worlds worst day...

I know this blog is primarily to record all the cute, and not so cute things that my kiddos do on a day to day basis... but today i thought id take a bit (or an hour) and type out the craziness of my life the last two days. it got so bad that i posted on facebook, "i have such a crazy life!", to which my good friend jen said- "duh, youre just realizing this now?". i then replied, "i realize that my everyday life would easily be considered crazy by most peoples standards, but today is crazy by MY standards- which is saying a LOT!" needless to say, i wanted to shoot myself last night. maybe not with a real gun, but a tranquilizer. a big one. So here goes...

Im gonna try not to make this sounds like a rant against my husband, because its not meant to be. Just when he said,

"This weekend is the PERFECT weekend to go visit my papa! im not carpooling, ill just spend the night at his house and go straight to work the next morning! why dont you come with me? ill find a babysitter for the kids... dont worry, ill take care of EVERYTHING... it will be fun!..."

and i bet you can see how the rest of this will turn out. Granted, he did ask his family to watch the boys, and they said yes, so yes, to him, everything was all taken care of.

What he didnt take care of was the when, the how, and the how long parts. friday morning comes along, i get woken up at 5am (after going to bed after midnight) by three very rambunctious boys. i turn on the tv, and try to snooze as long as i can. i finally get up up, and have to rush out of the house for a presidency meeting at 1030. i wanted to get as much in the car as i could, so i loaded 3 pillows,3 blankets, 3 sleeping stuffed animals, 3 sets of clothes, 3 sets of jammies, and 5 extra pairs of underwear (for a still crappily potty trained ethan). i have my presidency meeting. on my way back home, i call chris, and asks him what we should do with the dogs. he says, "ill call you right back- after i talk to hyrum to see if he can let in the dogs at night and let them back out in the morning." He never calls back. i make it home, leave the kids in the car to watch a movie while i finish collecting an entire semi truck full of stuff (it feels like, anyway). i need to pack props for a newborn shoot (that i planned at the last minute, since i was going down to oceanside anyway), including lights and backdrops, pack all my camera equipment, pack props (including a vintage childrens sofa) for my vintage summer themed playgroup minishoot the following morning, pack clothes for myself, my husband, overnight toiletries. get the dog beds in the backyard, and tons of food and water, incase no one comes by to let the dogs in that night. run out the door, and head to oceanside.

while on my way, i get a call from a client who wants to confirm our photoshoot for the following morning. she is not on my calendar (which means we never confirmed ahead of time), and now i have to tell her that we have to reschedule. shes bummed. i tell her i can do it on sunday (without looking at my calendar, since im driving), because i *never* schedule shoots on sundays, and i feel bad. she says ok. we hang up. i already have something scheduled on sunday. so i call her back. so we set it for the following day at 7pm. i already have one at 7. so i call her back. now its at 530. done. three phone calls later.
we arrive at my parents house. even though my inlaws are watching the boys friday night and sat morning, i have that newborn shoot scheduled, so i asked to put the boys down while stacie watches them. right before i leave for my shoot, i realize that she gave me her address over facebook IM, and i didnt write it down before closing the window. i dont have her phone number, AND i dont know where to go. i send her a message on facebook, hoping she realizes that when i dont shot up, shell check her FB for a message for me.

while im waiting for her to call me, i get a message from my brother Ben (on a student trip to germany), that he has no money and he is stranded on the other side of the world. i help my frantic mom work out a wire transfer to a location about a block away from his hostel. crisis averted.

once i am 30 minutes late, my photoshoot client calls me, gives me her address. im about to leave, when Paul (my brother in law) calls, and says he left work early to pick up the boys. HUH? sweet thought, but WHY?. apparently my husband had it arranged that i was supposed to be in rancho bernardo by 4. say WHAaaaT? so i postpone the boys nap, until their uncle can come, transfer 3 carseats and all their crap into his car, and take them to my in-laws house.

i make it to my shoot. it goes great. i leave (much later than planned, of course), to go to rancho bernardo. meanwhile, my cell phone is dying, i have no charger, and without it, i am completely lost. i charge it for a few minutes here at my parents house, and that gets me enough to get to rancho bernardo. we get to papas house, have a nice time at dinner, play some games, and i conk out at 930 (SUPER early for me!). before bed, i ask my husband to get my camera battery charger out of the car, so my battery can charge before my NINE shoots the following day. He gets it, plugs it in, charges HIS phone in the car JUST enough to last for his morning alarm clock. because we only have ONE car charger for the two of us, we decide that my phone is more important, and ill take the charger the following day. he will be unreachable, as he will turn his phone off all day so he has just enough battery to call me and tell me that he BETTER be leaving on time, since i have two photoshoots in the afternoon in temecula. HA- so much for planning, right?

I wake up at 630, so i can leave with enough time to get to oceanside, pick up a dozen balloons for my themed vintage field playgroup photoshoot. i get there, plug in my camera battery and...


