Words of the Week

Sometimes the word of the week just happens to be "catawampus". It's not that everything is awful--worse things could've happened--but your week is just a series of one "SERIOUSLY?!" after another.

You hear weird sounds in the kitchen sink and then the toilet floods and then before you know it, the house is swamped by poop water and you're being encouraged by maintenance to make alternative arrangements for the night (which turns into two nights). One kid comes down with a cough, and then it's two kids, and then before you know it, the whole family is down for the count (and coughing their heads off in temporary lodging).

Blythe, confused, because last time she checked,
the toilet didn't belong in the front hallway.

You're late to church on Sunday and forget that you volunteered to help with child care. You lock yourself out of the house when your husband (and both house keys) are half an hour away. You rip your favorite pair of maternity jeans. Yes. You really do. And then make fat pregnant cow jokes for the rest of the week.

But you know what? Sometimes the word of the week also just so happens to be "grateful". Grateful that your husband is home and can take off work to deal with the poop flood. Grateful for kids who saw our escapades as adventures not inconveniences. Grateful for friends who provided back up. Grateful for breakfast tacos (because, let's be honest, if you can't go home and cook your own breakfast in your own kitchen--let there be tacos). Grateful that you happened to be ahead on your To Do list and your homeschooling schedule so that a couple days languishing in snot and hotel sheets don't matter quite so much. Grateful that we have maintenance guys who can dig up water mains until they find whatever it was the twins more than likely flushed down the toilet.

The younger three and the maternity jeans
that can't keep my leg muscles in...

I guess the real word of the week might've been "perspective", because by now we all know, it's rarely as bad as it could be, and there are always things to rejoice in and be grateful for--if we're willing to look for them. So, it's Thursday night, and with my head convinced that it's going to explode in a snot volcano, I am grateful for perspective on catawampus weeks.