Single Parenthood, Yummy Sand, My Horrible Monday!!

This week has been pretty crazy.  Aaron left on a business trip early Monday morning and I have been single parenting it the rest of the week.  We took Aaron to the airport at 6 am and when we got back the chaotic morning routine began.  In this routine I had to sign a paper from Matthew's teacher saying I saw his behavior summary from the week before.  However, in the notes of the paper she said something to the effect of how we need to meet and talk about where Matthew will be going to school next year.  **Sigh** why did I have to deal with this as soon as Aaron left?!  Anyway I signed the paper and told the teacher to call anytime.  As the day went on all three older kids got off to school and I decided to get out of the house while I only had two kids with me instead of five.  I wanted to pick up a few things at Hobby Lobby so that's where we went.  I went inside and grabbed a cart and put Noah in the baby part of the cart.  Sarah kept trying to ride on the side of the cart, but I had to keep telling her to get off because the cart was so off balance it would tip over.  She of course wouldn't listen to me so I had to keep telling her over and over again to get off the cart each time a little more forceful.  I thought she finally listened to me until I stopped to look at something.  When my attention was turned she jumped up on the side of the cart and tipped the whole thing over on top of herself.  Yes, Noah was still in the baby seat as well and he went down with the cart hitting his head on the customer service booth.  It was utter chaos.  Both kids were just howling.  Luckily, this nice lady stopped and helped me get the cart off Sarah.  I picked up Noah to give him loves and she picked up Sarah to give her loves.  They cried for a LONG time.  Finally Noah stopped enough to let me put him back in the cart.  In this whole process Sarah's shoes had come off and she's pretty obsessive when it comes to her shoes.  The nice lady picked up Sarah's shoes and put them inside the cart instead of putting them on Sarah's feet.  Well that started a whole new round of screaming on Sarah's part.  The poor lady didn't know what to do so I took over thanking her for her help.  I quickly put Sarah's shoes back on and the crying instantly stopped.  As I was pushing the cart away a 'helpful' Hobby Lobby employee came over and lectured me on how I shouldn't let my daughter ride on the cart like that...blah, blah, blah.  I wanted to say how I was trying to not have her do that in the first place.  Even if I didn't know riding on the cart sideways wasn't a good idea before the accident I certainly had figured it out after the whole cart had tipped over, but I just smiled and nodded acting like I was thankful for the 'oh so helpful' advice.  As we went on shopping around the store I got a call from Aaron on my cell phone.  Since he was on a business trip I didn't know when I would get a chance to talk to him so I answered the call.  As I was talking to Aaron Sarah took another moment of my lack of attention on her and climbed up on a chair that was sitting on top of a shelf.  Of course it tipped over and Sarah fell on the ground cutting her head.  A whole new round of wailing began all over again.  I quickly got off the phone and picked her up and gave her loves.  About this time I had had enough of Hobby Lobby and we left.  It was about time to pick up Daniel from school anyway.  We came home and picked up Daniel on the way.  When we got home I was not fast enough in getting lunch ready.  Noah spied an open package of crackers on the counter and pulled them off to eat them spilling them all over the floor.  You can only see about half the crackers that he'd pulled off because the other half is not in the picture.  He was pretty pleased with himself.

While I was cleaning up the cracker mess I noticed that Sarah had gone missing.  I then noticed Noah had gone missing as well.  That is never a good sign!  I called their names and neither one answered--another REALLY BAD sign.  Noah finally came running out of my bedroom crying and was all wet with splotches of white all over his clothes.  As I went in to see why he was in such a state I found Sarah trying to flush a horribly clogged toilet watching the water with tons of small bits of toilet paper floating around in it.  From what I could surmise by then looking at the newly replaced toilet paper roll (that morning even) that was now empty, she (and Noah) had attempted to flush a whole roll of toilet paper down the toilet and it didn't make it.  The whole toilet bowl was filled to the brim with water and toilet paper floaties.  Every time she had flushed it had spilled over the top and all over the bathroom floor.  It was a mess!!!  I didn't know where to start the clean up.  I finally decided to throw Sarah and Noah in the shower to start with.  While they were showering I tried to tackle the clogged toilet.  I plunged, and plunged, and plunged and plunged and plunged some more and it did not move.  With each plunge it sent more toilet paper water splashing over the side of the toilet.  Ewwww!!!  However, I plunged and plunged some more and it still didn't move.  At this point I didn't quite know what to do.  As much as I didn't want to, I had to make sure there wasn't a toy lodged in it.  I had to reach my arm down into the toilet paper water to feel to make sure there was no toy(s).  YUCK YUCK YUCK!!!  There was no toy that I could feel (I had to do it by feel since there was so much toilet paper in the water I couldn't see anything).  I then tried calling Aaron to see what he thought I should try next since I have never encountered a toilet clog of this proportion.  He, thankfully, answered.  I explained the problem to him and it took him a long time to stop laughing.  He finally did stop laughing and told me to wait a little while to see if the toilet paper would disintegrate enough so it could be unclogged.  If that didn't work I would have to call my brother to see if I could borrow his pipe snake to clear the pipe.  I then got off the phone and tried to bide my time by cleaning up the toilet paper water mess all over the floor. After I got the mess somewhat contained I washed the kids in the shower and got them out and dressed.  However, they made their own fun in the shower by making bum prints on the shower wall.  They thought it was hilarious and just giggled when they saw them:

