Hell Week

I remember, vaguely, something called "Hell Week" in college, but it was really nothing like this one. The past couple of weeks have been awful in our household. I should probably qualify that by saying no one has died and even my cousin-in-law's baby seems to be doing much better this week. The house didn't burn down. There were no devastating earthquakes in California.

And now that I've written all that, it seems ridiculously petty to complain about the backlash infection I got for using antibiotics to clear up a sinus infection. I won't go into the horror behind that whole thing. Next time I need antibiotics I'll be loading up on yogurt like nobody's business.

That was the middle of last week. On Friday, Aunt Karen and SPENCER! arrived for a 4-day visit. When they booked it, it seemed like a great idea. Aunt Karen had a 4-day weekend and at least we had a weekend, but it quickly became clear that our weekend was so packed with stuff that it was going to be a challenge to see much of them.

Friday night, Smunch and Daddy were out playing laser tag as a school-sponsored "Boys Night Out". So Mam and I picked Aunt Karen and SPENCER! up at the airport on a dark rainy evening. We met our parents for dinner at Chili's, which turned out to be something of a disaster. The kids were tired, the service was slow. We were probably there for an hour and a half, all told.

By the time we got home, Daddy and Smunch were already back. Smunch had had a meltdown during the second game of laser tag. He was too tired, but he was still up. He was trying to sleep upstairs while SPENCER! used his room. It wasn't going well. And he wanted to see Aunt Karen and Spencer, so down the stairs he came. He was up and down over and over until about 9:30. It didn't bode well for baseball tryouts the next morning.

But it turns out there were other things that bode even more poorly for baseball tryouts. About 7:00 the next morning, Daddy came to me, iPhone in hand, asking "WHERE is your phone??". I thought about it for a minute. I'd used it to call my parents on our way to Chili's and to call Daddy when we left Chili's. "It's in the van." I said.

He showed my his phone with a single text message sent at 3:30 in the morning. "Fuck you, nigger, " it said. It was sent from my phone. Nice.

Turns out, unbeknownst to me, Daddy had left the mommymobile in the driveway after making an emergency Pull-Up run on Friday night. I'm still not sure why, or why he didn't realize my purse was in the front seat, or at Aunt Karen's purse was in the backseat. Or why he didn't lock the van. On most nights, this would have been annoying, but not so unfortunate. Turns out, it happened to be the night when a bunch of marauding teenagers canvassed our entire neighborhood, leaving havoc in their wake. The stole all the cash from both purses (not much from Aunt Karen and way too much from me), our cell phones, which we later found smashed to bits in the street, and Aunt Karen's keys to her house and cars in San Diego.

Needless to say, the police showed up at our house by 7:30 to take a report...only to be taking at least another 23 reports from our neighbors later in the day. It didn't help with Smunch's focus any. I'll be blogging about the tryouts later. Later that day, we realized our home phone was totally on the fritz, dropping every incoming call after a single ring.

After tryouts, Daddy tried in vain to get Smunch to take a nap. They had tickets to a San Jose Sharks game. Smunch had never been to a hockey match before and he was psyched, but on so little sleep, his behavior rapidly deteriorated and he became a complete nightmare. He still got to go and he had a fantastic time, but I'll save that for another post too.

By Sunday, the police had found Aunt Karen's keys over at the kids' elementary school. Thank goodness. Although the missing cash is super annoying, the missing keys were even more so. By then, Aunt Karen had also replaced her phone. We all attended the Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby (also another post), where we were mostly bored to tears, especially SPENCER! and Mam. Who knew participating in the Pinewood Derby meant sacrificing an entire Sunday afternoon?

By Monday our home phone was completely dead, but Daddy went out and got me a new cell to placate me. The vandalism finally gave me the needed motivation to get a phone plan that actually fits me. I figure I stand to save about $30/month with the new phone, easily making up the cost of both the phone and all the cash I lost in the first year. Yes. I was silly for sticking with my original phone plan.

Monday afternoon, Mam came down with a fever that kept her home from school on Tuesday...a day when I had to have Daddy stay home with her so I could go to a PTA board meeting...where I'm a volunteer secretary for the board. Ugh. The fever was gone by noon and we all got to play with Aunt Karen and Spencer until Mam had to go to basketball practice...and Aunt Karen and Spencer had a plane to catch.

Wednesday went well. Mam went back to school. Everyone was happy. I got some critical errands done for Smunch's birthday party this weekend. I got hit up to be our school's liaison for the parcel tax vote in November and had to think about that before realizing I was going to have to say 'no' because that kind of work is really not up my alley, even though I have a firm appreciation for how important it will be to renew the parcel tax this year.

Wednesday night, it became rapidly clear that Mam had an eye infection. She stayed home again Thursday morning...when I was signed up to volunteer twice at school. Daddy stayed home a little extra and I found a substitute to take the kindergartners to the library (I have serious brownie points racked up in that class for subbing for several other people at various times). I took Mam to the doctor when I got back, dropped off a prescription at CVS, dropped Mam off at home, went back for the prescription only to find out the pharmacist had read the slip wrong and had to reissue everything rather than just telling me to ignore the label (go figure.)

And here we are at Friday. The kids are both at school.

My eyes itch...and I have a cake to decorate.