Brain Dump

Please be warned: This post is nowhere near as polished as I usually write. I just don’t have the brain power for it. Read on at your own risk.

I am exhausted. So ready to crawl in bed, yet here I am writing this post, because otherwise I think I may just go absolutely and completely insane with all these thoughts swirling around in my brain. Hopefully, writing it all down will clear my mind and then I’ll be ready for sleep.

Today has been quite a day. Up this morning and the first thing I’ve got to do is get kids up and fed, medicated, and off to school. Two headed to school (thanks to their Dad for taking them where they needed to be this morning), while Erica and I went to a 3 hour appointment at the Bowel and Bladder Clinic – we’re dealing with some issues there that need more help than I can give, and that are apparently a lovely genetic blessing I have passed on to all three of my lucky kids. I was expecting the appointment to last for 5 hours – that’s how long Isaac’s appointment took with the same clinic – so the shorter time was a wonderful blessing. Not least of the blessings of today was the clear and hopeful direction I have for helping Erica with this problem. There is a good chance we will have this one under control within a year or two (same outlook for Isaac). However, hearing this morning that this is likely genetic means I have one more child to go through this whole process with – the 3-5 hour initial appointment, then the follow-up appointments with the gastroenterologist, urologist, and physical therapist for the next 3-6 months. Thankfully it is mostly home treatment and the doctor appointments are only intense for about 6-8 weeks of that time, but it is very likely that we’ll be dealing with this for at least a year and possibly more for each child – copious amounts of medication and intense home maintenance on a daily basis.

After the B&B appointment, we picked Cambria up from Dad’s office (he was my hero again today and took her to school, went on her field trip to the fire station, and took her to the office afterwards where he fed her lunch and entertained her until I could come get her) and then it was a quick lunch and off to school with Erica. Distribute doctor’s notes to the school nurse and Erica’s teacher to make sure she is allowed and encouraged to: 1) drink a ton of water all day long and 2) use the bathroom every 2 hours.

I had planned to go home after dropping Erica off, but by the time we had finished at the school it didn’t make sense to drive for 30 minutes to be home for 25 and then turn around and drive another 30 to be in time to drive carpool. Instead, Cambria and I went to the mall where I picked up some facial cleanser (who knew acne could be adult onset???) and we rode every escalator and elevator we could find in the whole mall, trying to kill time. I think Cambria will remember this day forever, between the mall and the stop at Dairy Queen for ice cream on the way to pick kids up from school. I’m really not an ice cream fan, but today it hit the spot. There is so much to be said for emotional eating (don’t tell my therapist I said that… yikes!) and today has been a day of that for me between the ice cream, dinner, and the box of crackers I finished after the kids went to bed. Ugh – old habits die hard.

Rushed through the ice cream (well, really I rushed Cambria through it – she is the world’s slowest eater) so we were on time to pick the kids up from school. Today was a relatively good day for getting them out to the car – 2 of the 3 at the first school were in the car within 10 minutes of school letting out, and the third was out about 8 minutes after that. Off to the second school to pick up the last two who were waiting for me (YAY!) and then dropped everybody off.

Got home in time to grab the kids a snack before my hero came home to watch the younger ones so I could go to Activity Days with Erica (that’s my calling right now). We were cleaning the nursery toys today. The girls did pretty much all the work, and I got to talk to a wonderful friend (and my accomplice in Activity Days) for an hour – a blessing in and of itself!

Came home and supervised piano and violin practice, performed surgery on Bananas (the stuffed monkey Cambria brought home from school; he is the class pet and his head, tail, and one leg were hanging on by a thread so I gave him stitches), ate dinner that Kimball cooked (I’m telling you – this is one fantastic man!!!), got the kids ready for bed, and helped with Erica’s math some more (she is behind by about 30 pages in her math book so we did math at the doctor’s office and again this evening in an attempt to put a dent in that seemingly insurmountable number of pages – the kid has been lying to me about having done her math homework for the better part of the quarter, apparently). Put all the kids to bed after forcibly brushing Isaac’s teeth and administering his inhaler, then began the prep for tomorrow.

Smoothie made, paperwork filled out and test results found for Erica’s therapy intake appointment in the morning, kitchen table cleaned off (How terrible is it that I can’t remember the last time the kitchen floor was swept? Things are sticking to my feet and making me insane but I just don’t have the time to sweep it.), dishes done (once by Kimball and once by me), appointments added to the calendar for the urologist. Map printed for the appointment tomorrow morning. Turns out instead of the Meridian office, I’m headed 30 minutes away to the downtown office in the morning – good thing I decided to print a map tonight or I would have been in the wrong place!

There are a million more things I need to do. A million things running through my brain, fighting for a space and some attention. I need to buy birthday presents for my husband (who hasn’t given me a list yet… HINT, HINT), need to go through the paperwork the doctors gave me today and get Erica started on her medication, need a new water bottle for her (she destroys every single one I buy her and we are out AGAIN), have a blog post I’m trying to work on about schools for my kids, we’re out of flour so I need to grind some wheat, I missed a wedding reception and completely forgot to RSVP anyway and I need to purchase and deliver a gift, not to mention that I can’t recall the last time I read my scriptures. I’ve got to figure out what to do about school for Cambria – that means scheduling and doing testing and talking to principals and trying to worm my way in to places people don’t want me to be. I need to finish indexing the file I’m working on…

I’m sure there is more, but every time I think of something it pushes another thing right out the back of my brain. I think I am completely maxed out on brain power, especially for this late at night. I can so totally see how people might get hooked on energy pills or brain enhancing drugs. I feel like I need some of that just to keep up lately…

At any rate, this has been my day. Some really good, some overwhelming, and some not so fantastic. Not every day is misery here. Not every experience I have is completely and totally draining. Today I had a lot of good moments.

And yet I am still emotionally and physically spent – go figure.

Time to crawl in bed.