That being said, I am zoning in on this week, more for my therapy than anything else.
Monday, I saw my first official brown recluse. Aside from pet spiders, I have never seen a spider that large in real life. When I turned on the light in our bathroom, it didn't move. And I was too mortified (yes, I have a deep and abiding, irrational fear of spiders) to step on it. So we had a stand off. He --only a man would have the nerve to invade personal space so unabashedly-- didn't move until I slowly reached to grab our spider spray. And when he did move, he scuttled. This means he was so large, I heard a noise when he moved. Kid you not. I used the rest of our can of spider spray in hopes of killing the beast. However, since there was no direct contact before it got away, we are all ultra nervous about sitting on the pot.
Tuesday, I tried another experimental online quinoa recipe for the missionaries to eat. It was awful. Like I think it might have been intended for a health nut whose taste buds are accustomed to drinking straight fish oil. And the deceptive recipe claimed to serve 4. So I doubled it, thinking leftovers would be great in Josh's lunchbox. Now we have about two gallons worth of disgusting quinoa casserole, and I think the only way it is going to be eaten is if there is a sudden ice storm and we run out of eggs and ramen. I did redeem my cooking skills somewhat with pumpkin bread. After a month of not eating sugar, I wolfed down 3/4 of a loaf in one sitting.
Wednesday, I paid the price for my gluttony, laying in bed, wondering if my stomach was trying to secede from my body. Josh took the day off and was at his best. He babied me, cleaned the house, and even went shopping. By the end of the afternoon, I found him laying on the floor, asleep. He opened one eye and said he wanted to go back to school. Apparently, keeping house and nannying is kind of hard. Josh had scored a super good deal on opera tickets through one of his professors. Not wanting to waste money, we got spruced up and some lovely ladies from the ward came over and watched Joshua and Genevra. The Kauffman Center was gorgeous. Josh could have spent the whole 3 hours hanging out in the hundred-million dollar, architectural masterpiece of a lobby, while I thoroughly enjoyed "La Traviata" by Verdi.
It's only 12 p.m. and I am ready to throw in the towel. I am feeling eons better than yesterday, but still icky. Feel free to judge me when I say that I fed my children breakfast, turned on the TV, and shut the baby gate so I could go back to bed. When I came upstairs an hour later, Genevra was covered. COVERED in poo. A good portion of the carpet was covered in poo. paint chips littered the floor, and there is now a huge patch of the wall that is paintless. It wasn't hard to deduce that Joshua was trying to make it to the toilet, which is downstairs, and stripped. He then preceded to work hard at opening the baby gate, chipping away at the paint. Since I was dead to the world, he couldn't make it. Genevra still gets around on all fours, and must have been quite gleeful at finding brown play dough to smear over every surface.
If any of my single, or baby-less friends read this, please know that more often than not, children are quite enjoyable...even charming. But then there are days where you feel like they are in league with the devil, working hard to be the straw that breaks your back and leaves you rocking and huddled in a corner.
On that note, my babies are going to take an early nap. My destination: treadmill.
