on our land for the first time...
(I have been paying for it for almost a year and have yet to step foot on it myself!)
And the boys played at Gigi's.

The tire swing broke while mom was pushing Maddox and despite my span of bad luck, we survived the plunge to the earth with no real injuries.

Back home, the buyers were very sweet...
but decided to pass "think" on our house.

Monday I decided to take the boys to the pool.  The house was still incredibly clean and one sure fire way to keep it that way is to leave.
We packed lunches and headed out.

There's this thing with pool-moms that is annoying to me.
They all bring toys.
They write their names on the toys to make it territorial and absolute.
They wrangle their toys towards their own kids to prove ownership...
They remind other toddlers who pick up a straggler toy that the toys are theirs...
and they make my kids complain that we don't have any toys.

I mean, we are sitting in a flipping huge body of water in the middle of the bright sun with countless other kids to engage with--
and our conversations turn to whining and wants.

I dug around in my pool bag and I found some Sponge Bob squirter contraption from a happy meal from long ago and a Nerf dart.

No wanted wanted the Nerf dart...
so the fight was on.

Each kid earned themselves a timeout, separately.

Maddox took his with grace,
Beckham lost his mind!

He was crying and thrashing like a fish on a line while telling me that I was mean.
I told him that he could be mad but he couldn't call me mean, to which he looked me square in the eyes and said, "you're not nice!"

His fit didn't stop so I held true to my word and he got a spanking.
He still didn't stop, so we left.

Which just meant the party of pouty pants moved to the house.

Lance usually makes it home by 5:00 and at 5:30 when I hadn't heard from him, and my pager was wailing out and the kids were going at it, while trying to make dinner and pick up the imperfections that were created after ditching the pool:: I sent him a text.

"Give me 30 minutes." He said.

"Your children will not survive that." I countered.


And he listened.

Tuesday Lance was off.
Beckham chose some telephone cord for his toy to bring.
Because that's Beckham.

And Maddox put 15 stickers on his shirt...
Because that's Maddox.

My phone speaker had quit working correctly a few days prior on my iPhone after I had plugged it into the cord the connects to my car.
I can talk on speaker, but it sounds like the person on the other end is 100' away if I talk on it normally.

I assumed that I just had it in the wrong mode but didn't know how to fix it,
So I made an appointment with Apple.

I've had an iPhone for over 5 years and brag a lot about their customer service.  
This time I got a craptastic employee who popped my battery out and said, "it's had water damage. I can't help you."

He went on to say that the moisture sensor could have been tripped by something as a simple steamy bathroom but it's out of his hands at that point.

His only offer was me to pay $249 for a new one-- which is dumb (and I told him that) because I can buy a new one for $199, and then he said it looked like I had it figured out then. 

I asked to talk to a manager, and Lance took the boys to the car.

In the mean time, I started crying.
Like an idiot...
In the middle of Apple.
Go figure.
I was trying to suck it up but the tears kept coming.
Too embarrassed by my emotions... I just left.
Broke phone in hand. 
No manager.

I wrote a little rant on FB about how I wished that kid would have a flat tire and get a paper cut...
And then karma caught up with me an hour later,
as Beckham pooped his pants in the TCU bookstore.

I stripped him down to just a tshirt as I washed his Mouse underwear in the toilet and then sink, 
as he said, "I love you momma" and "you're beauf" trying to evade being in trouble.

A young girl, who I assume's daddy made more this month than I will make in my entire life, walked out of a stall and first smiled (probably at the sweet things falling from my 2 year old's mouth) and then looked uncomfortable (as that sweet little thing was standing in nothing but crocs and an elephant t-shirt) and awkwardly tried moving around us to the sink.
I apologized and and shifted my naked munchkin out of her way and said something to the sound of, "wait to have kids, its exhausting."
And right on cue, my peanut grabs a hold of his little peetie and attempts to pull it to his chin while pointing to his testicles with his other hand and shouts, "there's more poop right there mommy!".

Her CEO daddy owes me a thank you.
That's better than any birth control she is going to pick up from the OBGYN.
And I wanted to die. 

Maddox lightened the mood with his hysterical sense of humor like he always does...

We had lunch, picked up cookies...
And I slid home for call. 

But not before one more disaster in the car.

I made a pitstop into Sonic for Happy Hour drinks.
A few miles down the road, Maddox crushed his styrofoam cup while trying to escape my tickles.
I ripped the dripping green apple sugar mess to the front seat to minimize the catastrophe...
Looking around in my new car for something to help me stop the madness-- I found nothing.
I remembered the wet (and recently soiled) underwear in my purse that I had wrapped in a mile of papertowls, so I reached in and fiestly pulled out the wrapping to cup around the mess.
The underwear popped up into the air and landed in the open box of cookies.
Lance, in slow motion and in the highest pitched voice, yelled , "thhhhheee cooookkiieeess."

I couldn't help but die laughing.
And eat a cookie.


I doubt it was the worst thing I've ever eaten.
 

Wednesday, Candace asked us to go to the water park.
At first I said no, because I still had to finish making September's weekend schedule for work...
and there were a couple loads of laundry that had my name on them...
and it was hot...
And honestly I had enough with this week.

But around 11:00 I decided on a whim to go for it.

And I am glad I did.

Just being around other mommas--
sitting and talking and laughing...

Watching my big help my little and grasp his tiny hand to each slide...
helping him out of the slides and not leaving him out...
enjoying eachother's company rather than clawing eachother's necks...
watching them be happy and careless and small...
was good for my soul.

I was also off Wednesday night,
which was nice too.

We played outside and the kids made me laugh...
Maddox called Lance "fat ears" on the trampoline while wrestling, and Beckham made us call him "Meof" as he yelled, "oh toodles!" and jumped on the trampoline like a little rabbit.

Lance and I watched a little recorded tv while both boys fell asleep in my arms.

Today was dang near perfection too.

I completed 3 loads of laundry...
Built a few castles...
watched war against some minions...
TV off-- all day long...
with hardly any bickering between my loves.

I even turned my Aunt Missy down on the offer to take Maddox from me for a bit,
as I didn't want to rock our mojo.
It was worth living in the moment.

Tonight my sweet sister and her psychotic dog came to visit-- eat dinner-- and watch Big Brother with me.
We laughed...
We played...
and call was light.

I am cautious to proclaim it--
but I think I am over the hump!

Bring on the beach!