Whew!

So it's been a long week. And I've decided never to sign the girls up for a 2-hour-a-night vbs ever again. Unless, of course, I have the luxury of being a SAHM. Because being a WAWM, it's too hard. (That's a work-at-work-mom for those of you who didn't understand the acronym I made up.) The injuries didn't help. Nor did the psycho ladies at the church. Oh, and all the family discovery and drama. Who knew we had skeletons in our closets? Not me. Not like this.

A while back, our hours got cut back at work. They told me I could choose my new schedule. So I decided to come in at 8:30 instead of 8:00 every day, since I was always late for work, and close to 20 minutes more often than not. So this was great. But I didn't stop the wackiness there. I changed my lunch to 30 minutes on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Wednesday I was going to skip lunch. Of course, one thing that influenced that was my boss having to go for chemo for 6 hours every other Wednesday. I was kinda trying to be helpful. (I can be a team player, even if I don't happen to like you.)

The last thing I changed was to leave at noon on Fridays. To me, that made the whole reduction in hours thing worth it. I could have some alone time, and still pick the babies up early. I could get some grocery shopping done without someone trying to make things difficult or feeling guilty because someone was left at home.

After a few weeks, I realized suddenly that I could have lunch with people. And have time to enjoy myself. I went with my Aunt a couple of times before it dawned on me that there were other people in my life, too. Yeah, I'm a quick one. So I had lunch with a friend. Then it occurred to me, I hadn't had lunch with my mom in a long time. So I asked her to lunch. Immediately I called my dad and scheduled lunch with him for the next week. That lunch was last Friday.

I finally found out why my sister hasn't been talking to him for a couple of years. (She needs to get over herself.) In the telling of the story, he made a comment about being compared to his dad. There was no way I was interrupting his story, so I just kind of worked on it in my mind. But got nowhere, because it was outta left field. This week, I met his sister for lunch and asked her if it meant something. It did. And hello skeleton! How did my younger sister know about this and I didn't? That was crazy! My aunt said she'd mentioned it to her girls, but I know my sister didn't talk to them.

So I called my other cousin. Asked him why I was the last to know. Apparently, I wasn't. But we had a great talk while I kept driving the wrong way. He's the only family member who even knows about this blog. All the rest just get the edited cross-posts I do occasionally. But he doesn't read it all that often and might not read nice things about himself. His fiancée might, though. But that's another tangent.

So back to the vbs. It was from 6-8 Monday-Thursday. If I walk out the door at 5:00 on the phone system (which I wait for because I'm the operator and the phones don't shut off until then) then I'm late, because it's slow. Great in the mornings, because I still cut it close, even though I don't have to be there until 8:30. But not so great in the evenings. So I set the clock back Monday. 6 minutes. Which made it the same time as my cell phone. (And yeah, I was late the last 4 days.)

Monday night, I raced home from work, stopped at Sonic for supper before getting the girls, picked them up, took them home to eat and raced to vbs. We were about 5 minutes late. Really not bad. Tuesday night, I raced home from work, picked up the girls, stopped by Arby's, took them home to eat and raced to vbs. We were about 20 minutes late. Wednesday night was just like Tuesday except McDonald's and we were about 25 minutes late. I was tired of spending money on fast food. The girls weren't getting very nutritious food, certainly not a balanced diet. And I was exhausted!

Every night after vbs, the girls needed baths so badly. They were late to bed every night. Sure, some of it had to do with staying after to visit with grandma and grandpa instead of zooming out right away. But Taylar was behaving at daycare because she was too tired to misbehave. They had less trouble getting her down for a nap.

But I didn't like vbs. Jasmyne was clingy when I took her on Tuesday and Wednesday. She cried and cried when I went to put her in her chair. Monday, Taylar fell and skinned her knee. She also bumped her head on the wall. And on out way out to the car, she slid on the paint on the curb and went down on her other knee. Tuesday night, I had stayed in Jasmyne's class the whole time. So this one lady came to get me. “You need to come here, right now! He has to stay here. He can't come.” Talking about Jasmyne, who was trying to follow me out the door. She was being a jerk, but she's always been a jerk. I've known her 20 years and have never liked her. Anyway, aside from being uber-forceful, she was being secretive. Alexa had been standing on a chair which had broken. She fell and hit her head and neck and back and ribs. She was on the stage surrounded by concerned people. Thank goodness, people who seemed to know what they were looking for. One guy had made a makeshift c-collar with his hands.

She ended up being fine, but 2 kids injured in 2 days was a bit much. Jasmyne had gotten a wooden puzzle dropped on her, too. It was pretty heavy and it hit her in the head, but she was ok after a minute or two of crying on mommy's lap.

Wednesday night after we got home, I started cooking for Thursday. We had lots of food, just not time to cook it and eat it before time to leave. So I made cheeseburger cupcakes, as I call them. They're so, so easy. You press a biscuit into a muffin pan, spoon in some cooked ground beef mixed with spaghetti sauce and bake for 15 minutes. Then you add cheese and bake another 3 minutes. I stopped before adding the cheese, so that all I'd have to do was add it and pop them back in the oven long enough to heat them up and melt the cheese. In theory, that was great. I even didn't wait for the oven to preheat.

But the girls were in no hurry to eat. Again. When we finished eating, it was 6:25. We still had shoes to re-attach, the trek to the car and the drive there. It totally wasn't worth it. Taylar wanted to watch tv, so we stayed home. And I didn't realize how much I needed that break. I knew I was tired, but this was more.

Yesterday, Lee was supposed to get off work at about 3. In addition to having worked every night this week, he was working tonight and was scheduled originally for 11-9 on Father's Day. WTF? He didn't end up getting off early, though. At 5:30 he finally answered the phone. He was about to leave. He wanted to get drunk and was going to Texas Road House. Um, ok. See you later. Oh, did I want to come? Absolutely. I didn't realize you were including me, but I'm hungry and not wanting to make supper, especially since I haven't thawed anything out.

He came home and we all finished getting ready. I was going to drive because he might fall asleep. He was in a really strange mood. Emotionless. That sure changed when we were eating. He was mad at the girls for wanting to play instead of eat. He was mad at me for not fussing and spanking more. I just ate and ignored it all. That was a really yummy steak and I wasn't letting him ruin it for me.

After eating, we headed to Wal-mart to get the girls some shoes. He remembered we were almost out of diapers. I don't know how, he's barely been home lately. I know part of why he's been working so hard is the tickets he got last week. He and that car have been expensive lately! But, we haven't had to cut back anywhere or dip into savings, so I guess that's good. Naps are definitely in order.