Come Apart

This week has been fairly stressful for all of us. First of all we have just had a busier than usual week with meetings, and events, and things like that. Secondly, Troy's extended family doesn't handle things with the ease and calmness that we work so hard to have in our lives. With the death of Grandma Fawn there have been a LOT of tense moments, fights, and yelling-NOT something we are used to, and on top of everything, the kids and I are SICK with the yucky head cold/flu thing that has been going around up here. I guess all of those things piled on top of each other has made our tolerance for things that are out of the ordinary just that much worse. I first started to notice a problem yesterday when we were coming out of the store. The wind was blowing, and it was pretty chilly. We stepped outside and the wind blew Adias hair across her face. Oh boy, was she MAD! She yelled "This stupid (Naughty word at our house) wind is messing up my hair! Can't I even go outside without my hair blowing all over the place! Now it's ruined and I look a mess! I HATE(also a not so good word at our house) wind, I hate cold! I want the sun to come out and I want it to be warm, and I want this wind to go away and never come back!" She continued "cussing" about it all the way home, and then we stepped out of the car to go in the house, and it started all over again. Whew! What a scene over nothing more than messy hair!
Then, we were vacuuming our house later that night, and the kids were helping me, picking up the big things in the room that the vacuum wouldn't pick up, and moving furniture around. We were on the very last room of the house, and I guess by then the vacuum cleaner was pretty hot. There were a few kernels of popcorn that had spilled on the floor, and when I vacuumed them up one of them popped, making a LOUD noise. Ethan dove to the floor covering his head, and screamed "Get down, someone is shooting!" Now, it's not like we live in the ghetto or something. We live in what is probably one of the quietest neighborhoods in Brigham City, which is probably one of the quietest towns in Utah, if not in the entire United States. It's not like we get shot at all the time or anything. In fact, to my knowledge Ethan has never been shot at. I don't know where the come-apart came from, but when I picked him up off the floor he was seriously shaking. Weird...
Ethan and his friends from school have been wanting to play with each other outside of school. I have the friend's phone numbers, and I have told Ethan that when things slow down a little, he can have a few of them over to play. Well, today Ethan's teacher send home a note asking if she could give our phone number to his friends. For security reasons I opted to not have our phone number listed in either the school list or in the city phone book, but the school has it on record obviously. I wrote a nice note to her asking that she please not share that info with anyone. About the time I was finishing up the note, the phone rang. It was Shayanne. The teacher had given her our number. She wanted to come play. I told her that we already had plans, but we could certainly get together another time. Five minutes later she called again. (It was now three fifteen-another time) I explained that I meant maybe next week. She called again in a few minutes asking what day. Then again asking if I had changed my mind, then again to see if she could talk to Ethan, then again to tell me that her mom didn't know she was calling, and I shouldn't tell her. Then Pheonix called. He wanted to come over too. He lives in the apartment complex nearby. He knew where we lived, and he was going to come over. I told him that next week would be better. He called back a few minutes later and said that he could see the roof of our house from his bathroom window, then again to say that today would be better for him, then again to say that his mom said that if he called us again that he was going to be grounded and wouldn't be able to come over anymore. (When I mentioned that he was calling us again he said "CRAP!" and hung up the phone:) This went on for several hours with one or the other calling at least once every half an hour. Finally, I turned off the ringer, but then I kept missing important calls, plus my voice mail got filled up with messages like "Hello... Hello?...Ethan's Mom, why aren't you talking to me?... What happened?... You better say something, or I am going to tell my mom on you...Did you hear me? she is going to be mad at you for not talking to me...Ethan's Mom?... Ethan's Mo-om?..." Finally I turned the phone back on but still got calls until ten thirty. Then I had a come-apart. It really isn't a big deal, it's just excited kids, but at that moment it became a big deal. I yelled about it, and whined, and snapped about the stinking teacher and why would she waste her time and mine by writing a note to me when she was just going to give out the number anyway, she might as well have just not said anything to me about it, plus, who lets their kids use the phone that much, and why weren't they in bed yet, and what are the parents doing while the kids are on the phone the entire afternoon...blah blah blah. Then I realized that no one was around to listen to me complain, (Because Troy is STILL out of town) and then I had a come-apart about that for a second, and then I got over it, and went to bed:) I did still send the note to the teacher asking her to not give out our number, but she didn't write one back. I secretly hope she feels bad about doing it. Aren't I awful?

Anyway, next week should be a little calmer, and I have high hopes for us getting through it without any come-aparts, or at least having come aparts over things that are really worthy of one... Wish us luck!