Things that Happened

Here are some things that happened since my grump-tacular quick takes yesterday:

1) The Ogre and I got into one of those nasty, bring-all-the-things-you-hate-about-yourself-to-the-surface fights that required both of us to do one of two things. We could either swallow our pride and own up to being selfish and self-indulgent, each in our own ways, or we could scream and point our fingers at each other and stomp around in fits of self-righteous indignation.

We chose both.

2) During Phase 1 of our abysmal fight, the phase in which we were ignoring the huge planks in our own eyes to count the specks in the other’s, I happened to check my email. My friend, with whom we were planning on grilling out tonight for my birthday, suddenly got called into work and had to cancel, leaving me with the stellar option of cooking dinner for my family or ordering a pizza on my own dang birthday.

3) Right when I was pathetically diving into the Cadbury chocolate I had bought specially for my birthday while sniffling and feeling spectacularly sorry for myself, my email chimed on my phone. I had received a comment on my post about women in crisis. I immediately felt slightly more cheerful, as the overwhelming majority of the comments I’d gotten were supportive. Just what I need, thought I. A nice little virtual word hug. 

And there, as my 84th comment, were these two words:

Kill yourself. 

4) The Ogre and I did eventually decide to be mature and own up to our failings. We had a tearful, painful conversation that happily ended with me curled up in his lap while we watched a movie on Netflix.

5) Which lasted for a little less than an hour, because at the stroke of midnight, like some horrible inversion of Cinderella, Charlotte turned into one giant projectile-vomiting pumpkin.

6) And because Charlotte absolutely cannot handle throwing up, her hysterical screaming woke up Sienna.

There’s nothing quite like sick children to help a mother get over herself. All my self-pity flew right out the window last night while I was holding my crying, shaking, retching toddler in my arms. Instead I felt pity for my child and a desire to comfort her, but I also felt grateful. Grateful that it wasn’t something worse, like cholera, grateful that we live in a time and in a country when and where I don’t have to fear for my child’s life when they get sick, and grateful that God, in His infinite wisdom, has given me this child to care for.

This morning, despite yesterday’s long series of unfortunate events and the reality that my birthday and most likely Mother’s Day as well will be spent nursing sick children and washing yet more vomit-covered clothes and towels along with my already colossal pile of laundry, I’m still feeling better than I was yesterday. Self-pity drags everyone else down with me, as I should know by now, and I refuse to spend my birthday (no matter how bad it gets!) making myself and the rest of my family feel worse than they already do.

So in that vein, my birthday gift to myself is this little YouTube video. I know I’ve linked to it before, but it makes me laugh every time, and laughter is definitely needed today.

Enjoy!

(Warning: Don’t watch this around the kiddies. There’s some pretty bad language in it.)

Happy Saturday!