Trying to Take it Easy

Or in other words, how thriving on chaos is not a good idea when pregnant.

Where to start, where to start. Well, basically last week was a nightmare from hell. Hahahaha. No seriously -- it's an accurate description. TWO weeks ago we enjoyed a LOVELY visit from my mom and younger brother Jacob. It was the perfect break. Essentially the calm before the storm. For whatever fluke or reason, the whole week they were here, we had NOTHING scheduled on the calendar. Literally not a thing. As a result, I became accustomed rather quickly to the laid back, lazy, kick-back week that it was.

And then last Monday came. Grace had a "Girl's Camp" each day of the week for a couple of hours in the morning, Ethan's 6th birthday loomed large on Thursday (and for some insane reason I told him he could have a "real" party), Scott's sister Kristin came in town on Wednesday with the cousins for the kids to play with, Ethan had a birthday party to go to for a friend on Friday, and for some inexplicable reason, I decided that this week would be the PERFECT week to finish painting the Family Room and Kitchen. Not to mention I had a Relief Society lesson to prepare for Sunday.

But really, it was the painting that broke the camel's back, so to speak. Because you see, somehow Ethan has gotten it into his head that we PROMISED him he could help us paint. Which, let the record state, there is no way in the world Scott or I would have promised a not-quite-6-year-old that he could help to paint an entire room. Nonetheless, it doesn't really matter what we really said, only what he thinks was said. (See the book "Raising Your Spirited Child" for a detailed explanation of Ethan once he gets hold of an idea in his head).

Scott and I had decided to split up the task into 2 different nights, so on Monday night all we painted was the Family Room portion of the job saving the Kitchen portion for another night. Let's just say that Ethan was livid when he woke up in the morning and saw what had been done. And then when we didn't get around to finishing the paint job until just last night, Ethan had no fewer than 2 to 3 full-on, melt-down FITS each day for the entire week about how we had promised him he could help paint on Wednesday and it wasn't FAIR. His broken-record refrain for the week, in fact, was "THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS THAT ARE NOT FAIR TO ME!!!!"

Before

And After

And now back to the week's agenda. In the midst of dealing with Ethan's daily melt-downs and freak-outs, I shuttled Grace to and from her "Girl's Camp" (which was a good 15-20 minutes away) each day, and tried to get things prepped for the birthday party that I "promised" Ethan he could have. In case you're wondering what exactly I mean by "Girl's Camp," it was actually one of the best ideas I've heard of in a long time. A couple of Young Women in our ward who are sisters, put on a week long camp to raise money for themselves to go to Girl's Camp this summer. They sent out invitations to all the Primary aged girls, and for only 15 bucks for the entire week, Grace was entertained for 2 hours every day while doing crafts and playing games and eating treats. It was really, really cute and well-done, and Grace had a blast. And again, I think it's such a great idea.

Tuesday was devoted to running around like crazy to get everything in order for Ethan's party on Thursday, and Wednesday was a brief break from the craziness with the arrival of Kristin and her 4 youngest. Josh and Ben made Ethan's day by helping him "decorate" for his party, and Kristin made my day and then some by grocery shopping and making dinner for us. Unfortunately, even all the fun of having the cousins here and having water balloons to fight with thanks to Kristin and myself spending at least an hour filling those babies up was still not enough to keep Ethan from melting down on several occasions.

The Decorations
(It was actually really cute -- they hung balloons and stars all over the walls and ceilings, and streamers in the doorways and on the walls. All with painter's tape because they could find nothing else around.)

