Surviving "Days on End"

At the beginning of the week, I was planning to offer a somewhat philosophical response to a comment on last post. I have no special skills or graces that help me navigate through a week (and then another, and yet another) flying solo, but we manage because we have to, and while I myself wouldn't have thought it possible, somehow it's all worked out okay, and we've more than survived.



But then Monday night Chase woke me at four in the morning with sounds that I dread more than just about anything else, and we added a stomach bug to our week. By the end of the week, with school continuing to spiral out of control (the week before we hadn't done much of anything, either, but I had a week to spare, so I didn't mind so much), the washer running almost continously, disgrutled kids who had to miss a few highly anticipated events because of our contagiousness, and several nights with less than adequate sleep, I was feeling like the Wicked Witch -certainly not very admirable or inspiring. I had had more than a few moments where the "I don't want to do this anymore!" feeling was almost overwhelming, and in the end, I just hoped that this tired and snarly creature wouldn't become a habit, and certainly wouldn't be the mom my kids remember when they're grown.



Ok, ok, so it probably hasn't been quite so bad as that - everyone did survive the week, they were all fed and bathed (and even read to sometimes!). But no one should feel awed. I feel like I've been failing on so many levels, in some ways maybe I could have helped, and in others that I probably couldn't do anything about, but altogether, it's been very difficult to keep up normal routines and happy, produtive attitudes. We have a few more weeks of this to go, though, so after a boost from this weekend (hopefully), I'll need to pull myself together and keep at it!