Coincidence....I think not

There is usually about once a month where I completely lose it. Once a month where I am an evil bitch to everyone, including my kids. Following my hormone induced freak out is the gut wracking guilt, but for about two days every month I contemplate running out the door and not coming back.

Growing up, my parents were friends with another family. This family also had two girls the same age as my sister and me. I really didn't like their little girl who was only a week younger than me, she was mean. But one day their Mom up and left them all. She packed her bags and went to Europe or something like that. She returned years later, but the damage was done. But this isn't really about them. It's just that for a split second once a month I understand their Mom. I get it. The urge to just run away from the screaming, crying, snot running, pooping kids, not to mention judgmental husband, who really means well, but EVERYTHING he says is just wrong, crosses my mind.

This week was just one of those cosmically crappy weeks. Of course it probably belongs on Reddit in the category of "What First World People Complain of"....but it is in one of the top ten worst weeks for me.

First, our stove broke. In one of my Best Mom moments of making sugar cookies with my own little Cookie, my oven stops working. We are mixing the dough, she's adding sugar, flour, eggs..I hear a popping sound. I can not figure out what it is...that is until I glance at the clock on the stove and realize it is not working. MY OVEN IS NOT WORKING. Because it is Tuesday, because Memorial day weekend is that weekend, we wait until Friday to order an oven. It will not be delivered until the following Thursday. I am facing almost two weeks without an oven. I'd like to say I plan delicious, wonderfully healthy meals to grill and cook in the crock pot...but, we order pizza, Chinese, and eat out for the most part. Well, mostly because my wonderful ungrateful family decides to not want to eat the first night I grill up steak, corn on the cob, and sweet potatoes, all cooked to perfection. I become a little petty at my family's indifference to my awesomeness. Still I am up for the World's Best Mom and Wife....but it soon goes downhill.

Sunday, I notice Jelly is running a fever as I put her down for a nap. She wakes up running about 101. And proceeds to puke all over me. Cookie, who is perpetually jealous of any attention handed out to Jelly tries her best to drive me up the wall. Let's just say there was lots of crying by both kids. Jelly, because she felt awful and just wanted to cuddle and basically crawl back into the womb, Cookie because I was not paying enough attention to her.

I spend not one but two nights on the couch with a sick Jelly. Before bed on the second night, I notice Jelly has a rash and she's been complaining that her mouth hurts. Coincidentally, I had just read a blog about a family's ill fated vacation to Puerto Rico where they all come down with a lovely virus called Coxsackie. And she described it as what Jelly had. This virus is ugly. This virus sucks, especially if you get the mouth sores. For five days Jelly would wake up in the middle of the night screaming about her mouth. All day, every five minutes she would stick her hand in her mouth and cry saying, "hurtee, hurtee." She then would cry, "hungee, hungee." I would try and feed her something and she would just cry some more. For five days my baby lived on ice cream and Top Ramen (cooked in microwave). And on day three Cookie got the dreaded disease, better known as hand/foot/and mouth disease.

Knowing that I had just spend two nights on the couch with Jelly, Cookie demanded that I sleep with her, as she was sick. Night three, I am sleeping in Cookie's bed, with Cookie and Jelly. Every two hours Cookie would wake crying for her "Neh Neh." Jelly would wake up and cry about her mouth. Three nights of little sleep. By night four, I was done. Neither kid could eat anything but ice cream, and it was 9 p.m., Cookie was exhausted, but refused to go to sleep unless I was there. Jelly was screaming and I had enough. Now we all love the book that's coming out "Go the F** to sleep" Because frankly we all of said it or thought it. And each one of us are jealous that we didn't think to write it first. And me, day four of no sleep. Day four of screaming, crying, clinging kids have had it. I start screaming, " YOU WILL GO TO SLEEP, I AM DONE, I AM NOT SLEEPING WITH EITHER OF YOU. I AM NOT CUDDLING ANYONE. I AM NOT LOOKING FOR NEH NEH. I DON'T WANT TO BE ANYWHERE NEAR EITHER OF YOU." I put Jelly in her bed screaming. I slammed the door to Cookie's room, and I laid down in my bed until I no longer heard a peep from either disease laden child.

By far not my best moment as a mom. I later went and laid in Cookie's bed and slept with her. Gathered up a crying Jelly in the middle of the night to sleep with us...and repeated the process of every two hours looking for the scrap of Cookie's blankie, calming a crying Jelly, and dealing with a cranky husband in the morning, who complained that the monitor to Cookie's room was on all night, yet he never turned it off, so he slept as fitfully as the three of us. Oh and I started my period. I'd like to say that I never once thought of running away...but on the fourth morning of waking to screaming kids, a period, a cranky husband, and no oven, I had visions of myself running down the street bra less, bare foot, and in my pajamas screaming and pulling at my hair like a crazy person. At the same time, that vision felt liberating, because I'd get to hear the birds. feel the warm sunshine that was out after a week and a half of rain (and I'm stuck at home still with two sick kids) and I would be far far away from my family whom I love more than life itself.

It's day six, Jelly is finally eating, Cookie's mouth is still a puss ridden mess, and I sheepishly admit to threatening to throw out he Neh Neh for the hundredth time. Coincidence that my oven breaks the very week my kids can't eat? You be the judge. But in my book, I guess there is a silver lining to everything.