What happens if mom makes a cake?

It's been another one of those weeks. It seems like we've had far too many lately.. more than our "fair share." One of those weeks that if there is a cold germ flying around within a 5 mile radius.. all our kids will catch it, even if they haven't gotten over the last one yet. Or if there's a particular, puking GI bug lurking nearby, we'll also be sure to get that too. And some random illness causing a fever at the same time all 3 kids are hacking, puking and whining? Yup.. we'll be sure to catch that too. And if you take a child to urgent care and need to pick up medicine on the way home, the pharmacy is sure to be closed.. One of those weeks where if the husband decides to take a half day of work to go hunting in the 1 inch of snow we have, his tires will be sure to slip on the grass and do about $4000 worth of damage to his truck.. One of those weeks where you decide to print out large sized family pictures to finally! hang on your walls and while trying to flatten them out from being rolled in the tube they came in, your husband absently sits on them and bends the corners all to heck.. One of those weeks where when you actually try to put a dent in the filth you are living in, due to taking care of sick, whiney, clingy children all week, you'll discover the belt to your vacuum needs replaced. One of those weeks where you rush to sew new stockings to hang up for Christmas decor, and after the 4th one you just can't get the fabric to coordinate just right, and have completely run out of motivation, leaving you with "Four Stockings Hung By The Chimney With Care".. in a family of five. One of those weeks where everyone is around-the-clock whiney, crabby, needy, and discouraging and you just don't know what to do to change it around.

I know I've been feeling this way, but I thought I'd been doing a pretty good job of faking a smile and keeping a cheery attitude. Apparently not. It's recently been brought to my attention that my kids are picking up and on the "nothing can go right" mantra. Just today I was looking at a paper Nolan had brought home from school and was just about the throw it in the trash when something made me stop and read the sentences he wrote a little closer. The assignment was to make a prediction about what would happen next. So, for instance under the heading "A snake is under a tent" he wrote, "We will get bit." Makes sense.. and for "Two dogs see a cat," he wrote "They will chase it." Yup.. Clearly accurate statements. But the last one is the one that got me. The statement is "Mom makes a cake." I was hoping to read something along the lines of "We will eat it" or "It tastes yummy" or "We hug and kiss her and tell her she is the best mom in the world and then go to bed early while she enjoys a nice hot bubble bath and daddy cleans the house." Instead this is what I read..

Yes, he wrote, "It will spill." All I can do is shake my head at that one. Sadly.. that is probably much more accurate than any of the very purely fictional statements I came up with.

Things have been rough lately, but somewhere deep down.. very very deep down.. I think I like my kids. I keep having this very-hazy-around-the-edges, distant memory that is quite cloudy and difficult to see through, but it sounds like maybe there is laughter in it? We are enjoying each other's company? We are having fun? And no one is coughing or puking or crying?? I'm not sure because it all seems like a dream in the midst of a nightmare, but I do believe this might have happened at one time in our lives. I found this picture that gives me a clue that this figment of my imagination might actually hold some truth, but I'm not sure..

Who are these nice, genuinely happy-looking, smiling people??

I know I have a lot to be thankful for. I know it could be worse. I know it may sound like I'm unnecessarily complaining.. because I am. Please, just allow me this moment..

This week (and last.. and the one before that.. and the one before that...) reminds me of my friend Deanna's fabulous post from a few months ago. I wish I could come up with my own great analogy, but since I can't I'll just retell hers.. She must have been having "One of those weeks," and compared it to an evergreen tree lit with Christmas lights. The lights are bright and twinkling and beautiful to look at, but think about what's holding them up.. Hard, pokey branches that hurt when you touch them. Branches that, if you try to walk through them, will scratch you and scrape you and hurt until you bleed. But what if you didn't have those branches? What if they weren't there to hold those beautiful lights up? The lights would be laying in a clump on the ground, not beautiful or admirable to look at by anyone passing by.

The bright twinkling lights in our life are the good days. The days highlighted by joy and outlined in laughter. The days everything just seems right in the world. The pokey evergreen branches? They are the hard days. The "one of those weeks" days. They serve to make us stronger and hold us up in the good days, so in the end we're not crumpled in a tangled heap on the floor, but instead shining brightly, weaving effortlessly in and out of those branches, twined together in a beautiful display of love and strength.

It's a wonderful analogy and boy, I hope its true.
If so, we are going to have one heck of a big, full, branchy, poky, scratchy tree..
Let's just hope we get a few lights soon to make it shine. :)