Calgon, Take Me Away!

Does anyone remember the old commercial for Calgon, the bubble bath? It shows a housewife, bedraggled, with some new catastrophe occurring at the moment. She looks at the camera in exasperation and says, "Calgon, take me away!" The screen cuts away to show her somehow whisked away to the bubbly, candle lit gigantic jacuzzi bath that we all have (Tina) where she is relaxing, smiling, lovely. I feel like my life has been one long Calgon moment for the past couple of weeks. Moving is stressful, but it's a good stress. It's exciting. It's all of the other stuff that came with it that I wasn't expecting. WHY is my family always sick? It makes me feel like a bad nurturer. Let's start with the night of my last blog entry, Thursday. Jay was gone all day and all night (until midnight) for work. Jayson was still getting over his whatever he had. I hadn't gotten any packing done and I had random people showing up at my doorstep all hours. I stupidly waited for Jay to get home before going to bed. The next day Jay promised to be home early and I began to make a list of all of the helpful things he would do. That afternoon, as promised, Jay came home...looking positively awful! He thought that maybe he was just tired and decided to have a little nap before tackling the list. Skip to Sunday evening. Jay is still sick. Church is hard as a single parent. I don't plan on making it a habit. Jayson wanted to play outside but it was too cold in the shade and too hot in the sun. He needed a jacket but it was so bunchy! He wanted noodles for dinner, not pasta. Actually, he wanted Cheerios. But where did the noodles go? In the garbage!?(because Mom burned them while she was changing Aidan) But Jayson NEEDED noodles for dinner!!! Aidan fell off the bed and we both cried. I just now realized that not only did I throw the noodles in the garbage but I also threw away the bowl that they were in as well. If I remember, I'll be fishing that out when I'm done with this, and the dishes, and nursing my feverish, pathetically ill husband (okay, I'm not much of a nurse, but I try hard not to resent him). Somewhere in all of this, I looked at the camera of my life and said, "Calgon, take me away!" What happened? Nothing. Not a thing. Except that I had a good laugh at my clever self. I imagined my life at that moment as a commercial for bubble bath and knew it would be very amusing and relatable to the other housewives watching. I thought of the many funny things that could have made it in the cut...how I wore my dress unbuttoned to church today because I nursed Aidan right before we left and forgot to do it up in the rush, how I ate some lunch and got half of it stuck in Aidan's hair and didn't notice until (much) later, how Jayson picked his nose in Sacrament today and ate it and when I gave him a look he took it out of his mouth and flicked it, how yesterday at Wal Mart Jayson bounced a ball and tripped a man with it (he later apologized to Thomas the Train who's image was on the ball), and how I ate an entire bag of chocolate covered cherries that Jay bought because they're his favorites, but then he felt too sick to eat them. The list goes on and on. I know that if I can just see the humor in all of this it will one day get easier, or at least different. I absolutely know that my family is worth it, I just hope that I can take it all in stride and still help my children grow up knowing how special they are. And who needs Calgon when I have prayer and a blog?