The Worst Day...Ever! (Well at least in recent memory)

I am recording this only so that later on, when my gorgeous daughters are all grown up and mommies too and they call me and whine about how their day is going is I can truly sympathize.

All of these things happened today at the Douberly House.

Let's start at 12:30am...
Between this time and 7:50am my lovely children woke me up at least 7 times. Those are the times I distinctly remember. There were more but I must have been in zombie mode because the recollection is quite blurry.

At 7:50 I forced myself to roll out of the bed, and rush the boys out the door at 8:10am.

I got Jenna some breakfast and then told her I would put on a movie for her and then jump in the shower. So I put on Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure and started upstairs. But I noticed that the door to our storage room in the basement (where the TV and playroom are) was standing open. I went over to shut it and did a little look over inside first. I was really just making some mental notes about what needs to happen in there before we move. That's when I saw it....

YUCKY WATER

in the lid of a plastic bin.

Hello. There should not be water there. So I went in for a closer look. Yeah, that's yellowish water there, and it's in my cute buckets I used to sell my hairbows from and in the old fish tank.

OH, NO! THIS IS NOT GOOD.

So I ran up the stairs to call Housing Maintenance. They say they can be there in 20 minutes. Now, remember, I hadn't showered and Jenna had informed my that my pajama shirt was inside out and my house was a total WRECK!

I ran upstairs, changed my clothes, brushed my teeth, sprayed on some good smelly stuff and ran back downstairs.

Doorbell. They made it in 10 minutes!

We head to the basement and neither of us can find where the water has come from. Nothing around the one bin seems wet. He says, if we get this room cleaned out we can get a better look.
Now I am pretty organized. Just about everything is in it's own labeled bin. There are some stray items but if you were to look in the room you would thinks it's neat and orderly. But the idea seemed so hard...I have to haul all of this out of here? Where I am going to put a room full of storage items? So I am whining to my mom on the phone and decide I just have to get started and get it cleaned up and out.

That's when I found it...

MORE WATER

LOTS MORE WATER!

Mom said get to work. I got started but soon found that this is a way bigger job than I thought and I have a way bigger mess than I can handle alone.

I call my visiting teacher. She finished her lunch and came right over. I should tell you now that my lovely children, this past Sunday, flooded the bathroom right above this storage room. When the kids came running to me about the overflowing toilet I thought I handled it pretty well. It was a big mess and took several towels to mop up but I thought I did a very thorough (Lysol) job on the floor. How was I to know that the water RAN ALL THE WAY TO THE BASEMENT?

So we got started with the green machine, her sucking up the water and me drying and then clorox wiping down the bins. One bin didn't have it's lid on and it had 2-3" of water in it and a couple of items still in cardboard boxes got soaked but we were working together and making progress. Then it came time to empty the green machine's tank of the water, toilet (maybe pee-pee) water. I don't know what exactly happened next but in a flash my friend turned towards me with the tank and

SPLASH! The toilet, maybe pee-pee, yeah, that smells a little like pee-pee water was down the front of both legs and my slippers. (*Note: this is body fluid #1.) Are you kidding me? At this point all I could do was laugh. We worked and worked and then we heard her 2 year old...

SCREAM LIKE HE WAS HURT!

I was closest to the door so I ran out first. He came around the corner to me with blood coming from both sides of his nose. I ran and picked him up and we got him upstairs to the kitchen counter to clean him up. Once we knew he was good to go I went to check for blood in the playroom.

Yep, blood on the puppet theater, blood on the floor, blood on the couch, blood on the wall. (Body fluid #2. )

We then cleaned up that little mess. I called my mom she gave a little chuckle.

By now it's afternoon and Jenna and I ate lunch together while Kelsey napped. Then the boys got home and I let them know we were going to be running to get our weekly sitter. While we're waiting to go get her, I decided to look online for a minute. Kelsey was fussing so I had her in my lap facing the computer. Here comes body fluid #3...

She started to fill her diaper. No big deal. I have changed just about every single one of her diapers. I lean her forward just to put some distance between her diaper and my tummy when she really fills it. So much so, that it literally sprays out of the diaper and onto my shirt and pants. I could not believe this was happening. I called my mom. She laughed out loud.

Now I had to go change both of us and quick since it was time to go get Jamie.

I enjoyed my 3 hour break. I bought more bins to finish up the basement. I got an ice cream cone at McDs. I roamed Michaels. I got some hot deals at Old Navy. I thought things were looking up. I had no idea that body fluid #4 was just waiting for me at home!

I got home, took the sitter home, read books with the kids and nursed Kelsey all before 7:30pm. Then she erupted. Literally. Kelsey hurled up everything I had just fed her in 4 huge fits of vomit! It was unreal. Like a really bad movie. It soaked all through my shirt and undershirt and pants and unders! She was soaked as well. She would do it again an hour later.

Now, it's 10pm. All my kids are asleep in bed. I am going to be there just as soon as I finish this! I can't believe what this day has held. In the midsts of all this I managed to clean my living room and kitchen, too. But only because Housing Maintenance will be here in the morning to replace the gasket under my toilet so that this won't happen again. I wonder if this is some kind of mommy right of passage. I mean, yeah, we've all dealt with the major body fluids as parents. But how many of us can say we've had all four in one day and on their clothes? I think I be needin' some kind of award. Don't you?

Let's just hope tomorrow is better....

