The last five minutes or so...

Here's a photo of our little "Zombie Ladybug"...she was SO tired!

More photos to come...

I must be the only blogger in America who hasn't posted pictures of her kids from Halloween. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who is trying very hard not to pull her hair out, strand by strand, in frustration over technical difficulties. It can't be just me...can it?

Up until now, I have tried to keep my blog posts positive...or at least self-depracating enough to be somewhat funny...well, I'm tired. It's been a crazy week...one of those where you know lots of people have it worse than you...lots of people would trade everything for YOUR problems...one of those where you know you should be thankful for your blessings and, deep down, you are...one of those where you finally smack the wall and want to have a good cry. And that's where I am. I'm just stinkin' tired, and the fact that I couldn't get my slideshow to work just did me in!

Okay, I've whined...if you want a good laugh, here goes...the following are highlights of my last seven days...let's start with last Tuesday...

• Oldest kid home with bronchitis...take her to the doctor...we see the other doctor because NATURALLY it's our doctor's day off...lectured on the uselessness of cough syrup...doctor takes a look at her ankle while we're there and says it's still in bad shape...back to crutches...teenager melt-down...run back and forth to store to get correct inhaler and spacer...stop and buy a BIG COKE!
• Youngest kid wakes up in the middle of the night, just as I am headed to bed after working late on a project...won't go back to sleep...finally put her in our bed...falls asleep...two hours later, alarm goes off and big kids start getting ready for school...move baby back to crib so she won't wake up...she wakes up...Mommy is cranky because she's tired and now has to get ready for work with a cranky baby who usually sleeps till we walk out the door underfoot...stop and buy BIG COKE!
• RUN back home after work...put exhausted child to bed for a much-needed nap...look longingly at pillow and then leave the room before crying...move like lightning to clean up the kitchen and living room and prepare chili and cider and lemon bars for supper and get costumes ready for trick-or-treating...drag child who DIDN'T sleep because she slept 20 stinkin' minutes at school out of bed and prop her eyelids up for a night of festivities...cover entire neighborhood in under two hours before collapsing...even Coke won't help now...
• Wake next morning to oldest child still struggling with bronchitis and staying home another day...realize that this is the day to get everything ready for boy child's birthday party...spend afternoon looking for camouflage plates and napkins, face paint, army guys, etc., for Friday night's party...run oldest child to band practice because the world will spin off its axis if she misses...consume copious amounts of caffeine in order to stay up late helping oldest child finish ridiculously elaborate geography project (don't even ask)...
• Wake to youngest child screaming at 5:30 AM!!!! (did I mention she ALWAYS sleeps late?!)...try to no avail to get said child back to sleep...which means Mommy doesn't sleep, either...get ready for work with CRANKY child underfoot AGAIN...bake cake for son's birthday party, pack lunches, yada yada yada....run to work and back again...put comatose child into bed (AMEN) and then work like a mad woman designing a fairly impressive battlefield birthday cake...entertain five boys and two girls for a three-hour birthday bash...write letter to self stating that I shall not ever be silly enough to host a boy's birthday party in my house ever again and swear to resort to selling blood plasma, if necessary, to pay for Chuck E. Cheese or any other venue of choice in order to avoid having my head explode from the noise...oh, and keep vigil over oldest child and visiting BOYFRIEND...drink a VERY LARGE COKE!
• Wake up way too early to help get oldest child out the door to band practice and manage to run out of time to go back to bed...bolt out the door on Saturday morning to go to boy child's football awards ceremony...run back home to work like mad on cd of photos for adoption agency's photo contest then run to FedEx to mail cd while husband looks on with a very practiced "Eeyore" look because he has to start staining the fence by himself...run home to work on a measly amount of laundry before packing remaining kids off to neighbors so that husband and I can go to band competition...sit behind obnoxious rival fans who shall remain nameless except in my head where their stupid clappers and cow bells are still ringing...suck it up when obnoxious fans' team WINS the competition...wait up until 2 am for child to get home from band...can anyone say CAFFEINE?...feed child meal because she's "STARVING" and doctor child's bum ankle...pass out at 3 am, praising God in heaven and whoever else was responsible for an extra hour of sleep thanks to the time change...
• Wake up with a raging headache and race around to get our family out the door ON TIME...yes, I said ON TIME...because it is youngest child's dedication day...manage to get to church ON TIME without any major mishaps...and without any breakfast...grab fast food and a REALLY BIG COKE for lunch...wrestle youngest child for an inordinate amount of time in getting settled for a nap after giving up on getting a nice photo of her in her Chinese outfit on her dedication day...change clothes and spend the afternoon helping husband work on fence staining project...try to relax and watch Colts game while thawing out from chilling wind...try not to cry when Colts lose game to Patriots in last quarter...put boy child to bed with a low-grade fever and headache and wonder what's to come...crawl over piles of laundry and under electric blanket...remind oldest child at least three times to get off the phone and go to sleep...
• Wake to boy child that sleeps like a train wreck in bed with us (and it's only a queen, people) and oldest child running a 101 degree fever...recite 10 verses of "you gotta be kidding me"...pull covers over head and wake again to youngest child calling for me at least an hour before her normal time...PROFUSELY THANK NEIGHBOR FOR BRINGING ME A LARGE COKE...watch as youngest child destroys my room while I'm getting ready...beg neighbor to watch younger two while I take sickly oldest child to doctor...sit for two hours while doctor runs strep test and flu test and chest x-ray and finally writes a script for sinus infection...drop off sickly child and run to Wal-Mart and back...endure a two-and-a-half-hour battle to get youngest child to bed while dreams of jalapeno chip dip and "Dancing With the Stars" danced in my head...WHAT IS HER DEAL???...and wrap the night up frustrated that I am unable to post my Halloween pictures!

As I read over my list of events, I notice that poor Abby didn't even get mentioned in all of that! I'm pretty sure she was here all week...actually, she was a great help to me many times this past week! She helped with laundry and watching Caroline and doing dishes and filling in for the other sickly kids! I couldn't have managed without her!

One other turn of events...tonight while we were desperately trying to get Caroline to go to sleep, she seemed to have gotten out of her CRIB! I nearly passed out in the floor. What I think happened is she was trying to climb out and fell hard enough to scare herself. I am PRAYING that she is too scared to even try that again...because we all know that when that happens...when your child is able to get out of the crib on her own...your life is OVER and she owns you. I think I can handle the boyfriend more than I can handle THAT!

I do plan on another attempt at posting my Halloween pictures...it's just not gonna be tonight. And now it's really late, and as much as I really need to Google a support group for Caffeine Addicts Anonymous, I'm gonna go pass out in bed...before something changes in the next five minutes!