I'm so hot I might puke

*Disclaimer:  I'm hot and tired and this article will have complaining!

It's 4am.  It is 78 degrees.  I am sure it is hotter inside my house.  We don't have air conditioning and the one fan we have left that a child hasn't broken is in the bedroom.  I slept crappy, woke up sweaty, and seriously feel like I might puke.  It's disgusting.  

I love living in San Diego, but not right now.  I just want to not feel hot.  I actually feel like staying at work just so I can be in the air conditioner, although I'm sure that the air/heat combination I walk in and out of all day is fueling my cold that should have been gone a week ago.  The house is a disaster because Jon and I are too freakin hot to do anything and I can't even go upstairs in my house because its at least 10 degrees hotter up there than anywhere else.  So, knowing that, know that my kids bedrooms are up there.  Yeah...they're in our room.  They have been for a while since this heat has been around.  And I bet its going to be super easy to break them of this habit when the heat is done and they could go back to their rooms.  Yeah.

Parenting, I have realized that lots of situations that seem really crap and could end up in a negative place, end up in laughter because, well, you have to or I don't think you'd survive.  Also, my sarcasm is amazingly helpful for all situations.  One aspect of this heat is like that.  Here we are in this 3 bedroom house, with many building/temperature/everything problems, which used to be my grandparents (and you can tell!), and we are all living in our bedroom.  I mentioned earlier we only have the one fan left and since we're moving to England in January (still awaiting England's approval of me), we are trying not buy new things that we won't bring with us.  So, every night, we all go into our bedroom with our one fan and sleep.  The kids crawl into bed with us, they make noises, I almost never sleep through the night.  Anyway, one requirement when you apply for your visa to England is about your living situation.  They are trying to avoid over crowding and so you have to have a bedroom for each pair of people (unless the kids were over 10).  That means that, Jon and I can be one room and the 2 kids could be together in a room.  So, when we list the property we'll be living in (which will be very temporary), it must meet that requirement. Last night Jon is reading this requirement to me to make sure he understands it and I realized how ridiculous it was.  If England (and yes, I just refer to the country as someone who has their own thoughts!) just knew our living situation here at the moment, I'm pretty sure they would just waive that one for us!  So now we have to search for a temporary rental home (until we find our more permanent rental) with more space than we clearly need, just so that we're not living the way we're living now.  Ah, the ridiculousness of it all.  

And you can probably be sure that once we move to England, you'll be getting some posts on how I'm much, much too cold...but for now I'm dreaming of that feeling!  

Do over

The past week, Charlotte, Jack, and I have been sick.  In that order.  I am still sick and these germs are kicking my butt.  Then last night, I fell down a couple of stairs while I was carrying Jack downstairs.  So, I'm pretty sore from that (age is not friendly in the injury department).  I'm already not feeling that great.  Then this morning, the kids both woke up before 6am (which is becoming a regular thing for them), and I got up so that Jon could sleep in for his birthday.  Jack was grumpy because he didn't have enough sleep and it turned into a full on meltdown.  He started kicking and hitting and I tried my best to scold him with the loudest whisper I could to not wake up Jon.  Eventually I put him in his room, but he instead chose to (do his regular) stand at the top of the stairs and throw down whatever he could find. Today it was a little bag full of individually cut stickers that he had stashed away in his room.  So now, there were tiny little heart stickers scattered all over the stairs, along with a number of other various items from his room.  Needless to say, Jon was up by 7 (haaaappy birthday!) and I was already burnt out from Jack.

In the time between Jon getting up and us leaving the house, Jack was back in his room.  He just loses it and the only way it seems for him to calm down is by giving him space to himself.  We drove to Starbucks where Jack broke down...again.  Number 3 and it was only 10am.  Charlotte freaked out about something and cut up her knee, everyone was complaining, no one wanted to go anywhere, and in the end, we came back home.  Our entire morning consisted of meltdowns and Starbucks.  And while Jon and I sat there in the shade with two crying kids, we just decided today was one of those days we need a do over.  Everyone was grumpy, nothing great had been accomplished, there were way too many tears, and we just needed to start again.  We made it home, had lunch at 10:45, and now, at 11:15, everyone is off to nap*.  Hopefully when they wake up, it will feel like a re-do for the day.

Days like today are the ones that make parenting such a hard job.  I mean, its hard every day, but when everything you seem to say and do is a fight, those days suck.  It's no fun, for anyone, and that really sucks.  At least we're lucky in the fact that we don't have too many of these days and generally we can make it to nap time without any major meltdowns, but sometimes it can't be avoided.  At least all the tears, scrapes, and whining made me forget about my own sickness and injuries!  

 *When I brought Jack up to his room for nap, I found a gigantic poo he left in there from when he was in time-out in the morning.  Wonderful!