I then went back in to try to plunge the toilet again.  Thankfully after five minutes of straight plunging it finally unclogged.  However, it left me with a whole new toilet paper water mess all over the floor to clean up.  Why does all this happen when I suddenly find myself a single parent for the whole week?!  However, it all wasn't bad--Matthew's teacher did call me that afternoon to talk.  She gave me a few more options of what to do with Matthew for next year.  As we talked she went on to share some personal experiences that she has had with raising her autistic son who is now in his 20s.  That gave me some hope and confidence that I can choose what would be best for him.
The next day, Tuesday, things were pretty quiet until that afternoon.  That's when there was scouts and soccer.  I dropped Josh and Matthew off at scouts.  This was Matthew's first scouts visit in this ward so I wanted to stay and talk to the scout leader for a minute to tell him a little about Matthew.  Luckily, his new cub scout leaders sound like they are pretty go with the flow kind of people which will work out great for Matthew.  Josh is having fun in his new Bear class.  Right after cub scouts Daniel had soccer.  I, of course, had to take everyone with me since Aaron is gone. Luckily Daniel played on the field right next to the playground.  As I was trying to watch Daniel play and keep an eye on the other four kids on the playground Josh came half way over to me.  He then yelled, "MOM, MOM!!  SARAH JUST POOPED HER PANTS!!!"  Not only I heard that, but every other parent at the game.  I tried to nonchalantly ask Josh to bring Sarah to me.  He ran off to find her.  He came half way back a few minutes later and then yelled, "MOM, MOM!  SHE DIDN'T POOP HER PANTS SHE JUST PEED HER PANTS AND SAND IS STICKING TO IT!!!"  Well the soccer game was almost over and I didn't have a spare change of clothes for her so we decided to just tough it out.  In the last few minutes Josh came back and yelled, "MOM, MOM!!!  NOAH'S EATING AND THROWING SAND!!"  Sure enough I looked over to see Noah picking up handfuls of sand and throwing them and he ate a few of them.  He even got a handful of sand and walked over to Sarah who was bending over playing in the sand he put it down her pants.  Thankfully by then it was time to go, however, my kids were all huge sandy messes.  When we got home I was out of energy and decided to shower the kids the next morning.  Everyone went straight to bed.  The next morning Josh let Sarah and Noah out and they came and climbed in to bed with me.  I was fine with that until I noticed how much sand was now in my bed after they had crawled in it--DOH!!!  The next morning I got the three oldest kids off to school and went to clean up breakfast.  That's when Noah snuck off to dirty his diaper.  He came wandering back to where I could smell him and it was bad.  I went to go change him and his diaper was full of sand amongst other things...I went to clean him off and there was sand everywhere.  Let's just say his bum got really exfoliated from the sand scrub that's for sure!!! Later on that day we went to playgroup at the park.  At the end of playgroup Noah decided to fall off a tower on to the sand.  He hit pretty hard, too.  Luckily he cried and didn't pass out, but just to be safe I made him stay awake at least until 9:30 pm just to keep an eye on him.  Luckily he didn't have any problems so I laid him down for bed.  At 3 am I couldn't sleep so I went to peek on him to make sure he was ok.  Unfortunately, he heard me open the door and started crying.  He didn't stop until I picked him up and held him for over an hour.  He finally fell back asleep and I tried to as well.  That afternoon was soccer again.  I took everyone with me.  Luckily Matthew's old school teacher was there trying to watch her son play.  I say trying to watch her son play because Matthew talked her hind leg off the whole game.  Luckily we didn't have any other issues than Noah eating sand, but that's not out of the ordinary--unfortunately.  A little pica never hurt anyone, right?! I was exhausted by bedtime that night.  I went in to get ready for bed and found this sweet note on my pillow:

That makes all the craziness of taking care of five kids (6 if you include Aaron) worth it.  It made my day--that's for sure!!

Last night my sister took pity on me and came over to watch the kids for a few hours so I could get away.  It was so nice to be kid free for a few hours.  Thanks, Johanna!!  Aaron comes back Sunday evening and we can't wait!  Hopefully nothing too crazy will happen between now and then.  Keeping my fingers crossed.
 Aaron was playing with Noah the other day and he was just giggling every time Aaron would throw him up.  He's getting so big I don't know how much longer he will be able to be thrown up in the air.

Sarah got a hold of a crayon and went to town on my ceramic tile:



 However, it is quite fitting for our family.  We are not perfect, but at least we are eternal!!

Here's a case of brotherly love:

 Josh has a huge black bruise on his cheek.  I asked him what happened and he told me that Daniel had kicked him.  He must have deserved it because he didn't tell me about it when it happened.  It is now turning a sickly shade of green.  How's that for some brotherly love?! 

Have I mentioned I can't wait until Aaron comes home tomorrow?!?