Lonely At The Bottom Of The Outhouse

What follows is a self-pity post, full of complaints about all the things I don't dare complain about because it would just sound like I'm asking people to pity me. I'm not; I'm just venting.

I'm going to need some serious "down time" when my life gets back to normal, because the past week has been quite stressful. Favorite Husband was out this week, which wouldn't be too bad on its own. But the World's Cutest Kids were in quarantine with the impetigo, so they all have cabin fever. Add to that the fact that now they are out of quarantine, but none of their infected friends are being quarantined by their parents (thanks a lot, other parents), and I am not allowing them to play with any infected friends lest they get re-infected. So they are effectively still in quarantine and have no friends to play with.

So I was really looking forward to being able to crash this weekend, maybe go out to celebrate our 11th anniversary (which is today). But then Favorite Husband's install job went extra-super-long and he won't be home until Sunday, when he will probably just flop down on the bed and sleep for about 24 hours. He's worked over 100 hours this week. F.H. usually watches the older kids for me on Saturday mornings so that I can go to the Gardeners' Market and they can sleep in, but I ended up having to wake the kids early and shove them out the door into the car. I will also have to herd them all to church tomorrow, where I will be the only adult trying to keep them from yelling in the middle of church, at the same time as I'm tending the baby. I'm seriously thinking about skipping Sacrament meeting, since I'll be spending the entire meeting in the mothers' room yelling at the two older kids while I nurse Bagel.

Add to the mix the fact that every single one of my relatives who live here in town has gone to California to attend the weddings of my cousins (one tomorrow, one next Sunday). So I have no "support network". I used to have friends, but most of them moved away or got absorbed in their own problems. I've been working on making more friends, but it's a long and difficult struggle for me to make friends, and I've really only got two friends right now. And I didn't really feel comfortable asking either of them to watch my kids at 6:45 in the morning on a Saturday.

Today is also Pioneer Day, a state holiday in Utah which involves fireworks. The kids had been promised sparklers for Pioneer Day because we forgot to light the sparklers on 4th of July. Well, you can't have Pioneer Day without fireworks, so we bought some fireworks to go with the sparklers. Now I have to take my kids (who have been up since 6:30 this morning) and keep them up past 9 pm so that they can light fireworks. Oooh, tomorrow's going to be extra-fun now.

Normally I'd be looking forward to Sunday because Sunday is the day I don't have to cook. F.H. cooks brunch for the kids, and we go to dinner at my parents'. But F.H. isn't here, so I'll have to cook brunch, and my parents aren't here, so I'll have to cook dinner too. (F.H. will be asleep.)

I really needed to relax and steel myself for the bathtime-fireworks-bedtime axis, so I sat down to blog and told the kids that it was "mommy time" (code for: "leave me alone"), which of course means that they come in every minute and a half with a complaint that "Sonshine is picking his nose at me" or "Tiny Princess isn't letting me watch Thomas the Tank Engine". If they don't have anything to complain about when it comes time to bother me again, they just give me kisses or try to jump on the bed where the baby is sleeping.

So here I am, cut off from meaningful adult contact, with a whole bunch of crappy little things that wouldn't ordinarily be a big deal all raining down on me at once, as if I were at the bottom of an outhouse. I think I'm going to crack open that bottle of dealcoholized wine tonight and have myself a drink, because I really need to relax and do something for myself. Maybe just for fun I'll watch that scene in "Other Side of Heaven" where the missionary accidentally tells the congregation that he's the Lord's outhouse.