A bittersweet correction...

Don't worry, we're still headed to Mississippi this summer but our official orders came in with a report no later date of 10 September, not 10 June. So, while we're not getting out of here as soon as we thought we wanted to, there are several reason why this is a blessing to us.

Now there will be no super rush when Dustin gets home to pack and move.
We can enjoy having him back in our family for a little while and the kids can re-adjust.
We can still drive to my parents 50th Wedding anniversary celebration in Oregon in July.
The kids can finish out Little League.
We'll have time to visit all our West Coast family before we head East again.
Hopefully the summer will bring lots of houses to the Market for us in Biloxi.

We are still soooooo very excited about this job and this move. Now we can stop, take a breath, and do this thing right!

We're Moving!

Biloxi Beach & Biloxi Lighthouse

Dustin has been selected as a new curriculum coordinator at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, MS!!!! Keesler is where the Tech School for Communications is located. It's where Dustin went to training himself and where Henry was born. We really enjoyed our time there before and we're just so excited to be heading back to warmer weather and the beach. We have to be there by June 10th. We'll only have about a month after Dustin gets home to be in Misssissippi. It's gonna be a crazy next 4 months!

WOW! Can I say, "WOW!" again? WOW!

It's time to repent, again! So just to let you know beforehand, I had asked Dustin to send me a lovey card for Valentine's Day. I even said an e-card would do. Here it is the 13th and I hadn't received my card yet. So then, Dustin and I were talking on the live messenger and I was feeling kind of sorry for myself because here I am with 4 kids, getting no sleep and Dustin is on vacation when he says to me, after talking about going to dinner with

adults(!) that he got a massage. Hello? Excuse me? A massage? Here I am wishing for 4 hours sleep in a row and he's out to dinner and a massage? Needless to say a serious pity party was rockin' the Douberly house!

THEN THERE WAS THE SOUND OF MY DOORBELL RINGING....

It was the FEDEX guy.

He had me sign his little doohicky.

My package was from a flower shop!

Ooh, we ripped it open to find these lovely flowers, chocolates, and a super sweet card inside. The flowers are gorgeous and just what I needed on this pity party day. Dustin had already sent me the beautiful blue pearls in the photo. I thought that those were my Valentine's gift before today. Ooooh, am I spoiled or what?

So, THANK YOU, HONEY! I LOVE THEM!

p.s. I also opened the chocolates, looked at the little "map" and chose my favorite, the milk chocolate caramel. I popped it into my mouth expecting to bite into it's chewy goodness only to find it was rock hard...completely FROZEN! I should have expected it but found it very humorous! How long have I lived here? Duh!

My Boys' and their Valentines

Here are my boys and the Valentines they receieved at school yesterday. I can remember Valentine's Day festivities from my elementary school years and I hope my boys remember these fun times, too. I also remember my mom telling me, "Yes, you have to give one to everyone." I can remember the whole lecture about being sure no ones feelings got hurt. That's a lesson that's as true today as it was back then!

Photos from Chief Jo Elementary

Henry was the student of the week for Miss Long's 2nd grade class. We got to help decorate this bulletin board with photos of Henry and the things he loves. There were photos of Henry from Halloween, his birthday, Missy, camping, fishing, jumping, reading and other fun things. I am glad that we had parties today so that I could get these photos of Henry with his special bulletin board all about him! It really did look cute!

Here are a couple of photos of Jeff's recent projects. The one above was his 100th day of school project. We had to collect and display 100 items. Jeff chose army guys. We used glue dots to stick them in there. The picture below is from the hallway bulletin board near Jeff's classroom. His artwork is the one to the right of his head (his left) with lots of orange colors. He takes his time with his art and I think it really shows.

I Heart Classroom Parties!

I love helping out in the boys' classrooms. Today I brought in cookies and then did face painting. I learned the easiest face painting technique at my MIL's company picnic...foam stamps and craft paint. It's awesome. The stamps make neat, clean images, the paint dries quickly, once the pain is dry it doesn't smear, and it washes off in a snap (even with a baby wipe) ! So that's my party contribution each holiday. The kids love it. The girls came along today and Kelsey received her first valentine. She tried to eat it, of course.

It's not nice to try and fool someone...

Dustin had asked that I get a photo of the boys together with their toothless grins. They are so silly that this was the best I could get.

Yesterday, as I was vacuuming the basement I found one tiny little tooth. It was the one that Jeff had lost last week. He was excited that I had found it and he and Henry plotted to put it under his pillow and see if the tooth fairy would leave money again. They are so funny. So this glittery card was all that was found this morning. Nice try, buddy. You can't fool her!

On the Downhill Slide

Yesterday was pretty crazy and I didn't get a chance to post this....

WE ARE HALF-WAY DONE WITH THIS DEPLOYMENT!!!!

Yesterday was day 90 of a(n) 180 day deployment and it was also Dustin's 33rd birthday! The first half has gone by really, really fast and I am hoping that the second half goes by even faster. It helps that I am so stinkin' busy that I don't have a minute to dwell on the fact that he's gone. We miss him like crazy and can't wait for him to come home.

Jenna tells it like it is....

Jenna: Mom, I just yawned.
Mom: Oh, ok.
Jenna: I yawned like you. Moms yawn. That's what they do.

I guess I need more sleep. Who would've guessed that? Brand new baby, 3 other kids, deployed spouse...yeah, I need more sleep.