It hasnt been charged. at ALL. apparently it wasnt plugged in or something all night long. i have 2 bars of battery left on one battery, and only 1 bar left on the other. OH SHOOT. i have SEVEN photoshoots in a row, that will last over 3 hours.

and so the stress begins. between 7 back to back mini photoshoots, i am turning off my camera every 5 minutes, trying to conserve as much battery power as i can, while juggling a bunch of fairly cooperative adorable toddlers, balloons that keep flying away (because alberstons didnt put on a heavy enough weight!), in the hot summer sun, thinking in my head... "what do i do if my batteries are all dead and im not DONE??? swear word, swear word, swear word.... (said all in my head, of course). im getting a headache. BARELY finished the last shoot before my battery died. and i mean BARELY.


i finish at 11ish, and head to my inlaws to pick up the kiddos. crazy day done, right? WRONG. i get a text from my sister in law (during my photoshoots), saying that it looks like ethan is allergic to something and has a crazy rash. my father in law (who used to be a firefighter paramedic) comes home, and says it looks like a tick bite that has swollen and gotten infected (he had a silver dollar sized red hot target on his chest), and that i need to take him to urgent care. thinking that i can get an emergency appointment in oceanside, while my inlaws can still watch him, i call the SD appointment center. after being on the phone with on call nurses and everything for 20 minutes, they say that the urgent care will call me back within 3 hours to make an appointment. it is now 1130. i dont have three hours. so i pack up all the kids in the car (since my phone is dying once again, and i can only charge my phone while the car is running), and head back to temecula. then i call the riverside appointment line, go through the whole process once again. they said theyd call me back asap. i get an appointment in wildomar at urgent care for 215. now i have to find a babysitter, since the twins will be taking a nap. call a friend, left a message. call another friend, she's working. call a young woman from the ward- YAY! got a babysitter.


check my voicemail. call back a sweet friend who just lost her baby at 24 weeks, she had to go through labor to deliver a dead baby. try to console. im now crying on the freeway. make it home at 12:30. let the boys in, make them lunch, start unloading all my memory cards to make room for my next 2 photoshoots, get my camera battery on the charger. hopefully it will charge fast enough to last. check on the dogs. somehow during the night, they got into the tall cabinet that holds our TP and paper towel stockade. they manage to rip through the plastic wrap, rip out a bunch of TP rolls and towel rolls, and tear them to SHREDS. and then pee on them. awesome. so i clean that up. try to straighten the house so the babysitters dont think we are complete slobs. 145 comes along, the babysitters get here, and i run out the door to take ethan to urgent care, hoping that i dont have another immediate hospital stay (like the LAST time i had to take ethan in for a freak health thing *remember the swollen head, the bulging ear from the mastoiditis a couple months ago? with the 4 day hospital stay, and month long IV PICC line antibiotics?*). so now ethan might have LYME disease? great.



we get to the urgent care appt. Dr doesnt know what it is, but it takes 2 to 3 weeks to be able to test positive for lyme disease. its rare in so cal, but not as rare in AZ and NV where he got bit by the 'bug' on our camping trip last week. if its not gone in one to two weeks, then come back to get tested. get a prescription for antibiotics. go to the pharmacy. need to wait 40 minutes. go outside to kill time. while ethan is playing in the bushes, i get a phone call from chris. to tell me he was NOT leaving on time. turns out, he was in a CAR ACCIDENT. in his PATROL CAR. has lots of REPORTS to do. will be home LATE.

AND i love my life. i get off the phone, and turn to see ethan dropping trousers on the ground and trying to poop in the bushes in the parking lot. lovely. scoop him up, and run inside to the bathroom. while pulling his pants down, he pees on me. fabulous. while in the bathroom, ethan pooping (at least it was on the toilet this time!), im frantically calling friends to see who can emergency babysit AGAIN, for my two photoshoots in about an hour and a half. (short interject here- my friends are the BEST! willing to change plans, or take my kids with them on their plans, just so they can help me out. thank heaven for great friends!). find a friend more than willing to help. YAY! pick up the prescription covered in pee. head home.

did i mention that i still have that headache???

next stop, home. i have an hour and a half before i need to be at my next photoshoot. try and get ethan to take a nap. he wont. he pees on the floor. put him back in bed. go back downstairs. ethan sneaks out of bed, squeezes bright red strawberry toothpaste all over the carpet in the bathroom.

im trying to get 7 sneak peeks up on the blog. all the kids are up. ethan never even went down. while cleaning up the toothpaste mess upstairs, ethan gets into the kitchen fridge downstairs. i come into the kitchen to find a dozen and a half eggs. smashed and broken. on the kitchen floor. clean that up. headache is officially a migraine.



5:15 My wonderful friend jillian comes over to watch the boys for me. i head out to do my last two back to back photoshoots. the last word from chris is that he should be home around 630, so jillian doesnt bring her baby, cause she just fed him. he should be good until almost 8. my first photoshoot went well. get a call from chris, saying now he has no idea when he will be home, because there was a big incident he was in charge of (sad story of two pitbulls attacking and eating an elderly lady in her backyard. dont think she'll make it). chris needs to make the arrests tonight, since its such a big PR case. tell jillian it will be longer before im home. run to the bank and to fill my empty gas tank in between shoots. second photoshoot goes well. make it home at 740. LOVE and THANK my friend jillian for saving the day (and shout out to tiffany and jen and jake, who were all willing to sacrifice their nights as well!!! thank you!).

migraine is throbbing. upload pics, turn on the tv for the boys.

8pm. bedtime. too tired for stories, just a quick prayer and song, hug and kiss, and i say sorry for having ignored them almost all day. turn off lights, shut their doors. go downstairs and sink into the couch. i never want to get up. Chris calls and is finally on his way home. i tell him all that i want is a bean and cheese burrito from rubios. i havent eaten all day.

920pm. Chris gets home. rubios was closed. no awesomely cheesy burrito for me.

And i officially hate my life. well, my weekend, at least. too tired to do any work. take a shower. fell asleep. oh yeah, and i still have that headache.


Well, that was my weekend from hell! i cant believe i survived. people tell me that one day, im going to miss when my boys were small and my life was busy. do you think there is any chance that im going to miss THIS crazy weekend?




i think not.