I got caught swearing...

It's true, when I've had my fill and am all stressed out, I will occasionally let fly a cuss word. I am trying to be better about that, but I haven't conquered that particular mountain quite yet. But, before you judge me, let me tell you my story. Tuesday was an impossibly busy day for me. It started at about 1:30 in the morning, when Grace woke up coughing and choking on phlegm. Chad ran her into the bathroom so she could spit it all out and I held her as she shook and cried. We took her into bed with us until she was warm and calm and sleepy (and blessed by the Lord through Chad), and then put her back in her own bed. She slept well the remainder of the night, but Grant woke up crying at 4:54am. I looked at the clock and decided to let him cry it out, but a particularly ear-splitting wail had me flying out of bed to grab him. I was so tired and didn't want to be up, but I didn't know what else to do. We went together to get Grant his sippy cup of OJ and the thought came to me to put him back in bed with his juice. I did so and he went back to sleep, which got me another blessed hour of rest until Grace woke up at 6:00. She was feverish and listless, and cried every time she coughed because she thought that meant she was going to throw up.

After our morning routine of breakfast, bath, getting dressed, and making beds, I ran Merritt to school and then tried to get as much done as I could before heading off to the dentist. I dropped the kids off at Jeannine's house and then went in for a cleaning, a filling, and to have my new crown glued into my mouth. After two hours of dental fun I went back to Jeannine's house to find both my kiddos asleep. They had just been down for a little bit and I didn't want to move them, so I hung out there for another hour. Jeannine's dog Snow (who is huge and fluffy and white) came and slept with Grant, it was so cute! The great thing about having a mother in law who owns dogs is that she isn't phased by life's little messes. She had been holding Grant when Grace announced she needed to go to the bathroom. Since Grace was feeling so tired and worn, she needed help to get to the potty and they didn't make it there in time. Jeannine doesn't get mad about that kind of stuff, she just cleaned it up and helped Grace to feel loved...she's so great. I talked to my parents on IM, helped Jeannine with some odds and ends, and reviewed my lines for the performance I was to be involved in later that evening. After finally getting home, I tried to get chores and things done, but it is very hard to do that when one's children are sick. I was so involved with taking care of Grace, obsessing about the soup I still had to make for the Relief Society dinner, reviewing my lines and singing my song again and again that I did something I've never done before...I forgot to pick up Merritt. When the school called to ask if anyone was going to come and pick up Merritt I yelled, "Oh Crap!" (no, this isn't the swearing part yet) into the phone and dashed out the door. Merritt was a total good sport about the whole thing, which made life easier for me.

The time was now 4:00pm, the time I had designated for making two pots of soup, one for the RS dinner and one for my family. I wanted to get started on it, but everyone was either hungry, or crying, or sick, or poopy...anything but happy and self sufficient. I felt my stress levels begin to rise. I had to get the soup done before 5:45, when I had to be at the church for a final rehearsal. I was finally able to begin on the soup in earnest at 4:45, which meant that it would be finished one hour later. Just in time. Grant was holding onto my pant leg and crying, but at least Merritt and Grace were settled. I kept handing Grant little things to play with that would pacify him for a few minutes before he would get up again and cry on my leg. Meanwhile I was chopping and grating and crying over some really strong onions (I had to tie a rag to my face...I must have looked like a convenience store robber or something) but things were going well until I made a fatal mistake. Since I had doubled the amount of vegetables, I decided to turn the heat up just a notch to make sure they cooked properly. I set the timer for 10 minutes and occasionally turned back to stir the vegetables while also madly trying to chop potatoes. In the last minute, all the vegetables burned. When I smelled that sweet, burning smell and turned to see 30 minutes worth of work go up in smoke I couldn't help myself. I pulled the pan off the burner and yelled "Damn-it!" Chad came running in and I showed him the mess. He picked up the still crying Grant while I stomped my foot and yelled again for good measure, "DAMN-IT!" As my curse word flew from my mouth, the door bell ran...Ding-Dong! Chad went to answer the door and there stood Brian Mulholland from our ward, with bread in hand and big wide eyes. Bless his heart, he had brought us some goodies from work (Winder Dairy) as a thank you for taking his family some dinner the night before. Now he had arrived at our home to be greeted by a wailing baby and a loud profanity. I was still at this point not in any kind of good humor, so when Chad insanely tried to call me to the door to show my good manners all he got was a stressed and nasty, "What?" I stomped out, declared I'd burned the dinner, and stomped back to the kitchen. Brian handed us the bread and left, Chad took Grant downstairs and I started chopping again. Ten minutes later, after Grant was calm (I gave him a sucker out of sheer desperation) and Chad was helping me, the whole thing got really hilarious and I started to laugh. It got even funnier when Brian's wife Debbie called to check on me: "So, how are things?" I accepted the fact that I would just be late and got on with life. The soup was finished finally (and it was yummy), I made it to the church by 6:15 (still before the dinner started and with enough time to practice my song and get ready since we were skipping dinner anyway), and all really was well. I'm giving up swearing though. :)