Foiled.

Monday, the girls went to school, and I planned to clean most of the day. I did pretty well with that, but didn’t get as much done as I had hoped to do.

Tuesday, I was going to work on scrapbooks I’m doing for a friend while the girls were at their grandmother’s house. But their cousin is in town, so they wanted to come back home and play with their cousin. When I got back from Weight Watchers, they were already here, and it seemed rude to go hole up in my room while they and MIL and my mom and niece were here at the house.

Wednesday, Alice was at school in the morning and Helen was there all day. Because Helen’s sleep schedule has been so completely disrupted lately, I haven’t been sleeping well, and several weeks of disrupted sleep finally got to me. I had a complete and total meltdown over a small issue, really, and was pretty worthless for the entire day. My intentions HAD been to work on the friend’s scrapbooks again.

Thursday (yesterday), we kept the granddaughter of a dear friend who had to go have a chemo treatment. His wife, who would have been watching the child, needed to be with him for support, so she called us to ask if we could keep Anna. Anna was here from about 9:30am until about 4pm, and coordinating naptime was a total nightmare. And then I taught a PSAT class at 4pm, so the day was pretty much shot. And our niece stayed overnight with us last night, so again, I felt that it would have been rude to go hide in my room and work on those scrapbooks.

Today, the girls ordinarily would be going to play with FIL and step-MIL, but step-MIL’s fourth great-grandchild was born this week, so she went over to Georgia to meet the baby and help out. So last night I discovered that my morning today, my last holdout for my “vacation from tutoring before school starts” was shattered. I had *planned* on working for three hours solid on Connie’s books. Curses, foiled again. So instead I took Helen and Alice and Brandi out to run errands (Helen LOVES to run errands)… We went to the bank, Target, CVS, and three stores looking for Crocs in the right size and color for Brandi (her 13th birthday is at the end of the month). When we got back, Helen said, “That’s too much errands, Mommy.” I agree, Helen.

Brandi has gone off with her grandparents now, and I’m insisting on naps from both of my girls. Maybe I’ll get an hour to myself while they sleep. Keep your fingers crossed for me.