What a Crazy Weekend

Either I am getting lazier, tireder (is that a word?) or both, but I feel sort of behind on everything. Oh well. This is a long story, but I want it recorded. I had the awesome experience of attending my first Time Out for Women this last weekend. If you don't know what it is, basically it's put on my Deseret Book and is kind of an EFY/Women's Conference experience. My dad was so thoughtful and bought tickets for me, my mom, and my sisters. My youngest sister came up from St. George and watched Kalia. I was SOOO excited to hear from Sheri Dew, I think she inspires me to be better more than almost anyone else I can think of. She was wonderful, and I gained some really great insights that I will maybe share later. Hilary Weeks was also there- she is wonderful, I love her music, almost as much as my mom does. My mom is hands down the biggest Hilary Weeks fan in the WORLD. We were both excited to find out that a friend that was there with me (MARYLIN!) is her first cousin! Anyway, Hilary sang these songs that just made me bawl, and it felt so good to cry, you know how it goes.

Well, Friday night comes around. I was headed home with Kalia asleep in the car (around 11 p.m.) and Samuel was supposed to be home from riding dirt bikes out in the desert somewhere. I get home, he's not there yet, and somehow, my house keys have fallen off my car key ring, and I'm locked out. Kalia wakes up and wants to play. I call Samuel and he hasn't even left yet, and is about 30 minutes away. We live in a semi-ghetto area, and I was NOT about to sit on our porch and wait with a barefoot toddler in a nightgown. I cried and ranted and raved that he wasn't there to meet me, and then I tried for 15 (unsuccessful) minutes to break in to our apartment, then finally gave up and drove 30 minutes across the city to my aunt's house where other family members were sleeping. It was about midnight by this time.

It was at that moment that I found the keys sitting on the seat next to me. I was really ticked that I hadn't found them the first time I looked. At this point I get a text from Samuel telling me that their truck battery has gone dead, and they will have to ride their dirtbikes 20 miles back into town and get help. I'm too tired and frustrated to offer to help.

I should have offered to help.

But no, I attempted to sleep in the same room with Kalia in a pack and play. She didn't want to go to sleep as long as she could clearly see me laying in the bed. LONG story short, I put her in the bed with me (and put her back in the pack and play) four or five times during the night. She slept for a total of four hours. She screamed for another one or two, as I smushed a pillow over my head and cried in (more) frustration. Oh, and at some point Samuel had texted me saying he'd gotten home. I didn't really pay attention to what time he'd sent it.

At about 7 a.m. I realized she wasn't going back to sleep, and she was close to waking up everyone in the house with her protesting, blood-curdling screams. (I have to add that she is a great night-sleeper at home, so I'm feeling even more upset that she wasn't home in her own bed. I'm still partially blaming Samuel for this, which wasn't fair, I know.) I was so overwhelmed with a hundred negative emotions, I basically ripped her out of the crib, marched her downstairs and buckled her in the car. (She was supposed to stay at this house to get babysat for the day, FYI) Then I drove (sobbing) back to my apartment, and called Samuel, woke him up informing him that I'd just had the worst night of my life (it seemed) and I had a full day of classes ahead of me, and HE was going to solve the problem of what to do with her for the rest of the day, and I was going to sleep for a few hours to try to get some sanity back. I was tempted to skip the whole second day of Time Out for Women... Seriously, I was being COMPLETELY irrational, emotional, illogical, etc. I can admit it. I even comprehended it at the time, but it didn't stop me.

The one thing I could think clearly was, "Wow, the Adversary sure is going to a lot of work to stop me from going to these classes. So there must be something I need." And that made me all the more determined to get there...eventually. Samuel met me at the door, I handed him Kalia, and crawled in bed. Then I slept for three hours. I missed the morning classes of Time Out for Women. I guess Kalia slept for about three hours too.

As Samuel was driving me to the Cashman Center, where the classes were held, I finally asked how he ended up getting home the night before. That's when he told me that they'd been stuck out there most of the night, and he had finally gotten home and into bed around 5 a.m. (So he got a total of 2 hours of sleep.) I felt like a pretty bad wife (and mom) at that moment. I couldn't believe he hadn't ripped into me for being so awful. (Maybe it's something about a sobbing pregnant wife that makes you take pity and forget your own problems? I don't know.)

Here's what I do know. That afternoon session of TOFW was absolutely phenomenal, and I needed every second of it. I'm so glad I didn't give up completely. And I am so grateful to Samuel for whatever compassion overtook him; he didn't end up getting any work done, he took Kalia for the rest of the day, and he survived it all on two hours sleep.

That night, after a two hour nap for ALL of us, we got to go to a Nascar racing event. I didn't want to go, but my dad had won tickets, and Samuel thought it would be fun. The Nascar Speedway is only 10 minutes from our house! IT WAS AWESOME! I couldn't believe how exciting it was to see those trucks (happened to be a truck event) just FLYING around that track. Even Kalia was clapping and waving at the trucks every time they went by. And we got a nice fireworks show at the end.

Moral of the story? I don't know...you can probably deduct your own, but I was reminded that good things are worth fighting for, and that sometimes we just have to persevere when obstacles pop up to keep you from doing something good and uplifting. And give your husband a hug and a kiss for no good reason. They really are good to us, aren't they?