A week without Pete

So Pete was in Moldova this week, this Holy Week, this wholly long week.  It seems like it's always interesting while he's gone... random things happen, I make 435 meals or snacks, and answer 45,367 questions, and get very little sleep.

Because of that last part, I remember very little of what actually happened this past week.  I do know we all made it to the other side whole, and there were several times that I was surprised by how good I felt, considering the fact that I averaged 5 hours of sleep each night.  The Lord was gracious!  But I also remember thinking that Milo's version of a song might seem appropriate sometimes:  When he sings "Bless the Lord O my soul" by Chris Tomlin, for one of the lines he always bellows, "Ten thousand days until the evening comes!"  I wondered if I might feel like that at times.

Really, it was never that bad.  :)

So, since I can't remember what happened before yesterday, I'll just re-cap the last 24 hours as a sample.

Yesterday, Good Friday, was a vacation day from school, so I envisioned I would have a slower-paced day in which I could catch up on a bunch of the details that had been sliding through the cracks.  Instead, I moved at a rapid pace all day, finding more details sliding through the cracks, and going from room to room finding more and destruction.  Why do kids feel the need to pick up every little thing and just move it from one place to another (the wrong place)??  There were muddy socks in the garage, broken twigs on the kitchen floor, hand-weights on the stairs, flashcards strewn all through my bedroom, markers without tops everywhere, and, well, I won't go on and on and on... but that's what it would take to describe it all accurately.  It never stops!

After reading the crucifixion story with the kids, and repenting of my sin -- especially all the reactions I was having to all the destruction everywhere -- some of the kids and I went to the store after finally finding the fridge pretty bare, where we saved $77.  Then we came home and started making our traditional Hot Cross Buns in our darkened home.  (I followed through on a few of our annual traditions anyway.... but without Pete here it didn't feel quite the same.)  I also worked on a related blog post for The Celebration Project, while the kids went around and destroyed more stuff.

I can't remember what we had for lunch (although I do remember the disastrous pancakes I attempted for breakfast.  I'm the worst ever pancake-maker.  Using coconut flour did NOT help), but I do know it was likely that somewhere between 25% and 100% of the kids complained about it.

The low point for the afternoon, between making a potato dish and shuttling Strider off to a science class, was learning that Strider had somehow lost our neighbor's key, which he had used to take in their mail while they're out of town.  I loooove being the irresponsible neighbor.... so I sent all 4 kids out to comb the streets until it was found.  It wasn't.

Eventually, after a few loads of laundry, more cooking, and more destruction around the house, we loaded up the car to go do our FUN activity of the day week, which was dinner at Dan and Amy's with some other family members.  Just before we pulled left for their house, the key was found!  Yay!

Dinner was a wonderful affair, full of adult conversation, and only a few dozen screaming kids.  It was a lovely, lovely break from having to prepare constant meals!  And none of my kids complained about the food.

Then we came home, in the dark, rainy night, in time for Strider to go over to our other neighbor's house to let out their dog.  Unfortunately, in the dark and rain, he didn't notice that their landscaping team had left the gate to their fence wide open.... so about 20 minutes later he came running in all panicked because the dog was GONE.

It was 9:00 at night, the other kids were all in bed, and the last thing we wanted to do was run around in the dark and rain calling an old dog who surely would not respond to our voices!  Just as I had finally resigned myself to the reality that I had to make that awful phone call to the dog's owners.... suddenly, Strider saw the dog come running across the street!  Yay!  Found key, found dog!  (Thank you, Lord!!)

So now it was finally time to head to bed and wait for Pete to get home.  I feel asleep while I was waiting (did I mention I haven't gotten much sleep this week??), and woke up at 12:30 to find that he still was not home!  I started to worry that he had fallen asleep driving back or something awful, so I called him.  Turns out he had returned to the Charlotte airport to find that his car had a flat tire.  Poor guy had to change it right there in the parking garage.

Finally sometime around 1:30 we both tumbled into sleep.... and then were only awakened 3 times in the next 6 hours.  Once by a child checking to see if Daddy was home, once by a child who's foot was sooo hurting, and once by the power going out.

After all that rest, we arose this morning, and I headed off to teach my class from 9-12.  Pete somehow found a way to get the tire fully fixed and get the kids to a birthday party.

Then we all crashed here this afternoon.  And when I say we all crashed, I mean I took a very long nap.  Not sure what everyone else was doing.... but it probably involved more destruction.

But at least Pete is home now.  :)