This week has been a hard week for me. Monday I spent all day cleaning, since Joseph and Samuel didn't do their chores over the weekend. I have not been able to get much sleep at night, both Caleb and Malachi are waking up a lot, Caleb started getting sick again this weekend, and the lack of sleep is catching up to me, making me very emotional. My biggest struggle has been with Joseph, he is struggling with doing his work and getting it turned in at school, is not obeying me when it comes to doing his chores or dishes, and leaving the house without telling me where he is going. On Tuesday after school, Joseph went to play with his friend (he did ask). I told him he had YMs that night and to be home before dinner. When it was time for Samuel's soccer practice, Joseph hadn't come home yet, so I took Samuel to soccer, when we got back, it was time for Joseph to go to YMs, but he hadn't come home yet. The girls had stayed home to wait for him to come home. So we all went looking for Joseph, checked all of his friends houses, and the streets on either side of us. I also called the YS to see if he had gone there, but we couldn't find him anywhere. We did know that he had his bike with him, since it wasn't in the garage. It was dark now, and I was really worried, I told myself if he didn't come home by 8pm, I was going to call the hospital and then the police. We finally sat down to dinner about 7:45pm, we were too busy looking for Joseph to eat. In our prayer, we prayed that Joseph would come home safely. Not 5 minutes later, Joseph walked in the door. Thank you Heavenly Father for answered prayers. I held Joseph for 10 minutes, and would not let him go. I told him he scared me, and that I got to hold him as long as I wanted. After I was done holding him, I grounded him for a week, from going anywhere without me, except school. It turns out he had gone to the park and found a new friend who lives near the park, and went into his house to play video games, and didn't realized it was dark. We had a long talk about going into other people's houses that I don't know and lots of other things, and I sent him to bed.
Wednesday, Samuel crashed his bike on the way home from school, and got a nasty scratch on his belly from falling. I grabbed my first aid kit, handing Malachi to Austin, and ran to the end of the street, and helped bandage up Samuel, and get his bike home. I was making artisan bread, and preheated the oven to 500 degrees with a stoneware pan for the bread, and a glass pan underneath for hot water. Once the oven was preheated I transferred the dough to the hot stoneware pan, and got the hot water to put in the glass pan. When I started pouring in the hot water the glass pan shattered all over the inside of the oven. I knew glass cracked when experiencing drastic temperature change, but I guess I thought hot water/hot pan it would be fine. I should have realized that hot water is severely lower in temperature than a 500 degree oven. Caleb scooted down the stairs on his bum to tell me he was poopy, leaving a trail of poop along each stair. I quickly cleaned up Caleb, and put him in the bath, and started scrubbing stairs. As I was finishing the stairs, I realized I was hearing the sound of water being dumped onto the floor of the bathroom. Sure enough, I walked into a bathroom full of water. I grabbed all the towels, and mopped up all the water, explaining to Caleb once again (he loves dumping the water out) that the water stays in the bathtub. As soon as I was finished with the bathroom and getting Caleb dressed, I made dinner. I made an artichoke dip to go with the bread, and black rice, broccoli, beans, and bacon. This is a dinner the kids normally love, and eat a lot of. Joseph comes in the room, and says it smells like throw up, and he didn't want to eat anything. Samuel quickly followed by saying the same thing. Betsy and Austin both said they didn't want any either. I told them, this was what I made, and they needed to eat it, and dished up their plates. I ate my own food, it was really yummy, but the kids didn't eat more than one or two bites of theirs. I was quickly cleaning up all the leftovers, so we could go to the Relief Society meeting, when the door bell rang and the neighbor kids had two little kids, probably 1 and 3 years old, and told me they were lost and needed my help finding who they belonged to. I gave Malachi to Austin, and scooped up the 1 year old, and held the hand of the 3 year old, and started down the street looking for their mommy. After a few houses, a teenage girl came running over, and grabbed the kids and took them home. She didn't say anything to me, but I assume she was the big sister. So we finally made it to the Relief Society meeting a little late, and I dropped all the kids off in the nursery. The sister at the front, asked if anyone else had a hard time getting to the meeting, I raised my hand. I really enjoyed the meeting and the spirit I felt there, and was glad I didn't give up, and just stay home.
Thursday after school Caleb was in the kitchen and started crying in pain. I came in and saw he had been playing in the drawer under the oven, and cut his foot pretty good on glass. I had cleaned all the glass out of the oven, but forgotten about the drawer underneath. The cut was on in heel, and about 1 inch long, and pretty deep. I really didn't want to take him to the ER for stitches, so I layed him on the couch and grabbed a paper towel, and held his foot up high, and held it tight until the bleeding slowed. I put some helicryshum oil on it to slow the bleeding, and kept holding it until the bleeding stopped. Then I put on a butterfly bandage, and it held it together nicely, then put on a bigger bandage to cover the whole cut with antibiotic ointment. Caleb also wanted an angry bird band aid, so I put that on too. Then he lay on the couch with his foot propped up really high and watched cartoons. Samuel had his first soccer game, so when it was time to go, I carried Caleb out to the car, and we all drove to the soccer game. I put Caleb in the umbrella stroller, and had Austin push him over to the soccer field, while I carried Malachi. During the soccer game, I sent the girls back to the car to get our water bottles, and when they came back they had lost the car keys, so I sent them to look for them. Samuel came over to get water, and noticed the girls looking around in the grass, and when I told him the girls were looking for the car keys, he freaked out. He was very distraught that the keys were missing, and started yelling about how we would get home, and all sorts of things. I finally calmed him down, and told him we would find the keys. The girls did succeed in finding the keys after about 15 minutes, for which I was very grateful. Samuel did very well for his first soccer game, I think he made about 5 goals.,
Friday and Saturday were very difficult days because I was trying to get kids to do chores. I also had a vivid dream that Travis came home, and it felt so real that when I woke up and he wasn't in bed beside me, I started crying. Joseph was supposed to do the dishes and had been putting it off for three days, and so the kitchen was a mess, and every time I need to cook something, I had to clean off a space, and clean the dishes I needed to use. I had told Joseph I wasn't going to do it for him this time, and that he needed to do them. He also took off again on Saturday and was gone for hours. I couldn't find him, and was really frustrated, since he was grounded, and not supposed to leave at all. He did finally come back, but I still couldn't get him to do the dishes or his chores. Before going to bed last night, I told Joseph that the dishes really needed to be done before the Sabbath. When I woke up this morning and saw he still hadn't done any of the dishes, I lost it. I just sank to the floor and cried, and I have been crying on an off all day today. I gave up on getting Joseph to do the dishes, and asked the other kids to help me, so for several hours, the other kids helped me clean the kitchen and do Joseph's chores that he didn't do. I just don't know how to get him to help out, and do his chores. I know I am an emotional wreck, due to lack of sleep, so I hope I can sleep better tonight. I am very grateful that the other kids stepped in and did their older brother's chores for him, and decided to fast that Joseph would listen to me and work hard. We weren't able to go to church today, since once again Caleb has been coughing a lot, and having a runny nose. I was able to go to the Relief Society Broadcast last night, and even though I was fighting hard to not fall asleep, I loved the messages from the Relief Society Presidency and our beloved prophet. I love the gospel, and the strength and hope I receive because of it.
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