Can I get a do over please?

Ever wake up and feel like you need to go back to bed to try starting your day over? Me! Today.

Come with me and I'll tell you. I was supposed to teach a class this morning at 10:00 at the hospital. It's not one I usually teach so I was already a little apprehensive about it. Because I'm now a single mother I had no childcare which meant I had 3 cherubs to take along with me. I'd gotten up early. Hit the treadmill. Was completely ready to go. My plan was to sit the kids down for breakfast and then prep for class before we had to go. At 8:30, my phone rang and I learned that they were expecting me then. Snap! Lines of communication apparently got crossed between the schedulers. I still had one kiddo that needed dressed. So we scrambled and got down there as quick as we could. Since I didn't get the chance to prep I really had no idea what it was that I was going to discuss with them.You know what's funny? We ended up discussing how no one is any more/less important than anyone else when it comes to caring for patients no matter your education or certification level. Each and every person has the ability to make a lasting impact. Eversmeyer is teaching us even now. I could feel him smiling down during class.

Fast forward the day a bit. The middle part of our day seemed to go fair. We weren't making huge progress but we were at least treading water. Until....

My oldest came to me and asked, "Mom, where's Ainsley?" Long story short, Little Miss had decided she wanted to go outside and let herself out. Mommy fail!! About the time I was ready to hit the panic button I found her on our neighbor's front porch. Needless to say she received some discipline and a lesson learned. Meanwhile, I just shaved a few years off my life. Sheesh!

Following that fiasco, we sat down together as a family for supper. This is the time you really gotta be prepared for rapid fire, out of no where, tough questions. That and bedtime. We were enjoying our meal talking about the day when Aidan asked me, "Where's dad buried mom?" Dun dun dun. It led to us having a conversation I wasn't quite ready for. I told him that we hadn't buried daddy and reminded him that daddy had been cremated. We refreshed on what that meant exactly. The boys wanted to know if his ashes look like fire pit ashes. Ah the innocence of a child. We talked about how daddy is on top of his dresser right now so he can be close to all of us. Aidan wanted to know if we would bury him someday. I told him likely we would eventually bury daddy with his family in Wapello. This was pretty stressful for Aidan because he "wanted to have someplace to go see daddy" but felt like it should be here close to us so we could go frequently. After discussing that we decided we're glad daddy is with us at home right now. And just like that the subject switched to talking about what daddy was doing in heaven today. The boys decided he was spending his day outside playing ball with Leila and Cooper who are also in heaven. Such a sweet way to think of our daddy today.

And to cap it all off, while I was handling the supper dishes tonight I could hear the kids upstairs playing and laughing. My heart was content listening to them playing so well together. I should have known! I came up the stairs to find that the boys had decided to become tattoo artists and use their bodies as canvas with sharpie marker. Yup! They didn't just cover their arms, they had it all over their faces as well. Somehow in this process they'd managed to get all the clean laundry spread out on the bathroom floor and soaked which now meant I had no clean laundry. Thank goodness for a sweet neighbor to come over and help save my sanity. I tapped Danny's urn and told him I was glad he was having such a laugh over our crazy life today. Goodness knows we could be on a sitcom some days.

On a positive note, I did have someone come measure to fix my concrete steps and someone else to come look at my flooring fiasco.

Today, even though my nerves are frazzled and I feel overwhelmed, I'm so thankful that I got to listen to those kid's belly laughter and to be home with them the last couple of days. I really do have the best kids....even when they drive me to insanity. Thank goodness for hair color!