And then came Thursday. The day dawned inauspiciously enough, and Ethan was excited and helpful in getting things ready. Of course, I once again made the mistake of asking what kind of cake he wanted (an airplane one), and letting him make the agenda for the party (decorating visors, Pin the Tail on the Donkey, eating cake and ice cream, opening presents, a pinata, and handing out the party favors). And even though only two kids' families came (one with 2 kids and one with 3), and both moms were there to help out, it still was about as chaotic as you would expect with kids ages 6 down to 1 in attendance. Let's just say that all in all this day WIPED ME OUT. I was dunzo by the time the party ended 2 hours later. And rather than having a happy, appreciative, little 6-year-old thanking me for all the trouble I went to to throw him a "real" party, what I had instead was a rude, disrespectful, out-of-control 6-year-old throwing a fit about anything and everything, and winding up the evening with a full-on fit at bedtime and telling ME that I'm just pretending to be tired and that's why I won't let him paint.

The Birthday Cake

Wearing some of the "prizes" from the game

Waiting to sing Happy Birthday

Hitting the pinata in the steam bath that was the great outdoors on Thursday

(As a sidenote, Sophie is all about wearing "play dresses" these days. It is basically all she will let me put on her.)

And before I forget, Ethan had already celebrated a "pretend" birthday party with my mom and Jacob before they left the week before. All in all I don't think he's due another party until he turns 8 -- if even then. Hahaha.

Decorating the cupcakes

Blowing out the candles

Opening presents -- on Ethan's list this year? An alarm clock, a mailbox, and a CD player.

As for the rest of the week, I realized on Thursday night that I had way overdone it over the course of the week, and I made the executive decision to cancel all plans for Friday and put myself on modified bedrest. And in response to Ethan's insistence that I just "pretend" to be tired at the end of the day, I created a little object lesson for the Bobbsey Twins while Sophie was sleeping at naptime. I put a 5 pound bag of sugar in Grace's backpack, and one of those big Krusteaz brand bags of pancake mix from Sam's in Ethan's backpack, and then made them put the packs on backwards (over their bellies) and told them to go ahead and start picking up the Living Room. "This is easy!" were the first replies, but the novelty soon wore off and reality set in and pretty soon Grace started whining "This is too heavy!" I think it was fairly effective in making them see how much harder it is for me to have to bend over and pick things up off the floor and clean the whole house while carting around an extra 20+ pounds of baby weight. To their credit, they were fairly cooperative in helping out for the rest of the day.

However, my efforts to take things easy on Friday were not quite enough seeing as to how I woke up on Saturday morning around 6:30 AM experiencing semi-regular contractions on and off for the whole morning. They weren't really painful and I didn't think it was super serious, but I thought I'd give the doctor a call just to see what they thought. Well, they thought I should probably head over to the hospital to be monitored just in case, and after having Scott laugh at me when I told him he could just drop me off, and then waiting until Ethan finished his fit about not wanting to go and telling me to just go by myself (and of course, bringing up once again that we were supposed to paint on Saturday and it wasn't FAIR), I finally got settled in and hooked up to monitors for a couple of hours so that the contractions and baby could be monitored.

In the end, everything was fine -- which I thought was the case anyway -- but sometimes it's nice to have doctor's orders to lay down and rest for a few days. What that meant for poor Scott, though, was that he had to deal with our little darlings by himself all day on Saturday and then again on Sunday at church while I played hooky to rest a little bit longer. This is already too long of a story as it is, so suffice it to say that Grace decided it was her turn to kick it into high gear of out-of-controlness. Grace's primary teacher had to kick her out of class, Scott ended up leaving a little bit early, and on the way home she proceeded to punch and pinch and hit Sophie for the entire car ride thus failing to respond to Scott's ultimate, last resort threat of having a cold shower -- while fully clothed, of course -- when she got home. So a cold shower it was (Scott says "don't judge me") and after that things calmed down a LITTLE bit.

Alright, we're almost done here. Yesterday I had my 31 week check-up and the doctor's follow-up orders were just to listen to my body and take it easier when I need to. Indeed. So there you go. I don't want to jinx anything, but we've implemented some changes with the kids around here, and so far this week things have been looking up. Of course it helped that we finally followed through on our "promise" to let Ethan help paint last night, so maybe that's all it would have taken to make last week better. Hahahahaha.