Turning Lemons into Lemonade

Today was complete crap.  By 10 a.m. I was ready to throw in the towel.  Evy was up from 1-3 a.m. last night.  She wouldn't go to sleep in her bed, in my arms, in my bed, not anywhere.  She woke up the rest of the kids so around 2 a.m. ALL kids were awake.  At that point I woke Brian up and he somehow got Evy to go back to sleep in her crib.

 Oliver was up at his usual 6 a.m. so I fed him, fed Elliott, and pumped before going back to bed around 7 a.m. Brian overslept for work and left about 15 minutes late for work, so he was rushing around and woke up the boys.

The phone rang at 3 minutes to 9.  I assumed it was Brian calling to say he made it on time.  Nope.  He was 5 blocks from home and a bicyclist had hit his car.  Yes, the cyclist hit HIM.  Seriously?  The intersection is completely overgrown with this ivy stuff and there is no way either one of them could have seen each other.

I got the girls up and they were cranky as heck.  They whined, cried, wanted more raisins and brown sugar on their oatmeal, wanted milk, wanted water, wanted whatever I didn't give them.  I was just so tired and thought I was going to lose my mind.  I had no idea how I was going to make it through this day!

At 9:56 I texted my friend asking if I could borrow her two teenage daughters for the day.  She called me right after I texted and said that she could drop them off.  Hooray!

We finished breakfast and they were all still crying.  All of them.  Crying.  At the same time.  And then the dog starts howling.  Its a freaking side show to the circus.  I turned on Yo Gabba Gabba in hopes that it would calm them down.  And it did!  All of them.  Some days I seriously want to hug the creator of that show.  (But most days I want to kill him because I'm so sick of watching it!)  I hadn't pumped for like 4 hours and was off my "schedule" so I had to get them to chill out while I did that.

I was completely exhausted, but I decided some fresh air was going to be good for us.  We all got dressed, I threw everyone in the stroller and off we went to the park. My friend met us at the park and dropped off her kids to help me out.  The girls LOVE the park.  Love it!  They seriously listen so well that I'm just amazed.

While we were at the park, I met another mom!  She has a daughter just a little bit younger than the girls and number 2 on the way.  It was the first time a pregnant belly did not bother me.  I'm not really sure why either.  I talked to this gal for probably a good hour or so while the kids were playing.  Our girls played amazingly well and got along like they have been playing together for a long time.  I talked to this gal like we'd been friends for years.  It was very unexpected, but great!  We both walked to the park and it turns out that we live about 1 block from each other.  We exchanged numbers and talked about getting our kids together for a playdate!

After the park, we went home, gave the girls lunch and put them down for a nap.  It really turned out to be a great day.  Just goes to show that life is what you make of it.  I could have stayed home and the kids would have probably continued to be cranky and tired.  But instead, we left the house, got some fresh air, and made some new friends.  I'm exhausted and completely ready for bed but so satisfied that I didn't just fold under the pressure of our crazy life.