The Train is off the Rails

Our family train is officially off the rails.  No if's, and's or but's about it.  We are praying hard for an improvement, but in the meantime it has been absolutely insane.  What does off the rails look like, you ask?  Have you ever had such a day in which crazy things, out of your control, not of the positive sort, keep happening to you and you simply want to go to bed and start over?  Ya, that has been the last seven or eight days around here.

It began with a day in which I tried to take the girls on a bike ride and forgot to tuck my pants in my shoe and thus, ripped them quite grandly and a hundred yards later the girls were cold and I needed to stop and close the cover on the bike trailer.  I was simply trying to get some quick exercise...Then I got home and managed to track dog poop through the family room and into the kitchen, all the while wondering who had "such muddy shoes". I mean, really....it was just supposed to be a bike ride to enjoy one of the last pleasant days.

Later we had the incident of M pulling a carton of cream off of the counter and spilling it down the front of the dishwasher, across the floor, and as we later discovered, also into the otherwise clean and full dishwasher. Seriously, I was just trying to make some soup.

I have had to clean up potty accidents much more than usual this past week.  One of the couch cushion covers is currently hanging up to dry in the basement. You are welcome to come and chat anytime on our comfy couch!

 M spilled an open water bottle on a library book while at Z's swimming lessons.  The book survived, but he was soaked for the afternoon of errands. Not too much harm done there.  Just every person we saw surely thought I was quite the irresponsible mom for not taking care of the poor kid's diaper.

Our family has been working on a very nice 1000 piece puzzle depicting a pleasant fall scene.  We were nearly done.  But, apparently, our older dog, Jax, decided that the table upon which we have been doing the puzzle is suddenly his favorite spot in which to keep an eye on the neighborhood while we are gone.  We came home to 1000 pieces on the floor (at least we hope they all were there). Now, this is getting ridiculous.

Then we had a rather large scare.  M fell down the last two stairs in our house and nearly knocked himself out.  It was a weird fluke thing with something that was left on the stairs and him trying to go around it.  Usually, M is very careful.  Ryan actually came home from work to help me monitor him (keep him awake for a while, watch his eyes, and all that stuff).  He is OK, but it was obviously terrifying.  OK, can I take a vacation now? For those of you wondering: yes we have stair gates, but they don't fit in this home's stairs (we recently moved) and M usually waits for me before venturing onto the stairs (yes he really is that kind of mellow kid).

Oh, ya...and our truck's check engine light just came on.  Seriously????

But wait there is more! This last weekend we went to celebrate my brother-in-law's birthday at my parent's home.  We packed up and headed out.  The guys all planned to spend the day attending a college football game.  So, my sister and I decided to spend the afternoon at the outlets and leave the kids with grandma.  In the first store I kept feeling this strange sensation on the outside of my left calf.  I finally looked down and saw water spots all over my lower leg and boot.  I quickly traced it to my purse.  Imagine my horror when I opened the top of my purse and saw a mini swimming pool!!! We quickly paid for what we were holding and went outside with some paper towels that the clerk had given us.

Outside I began trying to fix the situation.  I pulled out items and began handing them to my sister: wallet (not too much harm done), the checkbook (it will dry out), cell phone and keys (those were in an upper pocket),
bags of cheerios (no problem there), a bag of pretzels and raisins (again, no biggie), a container of wipes (whatever), a couple of diapers (why these didn't soak any liquid up I'll never know), a few dripping grocery lists, and THE CAMERA!  You have got to be kidding me! To finish this cleaning effort I then try to dump out the remaining water onto the ground and discover a few rolling pennies, girls clips, and a few bobby pins.  We were such a sight to behold!

So, where did all of this water come from?  A water bottle. I was feeling rather dehydrated that day and stuck it in my purse when we got out of the car.  Simple as that.  It somehow came unlatched and whoosh!  I hardly ever keep the camera in my purse, but had quickly put it in my purse on our way out for the weekend.  Currently, it is drying out, but we do not hold much hope for its survival.  After its trauma it turned itself on and had an unresponsive white screen.  So, other than pics that I either had or I receive from my mom (such as below) this blog may be 'pictureless' for quite sometime. 

Life with five very small people is crazy enough on a normal basis.  Lately it has been a nearly too much to handle.  We will appreciate any and all prayers involving our family and peace.

We did have a fun time with family and our kids had a blast with their cousins.  S (blue pants) and her cousin are about 7 months apart.  And J is only 4 months apart from my sister's son.