So how was your Mother's Day?

Mine was... well... lets say it was interesting.

I had just finished a 65 hour work week and was looking forward to spending the day at my Mom's (without my children) putting flowers on Grandma's grave, going out for lunch, maybe go for a ride on the pontoon; just relaxing.  But instead the chaos started even before I got out of the shower.

I was in the middle of a shower when there was a knock on the bathroom door.  Typical, I never have had the luxury of using the bathroom in peace.  It was Hubby telling me something was up with Alison.  She woke up with her eyes swollen shut and couldn't open them.  After I got dressed I went out to the kitchen to see what was wrong and her whole face looked swollen.  My first thought was pink eye.  I tried to pry one open so I could see if they were blood shot but even the lightest touch had her in pain.  Hubby suggested I cancel my plans with my mom and take Alison to urgent care.  So we jump in the car and head to the clinic.

We were roomed fairly quickly, they were probably thinking pink eye also.  After a short wait the doctor, who spoke in broken English, came in.  He examined her for less than 5 minutes before telling us he was referring her to the ER.  Then sent the nurse in to check her vision but they did it without her glasses so of course she couldn't see anything.  The doctor checked in on her again one more time before sending us the the ER and said something about it being stress related, but he didn't know how to explain it.

So off the ER we went.  It must of been a slow day in the ER because we were in a room in less than 30 minutes.  By this time she was able to open her eyes, but her face was still hurting.  The ER doctor came in, looked in her eyes and said at least it didn't look like an infection.  After looking at the swelling in her face, she asked what happened to her forehead.  It was very red and scared or blistered.  Alison, being a typical redhead with very fair skin, had been out in the sun a bit to long on Friday for a school event and sunburned her face.  The doctor said the severity of her sunburn was probably causing the swelling and the skin was so tight there was nowhere for the swelling to go but her eyelids.  They gave her some ibuprofen and some Bacitracin for her burn and sent us home.  A sunburn sent my daughter to the ER; sounds like a show on TLC. 

As we were walking out of the ER my phone rang.  It was my son, Jim asking where I was and if he could get some driving practice in today.  He had his driver's permit and we really haven't had time to take him out practicing as much as we should.  So I told him if he wanted to go grocery shopping with me he could drive.  But today really wasn't the best day for driving practice.  I really didn't have the patience and he seemed to have forgotten how to drive.  As we were going down the road I kept wanting to grab the steering wheel and stomp on my imaginary brake.  Finally after almost having a heart attack I told him to pull over in the nearest parking lot and I would take over.

It was already after lunch time, so we decide to get lunch.  While waiting for our food I was writing my grocery list.  Alison grabbed my pen and wrote "Delightful granola bars that don't make me poop if I eat more then one" on the list.  See a few weeks ago I bought a big box of Fiber One granola bars, she took a few  to eat at school and had to make several trips to the bathroom that day because of them. When I read that I started laughing and couldn't stop.  Then Jim said something that made no sense and I meant to tell him to stop talking stupid only it came out "Top salking tupid."  That's when I completely lost it.  I was laughing so hard I had tears, and then they turned into real tears, and I was crying in the middle of the restaurant.  The people from the nearby tables were staring at me wondering if I was having a mental break right then and there.  And in a way I think I was.  The extra long work week and all the stress of the day had finally gotten to me and I was cracking up.  When I was in college I went through something similar.  I was so tired from going to school and working all the time that it was causing me to behave in really weird ways.  It was like I was on malfunctioning auto pilot.  I worked in a fast food restaurant at the time working the drive-thru and would answer the drive thru by randomly giving out my phone number, answering the the phone by saying "Thank you for stopping at..." and at it's worse I forgot where I lived or how to get there.   I was in full blown tears trying to explain to the kids I was either having a mini mental break or a stroke.  If anybody was suffering form a stress related illness today it was me.  Luckily it passed after a few minutes and I was able to function again.

After lunch we went to Walmart.  The kids were fighting and driving me nuts so I sent them each in opposite directions to find the things we came there for while I waited by the garden center.  I texted a friend to tell her what a sucky day I was having and jokingly asked if I could just leave the kids at Walmart.  As soon as I hit send I realized I sent it to the wrong person.  I accidentally sent that text to Alison, who was walking back towards me giving me a nasty look.

Jim insisted on driving home and even though I really didn't want him to,  I was to tired and overwhelmed to argue so I handed him the keys and said a little prayer he'd get us home without killing us.  We made it home and I'm still alive but that's all I'm going to say.

We've been trying to spiff up the yard for Alison's graduation this summer and I have yet to mow the lawn this spring.  We've been trying to start the mower for 3 weeks now  The first week, the battery charger we needed had been left out all winter and was no good anymore.  The second week, the new battery charger I bought was the wrong one.  And this week with the right battery charger,  Al  just couldn't get it started.  So we decided to try and finish the screen house we started putting up

on Saturday. It's like a screen door tent with a canvas roof.  We had it almost done, just need to put the roof on. Easy right?  Wrong!  Once we got the heavy roof spread out over the roof supports and started to secure it, I realized we had the supports in wrong.  Note to self:  Always re-read the instructions after your husband has read them to make sure he understood them.  We pulled the roof off and now it's in a big pile on the ground and Al said "Screw it.  Lets finish this next weekend."   I said the permanent  one I found at Costco was looking better and better because once it was up we never had to mess with it again, and I was having second thoughts about putting this one up again next summer.  That's if it survives this summer.

After the day I had, Al decided to go out to eat for dinner.  We went to a local pub and I ordered a cocktail.  I was pleasantly suprized when the waitress brought me my drink with a ton of moonshine soaked cherries.  Normally with this drink you get 2 or 3 cherries, but the whole top of the glass was covered in cherries.  I told Al, after I eat all those cherries and finish my drink I may not need a second one.  I had about half my drink gone when I realized there was something else in my glass beside ice and cherries.  I fished it out with a fork; it was a beer bottle cap.  Al asked the waitress for a new drink for me showing her the bottle cap I found.  She took my glass back to the bar and brought me a new one but this time with the normal amount of cherries on top.  Dang, I lost all my moonshine cherries.

I hope you all had a better Mother's Day.