No Rest for the Weary

These past two weeks taken out of my life have really thrown me for the proverbial loop. There's no wiggle room to just ease myself back into "life" -- it's more like jumping right into the deep end.

On Tuesday, I had to catch up on the many loose ends that were ignored during our quarantine. I crammed in two haircuts at two different locations (for myself and Grace), we visited the library and cleaned them out of all the Eric Carle and Leo Lionni books we could find (E.C. for Grace; L.L. being Aidan's Author Du Jour at the moment), we went to the bank, bought stamps at the post office, dropped by another library for two grown-up books, picked up Jack's pills at the vet ... I was dizzy by 3:00 p.m.

On Wednesday (yesterday), we spent the morning at the grocery store and experienced yet another Widow's Oil moment (thank you, Lord!).

Today, I have to somehow gather up what scraps of energy I can find to pick up the entire house. Our apartment is small, but somehow Grace still manages to keep it in a perpetual state of tornado. For the sake of sanity and organization, every toy and book and who-knows-what-else has its proper place ... and I am amazed that so much of it is out of place now. I don't like this kind of clean-up duty -- "It's clean dirt," my mother says -- but it's soooo tedious and time-consuming. This might very well take up the majority of my day.

Tomorrow (Friday) I have to begin cleaning the house, in that usual scour-like-crazy-because-people-are-coming! kind of way. I often don't mind this so much, because Don usually helps me. But this time it falls solely on my shoulders, because Don is entrenched in sermon preparation for Sunday and has no time to lend a hand. In the afternoon, while Grace naps, I have to zip over to a friend's house to babysit her son while he naps. Then I have to zip home and wait for the bus, greeting not only my son this time, but his friend Caleb and Caleb's sister Natalie as well. Andy and Jacie will be in Texas for a few days and have divvied up their kids. They'll play for a while after school before Natalie zips off to a friend's house nearby. And then the boys will have their very first sleepover! They are both so excited about this prospect, and I can't blame them one bit. But this is also my first sleepover, as a Mom In Charge, and I have no idea what to expect. I'm exhausted just thinking about this prospect ... but I don't mind one bit. It's a pleasure to help out dear friends.

In the meantime, somewhere in the middle of all this chaos, I am planning two birthday parties for myself -- not something I normally do, but my family members' schedules are conflicting, so I had to split up the gatherings to accommodate everyone. This leads us into Saturday ....

... where at some point in the morning I'll bring Caleb back to his house, where his uncle and aunt will be arriving to care for the kids. I'll come back home, finish cleaning, and then start baking for the parties. Brownies for Saturday, a chocolate-and-cream layer cake for Sunday ... Saturday evening, Jim, Michelle, and their boys are coming over for pizza and brownie sundaes, so I'll then don my hostess hat and we'll all have a great time.

Sunday won't be my usual Day of Rest. We'll go to church in the morning, where Don will preach and lead worship in Andy's stead, and then we'll all take a nap after lunch. But then at 3:30, the second round of guests will come for another birthday celebration -- my parents, aunt and uncle, Steve, Rosa, and Steven. We'll have that chocolate layer cake, which will have hopefully been successfully baked the day before, and I'm not sure what else is on the menu. My brain kind of shut down at that point. More food? Drinks? No plates or cups ...

Phew ... that just made me tired! No, there's no gentle easing back into "life" for me -- not with this schedule of insanity. Tuesday is my actual birthday, and I think the only thing I want ...

... is a day off!