This about sums it up. I don’t nap, but these days I crash. The kids went back to school yesterday, Josh and I have been married 19 years today, and we are all tired. Stupid tired. Mono tired. We haven’t even done anything and we’re tired, tired.
I suppose it’s the stress of the move catching up with us, but it feels a bit over the top. Josh’s back is half broken, neither of us are sleeping very well in our loaner Queen size bed where we keep blaming the other person for being on our side and the dog for taking up the bottom third (yes, Dad, I know you and mom share a full sized bed, but you don’t get any prizes for being crazy), and I think I’ve had a headache 5 out of 7 days this past week. I’m sure it’s from not drinking enough water because the water comes out of the faucet warm (not room temperature, but hot/warm) and has to be chilled in the fridge, and by the time it’s cold I’m not thirsty or the kids drank it because we can only find tiny pitchers to fit in our fridge and I hate drinking water anyway, and can’t someone just give me an IV already so I don’t have to be bothered with swallowing?
We are happy. Just tired. And I keep thinking we have to move again in two years. My stuff hasn’t even arrived yet and I’m already wondering how we’re going to make it out of here.
I’m also navigating having another person living in my house. For the most part, she is unnoticeable and a delight to have. But I’m not sure how much I should try and include her in our lives — does she want to come watch TV with us? Does she even understand that I’m inviting her to watch TV with us? She says, “OK Madame. No problem, Madame,” no matter what I say so I’m not sure when she gets it and when she doesn’t. The language barrier also means that when she says things they come as directives and not requests. “We go now” instead of “Can we go now?” or “You buy this” instead of “would you mind buying this?” I have to reword them in my head so I don’t bristle and feel like she’s bossing me around.
And I’m tired of things being Not Quite Right. Thankfully the internet has been mostly fine, except that we can’t get a signal upstairs through all our cement walls and Josh has tried for a month to get someone to come and run a wire upstairs. One guy came a few times and then dropped off the planet. Josh called him to follow up and he said. “I forgot you. Give me 10 minutes.” and then never called back. The cable box to the TV (which we have because it’s actually cheaper to get phone/internet/cable together than internet by itself. Seriously. Don’t ask why. I don’t understand it.) is buggy so we will be watching something and it will change channels all by itself, or it plays the picture from one channel with the sound from a previous channel, or I record something and it records for 2 minutes and then kicks off, or it tells me it can’t record because it’s already recording something else, but it’s not. Someone came out last night and maybe fixed it? I’m not sure because I’m afraid to try it and end up aggravated all over again.
The kids started school yesterday and that wore me out too — we had orientation day with administration meetings for all 3 levels, plus the superintendent. Then PE uniforms to buy, classes to locate, and people to meet. All 3 boys are so excited and happy about their new school, but girlie is ready to go back to Bahrain. It has nothing to do with the new school, just that she hates new things and she’s had way too many new things lately. She didn’t cry at all when she started Kindergarten, but she cried all day in class yesterday and was already starting again as the bus approached school this morning. Her sweet teacher sent me a message that she tried to do her best all day, even through her tears. Today was day 2 of tears — if she comes home with puffy, red-rimmed eyes again I’m going to have to try some other way to get her acclimated to school.
Headed to ACS. Smiles on 3 out of 4 kids is a decent percentage.