Days Like This

Some times you have a day where you didn't get nearly enough sleep the night before and you're tired and cranky all day long, other times you have a day where you feel immensely upset about something beyond your control, and occasionally you have a day where you feel like the world's worst mom. Then there are days like this one where you have all three rolled into one.

This past week was already rough and emotionally draining because Daniel's grandma passed away. It happened just as we were heading home from visiting family for Thanksgiving in Oklahoma, so we were financially strapped. We've both been stressed and not sure if he should have used the very last bit of our emergency fund to get a last minute ticket to the funeral. Instead we had a tiny family memorial here at home with our older two girls. We pulled out all our family photos, older and more recent, of Great Grandma Arlene and talked about her life and Daniel's childhood memories of her. The girls loved learning about her and what it was like to go to her house when Daddy was little.

On top of that, this whole week Kevin has been fussy all day and won't sleep at night, so I've been going on about 3 hours of sleep each night. This morning we took him to see the doctor, and sure enough he still has an ear infection. I took him to get round two of antibiotics and they had a problem at the pharmacy so it took over an hour to get his prescription filled.

I also noticed this morning that the breaks were grinding and not working properly so I took the van to be checked at Just Brakes. It had several problems that totalled over $1,000 worth of repairs. To come up with the money we had to not only drain our emergency fund dry but also use our tithe money and our Christmas money and our food money. All we've got left is enough gas money for Daniel to get to work and back (hopefully) for the next two weeks.

I feel horrible (not just because I yelled at the kids due to stress and lack of sleep) because Christmas is going to really stink this year. I was hoping to make it really special since this may be the first real family Christmas Latte has ever had. So I'm going to try to think of ideas for crafts and fun stuff we can do with what we've got. And I'll have to find a way to be more creative with cooking at home because there will be zero eating out the rest of this month.

And just to top off my day, I had to wait in the lobby of Just Brakes for four hours with 4 cranky kids, one of whom was screaming due to his ear infection, and then I was late to Christmas Concert practice because I had to drive Daniel to work. Then I had to leave practice early at 8:30pm to get the kids home and in bed because we have to get up early and pick Daniel up from work tomorrow morning. I'm going to bed now just to make this day END.