Monday, Monday

This week started off with a bang. And not a good one. Yesterday was chaos from beginning to end.

It shouldn't have been, because I had A Plan. Grocery shopping for the week on the way home from school, supper fixed when my husband came home from practice, a simple meal planned for the one night this week that he wouldn't be home at all until late…it was all a great plan.

And then a couple things changed, and suddenly the plan was falling apart. Now he's got coaches' meetings after practice on Wednesday, so who knows when he'll be home. Top that with the sudden need to go watch a few middle school games. Yes, he's a high school coach. Yes, he goes to most of his freshman games, on top of his own game nights. Yes, there are multiple middle schools that feed into multiple high schools in this district, and no, of course he's not allowed to "recruit" players from the middle schools. But a couple of years ago, a very strong message was sent that the high school coaches needed to be going and visiting at middle school games. Sigh. So last night he hit one middle school for their 7^th grade games at 5:30, ran home to eat with us, then up to another middle school to watch their 8^th grade game. And he'll do it again on Thursday. And is talking about doing it again next Monday after his own scrimmage. And that's on top of the scrimmage tonight and another on Friday night. Are ya still with me? Because I'm tired just thinking about it all. I've said this before, and it's still true – I really do love what he does. But to not have a single night home or together in a week? That's just crazy!

The underlying stress to all this is that we have guests coming to stay overnight on Friday, and I went into this week thinking that I would have help – with the kids and the cleaning – on three of these nights. Hmmmm…not so much.

Those overnight guests are reading this now and trying not to be offended/concerned…don't worry, the house will be fine, just not as good as I had hoped…and even if it were a pit we'd still want you staying with us. We're totally excited you're coming!

Okay, back to the point. What was it? Oh, yeah, the bang of a day yesterday. I apparently wasn't the only one not handling life well yesterday. Or maybe the kids fed off my tension. Because by the time I went to bed, I was just grateful that all three were still in one piece. Particularly the middle one, who, after a couple meltdowns, was given an early bedtime. Which in fact led to another meltdown. (Saw that one coming, didn't you!?!) A full 40 minutes after she "went to bed," she was still up and down, and I was holding on to sanity by a thread. And trying not to wake the others up by screaming at her. Because that would have just made all things beautiful, and besides which, she doesn't care. Really. She just sort of bounces through life unfazed by my anger or disappointment. (Boy, are we going to have issues when she's a teenager.) She finally gave up or conked out, and I took a long hot shower and tried to calm down. Do you see a problem here? The one causing chaos is sleeping soundly, while I'm up past my bedtime just trying to breathe. Ha!

Tonight has gone a little differently. I'm not above bribery. I've got glittery marbles in a jar on the mantle – different colors for each kid. Marbles go in the jar for positives, marbles come out for making me nuts bad attitudes. So far today, all marble moving has been into the jar. Kid with the most marbles in there when the jar is full gets to pick the family treat. It's a win, all the way around.

I hope.

We'll see how bedtime goes.

Tune in later for the next installment of the "courtside chaos."