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Yes, counting cards is not allowed in casinos and has now been banned in Wade World too.
First, let me back up the story a little...
After church and lunch on Sunday, Christopher left town for a business meeting. Then the bottom fell out of my world. Honestly, I make a terrible single parent.
Caleb, who has broken just about every piece of lawn equipment we own every time he has touched one this summer, was supposed to mow the yard and weedeat...for two weeks! The final deadline...Sunday afternoon! Not clear on all the details, but two hours after Christopher's gone, the fuel line burst open. A sixteen-year-old boy, gasoline, and me is not a good combination. So Christopher is coaching small engine repair over the phone between failed attempts to fix the problem. Even the back-up tubing had a hole in it! After sending Caleb to the hardware store Christopher tried to reassure me that Caleb could safely fix it and then mow the front yard. I was only slightly hysterical in my response about explosions, ER visits, and massive burns. He was fine. He got it fixed. He ONLY mowed the front yard...nothing else.
Monday was Elijah's 10th birthday. However, his mom totally forgot about him NEEDING a treat for school until after church Sunday night. Though I CAN decorate cakes, I had already declared that I was only making cupcakes and he could forget something grand and elaborate. What a joy it is to bake cupcakes until midnight and then ice them too once they've cooled!
In the midst of it all, our psycho dog went crazy! Winston was barking wildly, like someone or something was surely attacking out home at two o'clock in the morning. Home alone surrounded only by dozens of chocolate cupcakes, his unusual behavior did not put me at ease. Even having the house alarm activated left me very uncomfortable.
By the time I finally dropped into bed and was able to drift off to sleep at three, I only had two hours of sleep before it was time to start the new day! Happy Birthday Elijah day!
One up and off on the bus. One up and off in the car. Another one off and the bus. And then the challenging two! Elijah has to be driven to school - Christopher's job. Now if I got Keziah up early, which doesn't make Her Majesty happy, rushed out the door and timed everything just perfectly, I could in theory make the round trip and have her back home in time to catch her bus. However, the theory didn't account for the extra long stoplight and changes in traffic patterns due to the completion of a new road. So Keziah and I were driving down the street as her bus headed the other direction, having just left our home.
Bummer!
I knew we'd be early, but I just flipped the car around and drove her to school so we didn't have to unload and reload. Too many chances for being late if she dawdled on me. So I sat in the parking lot with her waiting for drop-off time.
Home again, home again, jiggity-jig...but not for long!
Now my time between Keziah school and pick-up Josiah for school #2 had been reduced. Toss in a load of laundry, fill up the dishwasher, and hit the road again. I was so proud of myself for being on-time-early. Sat in my car waiting for Josiah to appear from the building. Something was a little odd because I watched one of the vice-principals on his cell phone outside the building. Waiting...waiting...waiting...I'll give him five more minutes...NO JO! Parked the car and went inside to find my boy.
In the five minute drive from our home, a transformer had caught fire and a sub-station blew. The south half of the city was without power. No electricity at the high school or at Josiah's middle school. At the middle school they had put the kids in virtual lockdown. No one was allowed to leave their last classroom. When I asked for him at the office, the secretary informed me that they had no idea where he was without the computer system. Thankfully I knew his class schedule well enough so they took a flashlight to go find him.
Josiah and I had planned to make a quick stop to pick up decorations for the tops of Elijah's cupcakes. He knew exactly what his brother wanted and where to find it! But they only had nine golden snitch picks in stock for the 30+ cupcakes waiting in my car.
What to do?!?
A 10-year-old can't have baby-ish stuff on his birthday cupcakes. Finally I decided to just go with some simple balloons and also purchase the coveted golden snitches for our at home cupcakes.
By the time we finally get Josiah to school #2, he's almost an hour late! It took so long to get him out of school #1 with the power outage and then the great pick debate!
Now my day can start when I finally get home, right? Oh, but the power is still out. No garage door opener, no laundry, no painting, no computer time, no typing up children's worship materials, no CD player, no pre-dinner prep work, not even a glass of ice water!!!
I was texting with Caleb who was hanging out in the lunch room for the two hours of no power. Just five minutes before they would have called off school and sent the kids home, the power came back on.
On the home front, all the clocks were now totally out of whack. Plus I still could work on dinner because the fridge and freezer needed recovery time from the power outage. Then I made a very small, but very big mistake. I had only two hours before the drop-off/pick-up taxi service time began. I was sooooo tired from lack of sleep that I closed my eyes...just for a minute. I did actually think about setting an alarm, but all the clocks were cuckoo still...zzzzzzzzzzz
That minute turned out to be a two hour nap! Miraculouly my eyes opened with just enough time to throw in a load of laundry before dashing out the door to start the next phase of insanity.
Mondays afternoons are just normally totally crazy! I picked the boys up from school, flipped around back home, grabbed up piano materials, dropped Elijah off at his piano lesson, picked up Keziah from school, and then dashed back to the music store to wait for her piano lesson.
While we're are at piano lessons, Josiah wrapped Elijah's presents for me. I didn't get it done earlier because the power outage left our basement storage area a dark and scary place.
