Summer Craziness

Summer has been really crazy, and this last week has been especially intense. Bridget woke up the morning of Katy's baptism (Saturday) with a fever again, (she had run one all day last Tuesday) and I feel like she cried most of the day. :-( I was a little worried that I wasn't going to be able to go to the baptism if I couldn't get her feeling a little better, and she was too upset to really leave with other people. :-/ Thankfully motrin made it possible for me to attend the baptism, and even stay in the room for most of the program. I just held her the whole time, since that's what she wanted, and since I didn't know if she had an ear infection (what I was suspecting) or something contagious. Emily (my sister) gave the talk on baptism and she did a really nice job. I appreciated her lugging all 4 of her boys down for it, and then going back again that night with the littlest guy. That's a lot of driving in one day, but she had lots of responsibilities at church Sunday, and her "baby" doesn't sleep that great other places than home at this age. (Bridget either!) We shared a baptism time with the Daleys in our ward, even though they just moved back to Thatcher last week actually. We will miss having them in our ward! It was a good experience though, and I was just grateful everyone was able to be there.

Bridget was still very upset and feverish on Sunday, so I stayed home from church with her and Jeremy took the other 7 kids to church by himself. :-o  It was a bit of a rough day, just having so many busy kids with only Sunday activities to entertain them. Plus Bridget was bad enough and acting like her ears hurt, so Jeremy talked to one of his naturopath friends that happened to be in her office to see another friend, and Jaina and I took Bridget to see her. She basically had a double ear infection, which was probably why she was so miserable. :-( We started her on amoxicillin (which we've avoided up until now with everyone except Reilly once) and by Tuesday she was feeling much better.

Despite Bridget feeling awful, we tried to do some fun things with Emily's boys for our half of the Great Cousin Summer Exchange. Monday Jeremy took them to a park, and to get Hurts Donuts, (They had a "pay your age" day) and to Target, and took some of the oldest kids to play laser tag. Bridget was still having a pretty rough day, though her fever was gone, and I spent most of the day holding her. We took them to Organ Stop Pizza for dinner with Phil and Sophie, and then Jeremy took Bridget home (she did pretty well at the pizza place actually) while the rest of us went to Carlee's 5th birthday party, unicorn rides and all. They had a great time there, and she was the cutest little unicorn birthday princess ever. :)

Tuesday we did a lot of cleaning up, and I let Logan and Shawn just hang out and watch movies (because Logan had a fever the night before and Shawn's foot was acting funny) while Jeremy took Bridget and the rest of the kids to the State Capitol Museum. 

After that they got to play Minecraft (their favorite activity together) while we got ready to go, and about 3 PM seven kids and I road-tripped to Joseph City. Definitely a bit of an adventure. We managed to keep anyone from getting car sick, and they were excited to get Happy Meals in Payson. The last hour was getting a little dicey, so we broke out the tablets, but we only had 4 tablets for 7 kids. Also exciting.

It has been nice to have some quiet at home (especially after 3 very loud, chaotic days). Bridget is feeling much better, but still has a lot of fluid in her ears and has some temporary hearing loss. :-p In other news, we ordered a new bed (a "Tuft and Needle" on an Amazon Prime Day deal) so our old mattress is hanging out in our living room while we try to decide what to do with it. Hopefully I will adjust to the new bed soon. My back wasn't sure what to think of it last night. 

Also, my computer, which was 7 years old went to the Jason's house to be converted to a SSD, but the jury's out on how much longer before I just need to buy a new one. He doesn't often get stumped, but my computer managed it...  It won't let him install any Windows operating system on it except a 32 bit version of Windows 7 (It originally had a 64 bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium) and I really need 64 bit to run my Adobe Programs. So I might make do with it for a while with the goal of changing to a new computer in a couple months. I technically have a laptop too, but I don't prefer using a laptop that much, and the kids use it quite a bit for game and school stuff. I know, first world problems. But my photo and video stuff does really help keep me sane in my stay-at-home-mom life, so I know that they're important to me. (And to our family in that way, haha.) You gotta nurture the things that keep you sane and bring you a sense of accomplishment. Laundry and dishes and cooking never STAY done, and that's a little exhausting to do the same things over and over again, especially with my personality. I loathe re-doing tasks, even in games or whatever. That's one reason I never enjoyed any of the Super Mario games. If you die, you have to re-do some things you've just accomplished!

Anyway, enough typing. I need to put away some of the endless laundry while Bridget is sleeping.

Sara

Hard days

Wednesday was one of those hard days. It wasn't a bad day. Often they're the same thing, but this time it wasn't. Stuff didn't go that wrong. There was just a decent amount of stress, especially in the morning, getting Katy's "bonus" bottom tooth removed. Any time we do something scary/hard that's new, I have a lot of anxiety until I see how it's going to go. It's reduced slightly by doing as much as research and preparation about it as I can, but I still think too much and worry too much.
That actually went reasonably well, but I was also worrying about something with Bridget that I wasn't sure what to do with, and then later in the day Katy wasn't feeling very well, Bridget wasn't feeling well, and Shawn got hurt twice. Something was wrong with Jaina too, but I can't remember what... Too many of my kids were hurting, and I had been using so much mental energy trying to deal with these new things. I was wrung out, and needed some support.
Sadly, Jeremy had a rough day too. He came home and could have really used some extra attention, as well as a calm, clean house. He didn't get any of that. :-/ I hate days like that where we both need support, but neither of us have much (if any) extra to give. Those are some of the harder times in a marriage, I feel like. At least now, 13 years in, I know they will pass. Especially if we try not to get dramatic about things (in our heads, you know) and do what we can to help each other. I remember when we first had several of those days (or weeks) in a row, and it seemed a little bleak at moments. We were living in Iowa, 24 hours from any family or close friend support, and we had two babies. Some days/night were so hard, and I wasn't sure what to make of it. That's one nice thing about getting older. The more experience you have and life you live, you have a little more perspective about those hard times, and know they are just times. If you both keep working hard, and try to serve each other, they will probably pass.
Yesterday was better, mostly, and things are good. But hard days happen even when there's nothing really wrong, and you just have to get through them and do what you can with the next day. Anyway, just my thoughts this week. :)