I am the Scarecrow! (Confessions of a stressed out, working mom.)

So, I've pretty much determined that my head is full of straw.  I am the scarecrow from Wizard of Oz, and I so desperately wish that I had a brain. I used to have a brain, or at least something closely resembling it, rattling around up there, but no more.  A working mom (well, all moms really, but working outside the home full-time takes it to another level) seriously has to stretch to meet all of the needs and demands from those around, and sometimes - more than I'd like to admit, I fall so very short.  Don't get me wrong, I am not one that has a hard time saying, "No."  I don't like to over-commit myself or my children.  However, sometimes there isn't much of anything I can take off my plate. I simply have to take a deep breath, dig in, and ask for forgiveness when the peas begin to spill on the floor.  Often I can see the peas rolling off the plate, but other times I am so focused on some other portion that I fail to even notice that I've made a mess.  Lack of a brain. 

I'm pulled in so many different directions.  Work requires my attention, energy, and focus for 8+ hours a day, plus 30 minutes to eat.  My commute takes up another 2 1/2 total, on average, plus another 20-30 minutes picking up the kids at their various afternoon locales.  I am not one of those super-powered people that can function well on a lack of sleep, so a solid 7-8 (and more would be nice) hours of sleep is a must, even with the kiddos.  This is so true that my wonderful husband has learned that it's better for him to get up in the middle of the night when the baby wakes (thankfully, a rare occurrence now) - happy wife, happy life!  It also helps that our youngest actually prefers him to me at night, and has since day one, even when I was still nursing her.  (She has him so tight around her little pinky I'm surprised she has any circulation left in that particular appendage.)

So anyways, where was I?  Oh, 8.5 for work + 2.5 commute + .5 kid pick-up + 8 for sleep = 19.5 hours a day, gone.  4.5 hours left.  1 hour to get myself up, showered and out the door with baby in tow.  3.5 hours left. 1 hour spent on feeding the baby in the evening and cooking dinner for the rest of the gang. 2.5 hours left. 1 hour for dishes, tidying up, and planning/packing up lunches in the evenings (although I admit this is frequently completed by Mike on his way out the door in the morning). 1.5 hours left per day.  Once school resumes again, take another hour away for helping kids with homework, but for now we're on a reprieve from that, so...

...1.5 hours left per working day to spend quality time with God, to spend quality time with the kids, to spend quality time with Mike, to spend quality time with me (!), and not to mention laundry, serious cleaning, meal planning, grocery shopping, visiting with friends and extended family, and shuffling to and from kids' activities (which are nonexistent right now due to the restrictiveness of our budget).  Oh, and don't forget exercise - so not happening right now.  Is it any wonder that I look around me and always see straw scattered all around!

Confession time: I forgot to send in pictures for Jellybean's Father's Day present she was making at school this week.  And I forgot to send in her chips for her class party yesterday.  And I wasted nearly 20 minutes of mine and my boss' time yesterday searching for a file that he desperately needed that I had managed to mis-file.  And I spent nearly 25% of our grocery budget for the week on pizza last night so I didn't have to cook (and that was after having served Burger King, PB&J sandwiches, frozen pizzas, and I can't even remember what else on various nights this past week). And I was supposed to have a movie night with Mr. Four Walls last night while the older girls had their own movie night on a different T.V., but instead I fell asleep with the baby getting her to sleep.  Then when I did wake, I sleepily staggered into my own bed where I promptly went back to sleep for the rest of the night - no goodnight kisses to the other kids, no "Sorry, hon.  Can I take a raincheck?" to Mr. Four Walls. All week I stashed the unfolded laundry into the back of our closet instead of folding it, just in case someone came to see the house (which they didn't  - sigh).  All in all it's been a stellar week, if I may say so - or at least one for the record books, if a record book is kept for mothering ineptitude.

Now I'm off to set the foundation for a better week (and hopefully a restful Father's Day for Mr. Four Walls) around the Four Walls home: laundry folding, kitchen and bathroom scrubbing, HEALTHY meal planning and shopping, etc, etc, etc. I apologize to my friends and family if it has been your "pea" that has rolled from my plate, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart if you have helped me contain any of the scrumptious, green vegetables that I let roll away.  I also apologize in advance to my friends and family if they find any of my brain matter in their food or in their homes.  At least it's only straw and can be easily discarded - or fed to the neighbor's horses.

Purgatory, Dirty Underwear, Falling Ladders, and Perspective

Another week, and no lookers since those last Thursday.  Still waiting.

