Happy New Flippin Year

If the entire year 2007 promises to be modeled after the first 2 1/2 days of 2007, I will choose to be Rip VanWinkle and curl up in my bed and sleep until 2008. Seriously, how in the world do I go from being so happy and content and loving life, to being absolutely miserable and just counting the hours until the day ends in a matter of a few short hours?

Let me back up...

Last week Thursday Dave, Nora and Ryann flew out to visit his parents in Virginia. Georgia and I were supposed to go, however, she had double ear infections and was sidelined by Dr. Hottie. So I basically had 3 1/2 days to myself (with Georgia). It was very, very quiet. Very quiet. And I got so much stuff done around the house. I rarely had the tv on, I felt like I never sat down other than to read the newspaper and to do a puzzle before bed. I was on the go, go, go. Loving every minute of it - missing Dave and the girls, certainly, but still loving the quiet and the ability to do as I please for a short time.

Monday afternoon I picked them up from the airport. We were all so ready to see each other. I missed them and was anxious to get home, get out of the car and give my girls some hugs and kisses. It was a pleasant ride home with them in the backseat telling me about their plane ride and their trip to Papa and Nana's. Life was good.

Then we get home. My house is in perfect order - cleaner than it has been in four years. The suitcases are opened, stuff is everywhere. I'm okay with that. What I'm not okay with is the constant whining and crying that is ocurring because Nora stayed up until midnight the night before and is incredibly tired. That I'm not okay with... we decided to go get some new fish (one of hers died before she left) and go out for dinner and put them to bed early, so I can handle it for a few hours.

Then Tuesday morning hits and I had probably the worst 90 minutes of my life as a mom. I will start out by saying I am so not proud of my behavior yesterday morning. I have confessed and apologized and hugged and cried, but I am still ashamed of who I was yesterday morning -never have I been that person and I hope to never be that person again...

Georgia started complaining that I wasn't holding her at 9am. I think she really enjoyed having mom to herself for a few days and is now in the process of adjusting to sharing me... so she started crying at 9 - naptime is 10. So I brought her downstairs and figured I would sit with her for an hour and watch tv and play. We sat, she insisted on getting off of my lap and doing her own thing, fine - I had to go to the bathroom, so I left. WHILE I'm going to the bathroom (as in not more than 60 seconds after I left), Nora comes up and says Georgia spilled my coffee. It wasn't hot, so I wasn't worried about that, but I wasn't happy with myself for leaving my coffee down there. When I got down there I looked - it honestly looked like Shrek had taken a huge gulp of coffee and spit it all over the room. She had to work hard to spill it the way she did - sprayed all over on white-ish carpet.

I spent 45 minutes trying to clean it (there are still spots), got up to grab something from upstairs and noticed that Ryann's pants were wet. She doesn't have those kinds of accidents, so upon closer examination I found out that she had the other kind of accident... which she has had every day since she has been potty trained (someone please tell me the secret to getting a child to poop on the potty - please!!). I take her upstairs, give her a shower, clean her pants and underpants out, bring her to her room to wait to get dressed. Georgia is crying again because I am paying attention to someone other than her. It is finally 10 so she goes to bed. Back to Ryann... getting her dressed, Nora is hanging out with us just chatting. She's on Ryann's brand new desk chair and of course it breaks right at that moment. I was so happy. SOooo happy.

I was not a nice mom yesterday. Above all else, I'm sad that that is part of me and that I was unable to control it yesterday. I am not a yelling mom. My kids rarely get yelled at. I talk firmly, but I don't yell. Ours is a pretty calm house, with little yelling - I'm not bragging just stating the way it is. Yesterday it wasn't that way.

After the chair incident and after I calmed down, the rest of the day was pretty pleasant. The girls played well. Everyone was nice to each other. Nora even took a nap at the same time as the other two. I was ironing and getting ready to go to the doctor (I thought I had an ear infection), when the phone rings. Its Dave. His car won't start. Yup. He thinks its the battery so I asked him to ask his assistant to try to jump it (doesn't that sound good LOL!). Nothing. So I pack up the girls, go to his office, pick him up, go to the doctor, he goes to NTB where they tell him it is likely the battery and the alternator so now we're looking at probably a $500 bill for this car.

We have no idea what to do about this... We can't afford to pay our own bills, let alone another car payment. However, we could really use a van (right now I drive a Camry with 3 carseats in the back). The Sunfire is 8 1/2 years old, has about 130,000 miles on it and we just put $900 into it in the fall hoping that it would get us another year or so. Dave is totally against putting another $500 into it because he thinks that we would have to fix it again in 2 months for something else. What do we do?

At that point I was just angry. Angry. I'm rarely angry and I really don't like that feeling. Allow me to vent and complain for just one moment: I don't understand why we can just coast with our normal bills for a while. No, we can't even afford those, but we have had some kind of major expense (over $500) in addition to our normal expenses every month for the last few months - first it was having a wisdom tooth removed, then $900+ for the sunfire to be fixed, then new tires for the Camry, then a new water heater, then Christmas, and now this. When do we just get to coast? I know this is whiney, but this is what I was feeling last night. I can take the starting-the-business-not-making-money thing, but the additional, unusual BIG expenses really get to me.

So what to do about the car. I don't know. I just don't know what the right answer is - do we put more money into the sunfire and hope that it doesn't break down again? Do we add another $3-400 each month onto an already overstretched financial situation? I suggested we live with one car for a while, which Dave just doesn't see as working. I just don't know. I want to be wise with our finances - I want to do what is right, but how do you know? How do you know?

And how - please, someone tell me - how do you get a 2 1/2 year old to poop on the potty? I got the pleasure of repeating that experience again this morning... Someone give me some answers:) I'll read them when I wake up in 2008.