I had grabbed Keziah's Leapster game so she could play while we waited....BUT!...she announced that she had a squiggle face on her behavior report. Not good! It takes alot to get a squiggle face during the first month of school.
Think...think...think...I needed an instant idea of something to make it stick that misbehavior at school is not acceptable at home.
GAMING TIME...GONE!
Oh joy! Now I had twenty minutes of trying to get her to do homework!
When we finally returned home, we learned that Elijah's football practice had been cancelled for the evening and moved to Friday night. Now you might think that would make me happy to have one less thing to do, but they moved it to Friday night. So I'm now fretting about what our Friday night will become. Plus it didn't really simplify the evening.
As soon as Caleb walked throught the door, home from play practice, we had Elijah open the two gifts okayed to be opened without Dad home.
Kung Zhu...as requested...
Joy!
Happiness!
Now back to our regularly scheduled insanity...
Caleb needed to turn around and take Keziah to her weekly soccer clinic. I required his help so I could make it to his MANDATORY parent meeting about the play. (hate that word "mandatory") I got to take Josiah to his football practice and then turned back to the high school to enjoy a meeting that would last 1 1/2 hours!
His teacher/director must have found me annoying during the meeting. I had my phone on vibrate, but was texting with the kids through most of the meeting. First was the "Can we watch TV?" question. Then the report about Caleb and Keziah making it home safely from soccer. "We're starving! What's for dinner?" So I'm taking a Taco Bell text order over my phone so I can dash off to pick that up on the way home.
Wait! While taking the order, they discovered that Caleb forgot to go pick up Josiah from football practice!!!
So when I walked through the door at almost 9:00pm with bags of Taco Bell, Miranda greets me with, "Elijah's upset." Caleb and Josiah still aren't home from practice so I call E back to my room to sort out the situation.
"What's wrong?" is met with silence.
Elijah is a brooder by nature. He sulks, tears up, and rages on the inside. But when he unleases, you better get back! Only problem on this, his birthday night, was that he was face to face with one exhausted mama.
When he finally speaks, the problem is revealed...
Birthday Cards!
Keziah got more birthday cards than he did!
So how is adoption adjustment going in the Wade household?
Great! Just GREAT!
Now for almost a month, Elijah has kept count of exactly how many birthday cards she received for her eighth birthday. He is missing a card!
Wouldn't it be great if I could tell y'all how I calmly and cooly and lovingly handled this?
Well, I didn't. It was not one of my best mommy moments. The missing card came from the church pastor. So my tirade included things about how that particular card was not an expression of love from the pastor, how his secretary's computer had Keziah's birthday listed on it so she shoved a card in front of him to sign. NO LOVE THERE! I also listed off the grandparent cards that they both received WITH CHECKS and how these were EXACTLY THE SAME! (Huge Thank You's from both kids and me for those by the way - G&G and G)
Not only do I struggle around here to convince our adopted daughter that she is loved, unconditionally and without limits, but I also struggle to make sure that all the other four understand just how much they are loved. Miranda has had her own issues of feeling replaced by another daughter. Elijah wants to cling to his status as the cherished baby of the family. Josiah is trying not to get lost in the mix. Caleb? He still would have been most happy as an only child. He's struggling to spread his wings and fly while still needing to feel the love and nurture from home. And here we stand on the edge, about to add another little one to the mix!
Caleb and Josiah arrived home so a weepy birthday boy followed me into the kitchen to enjoy our delicous fast food, birthday dinner! As we settled in at the table, passing out all our delicious, now lukewarm, dinner, Keziah decided to be the reporter. "Miranda make-ah Elijah cry!"
Too much!
I reached out for Keziah's arm to slide her off of our counter height chairs and plant her feet on the floor so we could go have a "chat" about her inappropriate statement. BUT...as she slid off the chair, her arm slipped out of my hand. She went crashing to the floor on her bottom.
More tears!
Weeping and wailing!
Bad mommy status is increasing as the evening progresses. Now I need to comfort the owie. Appologize for the accident. But I still needed to deal with her behavior and attitude. Didn't pull that off with grace either. Attempting to explain that Elijah wasn't upset with Miranda, but that it had more to do with Keziah and birthday cards lost a lot in translation at that moment.
Once Keziah settled into her seat. We got to enjoy our now barely warm, coagulated, yucky meal. Followed this dinner with candles and cupcakes for the birthday boy.
Baths and bedtime called to all of us. I collapsed into bed, attempting to keep my eyes open just a little bit so I could watch my Chiefs playing on Monday Night Football until after midnight. Sleep won. So did the Chiefs.
I just wanted that whole day erased. I longed to awaken to a new day filled with God's new mercy, fresh with the dawn.
Remember that power outage?
Digital clocks...AM vs PM...yeah, Tuesday didn't start out any prettier.
I'll be praying for a smoother day for you. I know how hard it is to have your husband traveling and you are on the homefront trying to keep all the balls in the air. Sometimes I have to say, "Mommy needs a time-out".
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