I'm not Catholic, so bear with me here. I know that the previous Pope declared that Purgatory does not exist.  Biblically speaking, as a Protestant Christian, I agree.  However, in this physical-realm I think that it does, in way, whenever we have to wait.  I mean really waiting,  Anxiously waiting, for something serious.  Not just when you have to be patient for the checker at Fred Meyer, or wait a month or two until you have the money to buy something you really want.  I mean Wait with a capital W, as in Waiting on test results to know if the cancer has returned, or as in Waiting to hear from the doctor if a loved one is going to pull-through the surgery.  Big Waiting. Potentially life-changing Waiting. The time when you have a house on the market is lower-case waiting....waiting for when someone will stop in for a look....waiting for when an offer will come in....waiting to see if your dear husband cleaned up the dirty underwear before he and the kids left the house this morning.  Throw into the mix that you're not trying "simply" to sell a house, but you're trying to beat the foreclosure clock and all the ramifications of that process.  In this scenario, the limbo-fires slowly begin to creep in and consume the perimeter of a barren waiting room, with my family in the center, huddled in our hard, plastic, circa-1962 airport terminal chairs. Upper-case Waiting.  Big Waiting.  Purgatory Waiting.

But not really.  See, there are days when I can really feel the heat of the flames as they hungrily lick at the foundation of my financial future.  Foreclosures are big, black marks in this credit driven society, no doubt about it.  And boy, are we waiting.  Waiting for an offer.  Waiting for the bank.  Waiting to find out when and where we'll be moving, where the kids will attend school, whether or not we'll find a place that fits in our budget and still meets our needs (and maybe a few wants).  Waiting, waiting, waiting.  God is so good, though, and always comes through to put things back in perspective for me when I start to sweat from the heat, making me stop in my anxiety-riddled tracks, reminding me that this is not purgatory. Sometimes it's in the form of a note from a friend, offering a prayer or a bit of encouragement.  Sometimes it comes from seeing the sweet smile on my baby's face as she reaches up to greet me after a long day, squealing as I lift her into the air for a long-overdue embrace.  Sometimes a ladder falls, and we get to truly experience the big Waiting. Anxious, worried, pleading, prayerful waiting as loved ones are at the hospital and we sit in our chairs, unable to impact the outcome. 

This weekend, as we passed the time relaxing and catching up with my oldest brother and his family, such an incident occurred.  Work was being done on his home.  Power tools, powered up.  Hoses and pressure washers, rolled out.  Ladders, extended.  The sun was shining, the baby was napping, and the kids were playing happily as the adults did chores and chit-chatted.  Then, shortly before noon, a crash and a scream shattered the idyllic din of laughter, power tools, and good tunes that were serving our Sunday morning soundtrack.  While moving a heavy, 40-foot extension ladder my brother's brother lost control of it (my family-tree is not included in this post as it would be too large and complicated for even a single branch to be explained...), and it came crashing down.  On. top. of. his. four. year. old. son.  Purgatory Waiting.  Mr. Four Walls saw it happening from where he was working inside the house, but couldn't get to him quickly enough.  Purgatory Waiting. He was there a split-second after the bottom rung landed squarely in the sweet child's head.  He ripped that ladder off the boy and scooped him out from under the weight.  But the damage was done.  The ladder had fallen, and it had landed on a small child, hitting him the head and pinning him to the ground. We assessed him as he cried (a wonderful sound, given the circumstances).  Relatively little blood.  Some serious goose-eggs.  Reactive pupils.  No loss of consciousness.  His dad strapped him into his car seat and whisked him to the hospital, while my sister-in-law called the boy's mother.  Purgatory Waiting.  A text: initial assessment is that he's okay, but they want to do a CAT scan.  Purgatory Waiting.  Another text: CAT scan done, waiting for results.   Purgatory Waiting.  Another text:  CAT scan done, results look good, and he can go home.  Miraculous, inexplicable, and utter relief.

A ladder fell, a miracle was granted, and I was reminded what I'm writing about.  Four walls, a roof, a door, some windows.  No more, no less.  We usually raise ladders for better reach, for better perspective.  Yesterday a ladder had to fall to give me a better perspective.  Am I still waiting in a limbo-like state?  Yes.  Will we feel some heat in the months and years ahead?  Yes.  Will I always remember how I feel today, with this better perspective?  Maybe, but I'll probably have more days when my vision is clouded over a bit.  But for today I remember, I see, that while my circumstances are conducive to big Waiting, Purgatory Waiting, there can, and will, be bigger Waits.  Scarier Waits.  More painful Waits.  Purgatory, in the traditional sense, does not exist - but falling ladders do.  Definitely helps to give me the perspective me get over the dirty underwear left on the bedroom floor.

