Why can't every day be Mother's Day?

So for Mother's Day, Cody took the kids all around town doing every free activity I had found where the kids could make something for me...the real gift? A whole day alone. It was bliss. The bliss continued into Sunday...Belgium waffles with strawberries and whip cream and fresh squeezed OJ were waiting for me when I got out of the shower. Four pretty potted flowers (courtesy of Lowe's) were on my dresser and I had four purple draw string bags full of jewelry the kids had made me (courtesy of Michael's). It was so sweet.

I didn't have to deal with potty training for two whole days. They cleaned the whole house while I slept in. Cody even washed all the grimy finger/hand marks off the walls. I even got a delicious ice cream cake from Cold Stone. Oh it was wonderful!

Then Monday came crashing down on me like Monday's tend to do. We woke up late, so late the kids missed the bus. While trying to get them out the door, a tenant knocked because when they woke up their stove hadn't shut off in the night...some kind of short in the burner. Only these tenants are not from this country. They're still learning how to live in a house. They've yet to discover the use of soap and water on frequently used surfaces. Their apartment smells so bad I couldn't stand to be in there. Worried about my kids being on time for school I explained the best that I could to people who don't speak English that I would look up how to fix the problem and be over when I found the answer.

Ten minutes later my family was kneeling to pray so we could walk out the door--just in time. The 9 year old from up front came and knocked. Then rang the bell. Then started pounding on the door. We prayed through the cacophony and using all the restraint I could muster, answered the door. "You come fix right now!" was the demand. Restraint? Gone. I didn't yell, but I wasn't nice. I scolded him as I would one of my own children if they were that disrespectful to an adult. I let him know in unmistakable terms that I would fix their stove when and only when I was done taking care of my own family. (I could go off on a tangent about how since coming to this country they have been grown to expect everyone to bend over backwards to take care of their every whim. This sense of entitlement stems from the generosity of many many people who desire to help by giving fish instead of teaching to fish. But I won't. It would make for a very long rant :)

As I was walking out the door, Cody stuck his head out of the shower to suggest that I unplug the stove so we didn't have a fire. Duh! Why didn't I think of that before when I was over there? Oh yeah, the smell. So while the kids got in the car, I ran around front to unplug the stove. I pulled it away from the wall and just about heaved. Literally. I struggled for a good half a minute to keep my breakfast down. Bugs were swarming all over about 3 inches of gunk under the stove, up the walls and on the back of the stove. The smell was unimaginably worse. The mom just kept saying, "Sorry Dolly, so sorry Dolly," over and over. To my shame, I was rude. I couldn't look at her. I couldn't respond. My jaw was clenched so tight to stem the vomit that all I could do was yank the plug from the wall and run. I fled. Like in a cartoon.

My skin crawled the whole drive to get the kids to school. My stomach churned while I ran a few errands avoiding going home. I made a mental list of all the things I would do when I got home so they would have enough time to clean the mess up before I went back over there. I'd stuck a load of laundry in first thing when I woke up--just because I wasn't dealing with potty training didn't mean it wasn't happening. I opened the washer to take out the clothes and was first greeted with the smell of poo. Then I saw the chunks. Lots of them. All through the clothes. How? Why? Who? Wha.... seriously, what does it matter? I wasn't taking care of it so it wasn't being taken care of. Got it. Okay, no problem. Gagging from the smell of my own house, I began cleaning the mess. Mesmerized by what I was doing, Xavi didn't think to mention that he needed to pee even though he was standing 6 inches from the toilet. So I'm standing in urine, cleaning fecies out of the washer with visions of cockroaches scurring through my head and I heard my spirit break. My will was gone. I cleaned it up. All of it. I went around and plugged the stove back in. Thankfully the burner was off. It stayed off.

I went back to my apartment and we all took a three hour nap and prayed for bedtime as soon as my eyes opened.

Life will get better, right?