Let me share my week with you. Sit back and relax, this may take a while.

Monday: New Year's eve. It was also my son's 8th birthday. Take it from me, don't have babies on holidays. I planned his birthday late afternoon so not to interfere with party plans and as a reward, seven people showed up. At my girls' party, we had about 40. So, four people came late with snacks to ring in 2013 with us, so it turned out to be a fun night. Everyone stayed up until midnight (except the baby) and we had a great time playing Guitar Hero.

Tuesday: Nothing rouses mom out of bed faster than her oldest yelling "Mommy! Megan just threw up!" I send her to bed for a while and she claims to be fine. There was a lot of phlegm in the pile, so, thinking it was an isolated incident, I let her come downstairs. And, on cue, 30 seconds later she vomits all over the floor. Thank goodness it was the kitchen-no carpet. She goes back to bed and sleeps the day away. I nibble my fingernails down to nothing (not really, that is a disgusting habit) worrying about the other four kids in the house. I am one of those moms who cannot clean up 'the mess' without gagging herself. Great character quality, I know.

Wednesday: Back to school for Sarah and Kyle! It was rough getting everyone up and out the door on time, but apparently we weren't the only ones because traffic was crazy at the school when we were dropping off. Then it was off to the doctor's office for J's one year immunizations. Arguing with the receptionist that I could not have my contact info in her files, and seeing 2 nurses, a nurse practitioner, and someone else who introduced herself as Emily (still not sure of her title, but seemed to be the one in charge), I tried to explain to each and every person how bad J's temper tantrums are, and all they could say was "She's so cute!" Ugh. I did get a second med discontinued, and working on the third, so that was a bonus. 45 minutes and four shots later, we were off to the agency to drop off J and L so they could have a visit with their mom. Megan and I came home and did some picking up until the case aide brought them back with more makeup. We know have approximately 30 lip glosses, 15 bottles of nail polish, a bottle of real perfume, and 15 eye shadows for a 4 year old. Not happening here, so they are all packed away.

Thursday: I got up late, but we still got everyone out the door on time. Sarah and Kyle dropped off at school, and then Megan, L, J, and I head to church for MOPS. I look forward to these days! Free childcare, good food and  great fellowship with some mamas that I never would have dreamt had anything in common with me. Because I take the kids to school every day and we live out of town, I just wait in the parking lot until someone opens the church, and then we go in where it's warm! We went in and I was chatting with my dad's cousin (which makes her my second cousin, I think. Anyway, a cousin) when Megan begins a meltdown about needing a drink. I go over and lift her up to the water fountain where she takes a sip, set her down and pick up L, when Megan says "Mommy, look!" You guessed it. She puked all over the floor her boots, and her book bag. Seriously? So Clara Ann and I clean it up quickly, I repack all three girls and we head home. She really was fine after that, I'm not sure what it was all about, but we lived through it. Since it was Thursday, that means Sarah has basketball practice form 4:30-6. Thank goodness my mom volunteered to watch the other kids since my husband was helping my uncle and cousin at their house site. They had a devastating fire a few months ago and they are beginning to rebuild. So off to town Sarah and I go while mom is home with the other four. I drop Sarah off since she's too big for me to walk her in, and head to the grocery store to pick up a couple things and WIC for J and L. I take the side street like I always do, only tonight, some woman decided she was more important than I was and didn't wait for me at the corner, which forced me into a snow pile that hadn't been cleared on the side of the street. It was quite deep and I was spinning in four wheel drive for a while. Great. I rocked it back and forth and got out. I made it to the grocery store and  thought I had the details all under control this month, but low and behold, you cannot buy and 8.9 ounce box of Cheerios with WIC. You are allotted 36 ounces of cereal, and the girls like Rice Chex, but that box in 12.9 ounces, so I got another 12 ounce box of something and the smaller box of Cheerios. It's a no go.  So, I had to run back to get a different box, when to my dismay, I find that there is no 12 ounce box of Cheerios, the next size is 14 ounces. So I get two boxes of Kix. Three people left the line behind me, one even took the time to take her entire order off the belt and repack it in her cart to go to a different line. I need a sign that says "Pick a different line, this is going to take a while."
Finally I get through the line and head back to the school to pick up Sarah. I place a quick call home to see if the honey can start dinner, but Kyle answers and tells me Daddy isn't home yet, and can I PLEASE bring home pizza. Begrudgingly I did, sometimes it is the only option to eat and get the kids to bed on time. We had a VERY hard evening with J, and it left us both feeling very defeated.

Friday: Got up really late this morning, but thankfully the hubby was going in to work late, so he could take the kids to school. We got the boxes down from the attic so we could start taking care of the Christmas decorations. I'm ready to get my house back! I called Foster Care this morning and think I made it clear this time that I need some sort of help with J. Her fits are causing stress in our marriage and can't be making her very happy either. She advises she will call the caseworker and see what can be done. This upsets Aaron and he goes into a frustrated rant about they ask for help with these kids and we answer that by accepting them into our home, but when we need help, we can't get it. The caseworker we have now is very young and doesn't have children, and I am to rely on her to help me with a behavioral issue? How is that going to work. So we realize that once again that we are on our own. When he gets to work, he then calls to tell me that his overnight meeting next week that was supposed to be three hours from here, is now 7 hours and the 13 managers are expected to drive down together in a 15 passenger van. Sounds reasonable until you factor in that three of them are over 400 pounds, and they will all have a bag, and a pile of paper as they are required to take 20 reports with them. And with the time it takes to travel, he will have to leave home at 1:30 am. He will be nice and alert for the meeting. Not to mention he is leaving me home with 5 kids and then he'll be a bear when he gets home 2 1/2 days later because he will be so tired. He also said his regional manager is pushing for them to work six days and 60 hours a week on salary. Um, no way will we go for that.

Saturday: I am in the bathroom curling my hair since I cut it myself last night, when I hear a knock at the door. "Mommy, L threw up in her bed last night." Great. Closer inspection shows that J did, too. Baths and laundry all around. Grape juice for Sarah and Kyle, since a friend pinned that as a deterrent for the stomach bug on Pinterest. My mom took Sarah to her basketball game and Kyle went along to show family support. When they get back, Kyle hands me the red flag off of our mailbox, and Sarah has a pile of wet envelopes. Hooray! (insert sarcastic eye rolling here) I jump in my mom's van to go down to the end of the driveway (yes it is that long) to take a look. We pick up the rest of the pieces we find, snap a couple of pictures, and find two more envelopes with important documents in them. I call Aaron at work to let him know what happened. There are only two stores in town he could buy a mailbox, and one is closed and the other is very overpriced, so it looks like I will be figuring something out on Monday. Once L is feeling better, the kids all get dressed and go outside to play leaving me inside with J to work on some signs and words and anything but screaming.

Today: Aaron is sort of sick. He hasn't actually vomited, but doesn't feel good at all. He went to work, but is going to call someone else in so he can come home. I 'slept' on the couch last night, so I am very tired still. Our heat isn't working properly, so we are all wearing warm clothes and I turn the gas fireplace on intermittently. I have a cold coming on I think, but am attributing not getting the stomach bug to my taking apple cider vinegar tablets twice a day, but we'll see if that holds true...

Even though it has been a very stressful week, I still thank God that we are healthy overall, and we have each other. Mama could still use a nap, though.