Hug your children, and please brush up on your ladder/power-tool safety if you're doing any projects around the house this summer.

Not Amused

The house has been on the market for 7 days.  We've had one looker, and as of yesterday they were seriously considering making an offer.  Today we've heard nothing from our agent, so I can only assume that they've either decided to pass or have not yet made their decision, and I'm doing my best to not care.  It's so strange.  When our agent told us we had someone seriously interested, I was happy and devastated, all at once.  Like that mix of excitement and fear you get from riding a roller-coaster.  A roller-coaster.  I feel like I've been on a huge roller-coaster for two and a half years, and I want to get off!  I want to be on stable, solid ground again.  I've never been one for amusement park rides.

Goodbye Teddy

I remember the first time I saw this house.  It was a beautiful, hot July day in 2006.  Our wonderful agent had worked an Open House at our previous house the whole day, and by mid-afternoon had three full-price offers for us to review.  That house had only been on the market for three days, and while we knew it was a great house we didn't expect it to move so quickly!  Being the trooper she was, she agreed to spend the late afternoon and evening with us and our then youngest daughter, then two years old,  looking at houses.  We looked at several, and a few piqued our interest but they weren't quite right.  The very last house in the stack was a tri-level and it seemed to be way too far off the beaten path, both of which were strikes against it in my eyes.  Nor was I enthused by the photos of it in the listing.  It looked awkward and all I could see when I looked at it was the garage  However, we were already out and about and it was just another few minutes, so I agreed to look at one more house that day. 

As we rounded the corner onto the street, I knew I was home, and I hadn't even pulled into the driveway.  We climbed the stairs onto the porch; I turned and could see the foothills of the mountains in the East and the beginnings of a fiery, summer sunset over the tree-tops in the West.  The sounds of kids playing in the late evening warmth rose up from the surrounding backyards and echoed through the neighborhood.  Our agent unlocked the house and we stepped inside.  The previous owners had just moved the last of their things out that afternoon, and the house was freshly cleaned.  And it was so beautiful.  I loved the colors.  I loved the lines.  I loved the yard.  I LOVED the bathtub.  Our daughter and I even climbed in and sat for a few minutes, pretending to take a bubble bath.  Mr. Four Walls was pleased that I was pleased, but was sold the moment he opened the garage door and saw all the space.  Yep, this would do it for him. 

We went back to our house, ordered pizza for our agent and her husband, who had joined us by that point, and sat down to write up the offer.  About 36 hours later, we had a signed agreement with the sellers, and the beautiful but out-of-the-way, last-house-on-the-list was well on its way to becoming our home.  The home that our kids would run to from the bus stop after school for years until they were old enough to park their cars in front of it.  The home that our families would travel to for too much Turkey on cold, blustery November Thursdays.  The home that we would sit in, listening to frogs sing their courtship songs across the lake and wetlands that border the neighborhood and to the far off drum-cadence during the high-school football games, instead of the airplanes, sirens, and and gunshots that rang through the streets of our old neighborhoods.  We'd worked hard, building a business and building a life that was better for us and for our young kids, and we had found the home in which to celebrate those accomplishments. 

Today the for-sale sign went in out front, and strangers can now peer into my kitchen, my bathrooms, my closets with just a mere phone call, and actually with just the click of a mouse.  It's so strange to think about, someone else walking through this house, wanting it to be their home.  We sold our last house, and while we'd put a lot of ourselves into it, it felt so right and appropriate that someone else should want it. It was time to move on. This feels different.  This feels wrong, like.... like a piece of my life is up for grabs.  Like when I was little and my older brothers would snatch one of my prized stuffed animals and toss it back and forth above my head to taunt me, and try as I might I couldn't get it back from them.  The difference here is that at some point my brother would either get bored and drop it where ever they were as they moved onto their next trouble-making endeavor, or my parents would intervene and tell them to leave me alone. Either way, I'd get my sweet teddy-bear back.  This time, however, no one will get bored, no one will intervene, and I won't get to take back my "teddy-bear."  No.  It's been thrown over the fence into the mean neighbor's yard, and their dogs have now made it their personal chew-toy.  It's gone for good, and I have to move on.