What a weekend. Whew. I know I should have written about this last night while it was still fresh in my head but I couldn’t think about anything else  except sitting down with a drink in my hand at the day’ s end.

We had Gabe’s 5th birthday party yesterday. I had to teach my Saturday morning Spin class as usual and was up and out the door before anyone else. On the way to class, Jay called to ask me if we had any allergy medicine for Gabe, he had woken up with red, puffy eyes He’s had other allergy-related symptoms before but never the eyes. I told Jay that I thought we did but couldn’t be sure and to let me know if he couldn’t find any and I would stop on the way home and get something. But in the back of my head, I was thinking: Oh shit! He’d better not have pink eye! If we give pink eye to everyone at his party I am screwed!

So I teach and on my way home I call Jay and he says he thinks Gabe is doing better. I thought, well we were outside all day on Friday and he slept with the window open so  it was probably allergies. So I come home and Gabe’s eyes are not looking good at all. (As one of our friends asked later at his party, “How long has Gabe been on a coke bender?” Yeah, they looked like that.) And I also should mention that Julia had been asking to go to the bathroom quite frequently for the past two days as well. So I turned my disgustingly sweaty self back around and went to the store to buy Claritin and cranberry juice.

I come home, we dole out the goods to our children, and I take a shower. Then we decide Gabe definitely has allergies. (Allergies, right? Not pink eye. Not pink eye. Nope, he’s fine, definitely allergies.) And we go to soccer, where Julia has to go to the bathroom two times. Soccer goes well, if you consider Gabe standing on the field chewing his thumbs and staring off into space  as going well.

We wanted to give him his drum set before his party so he could have a chance to play with it, so Jay put it out for him to find when we got back from soccer. So when we get home, he sees his drum set and is super excited. The kids play with that for a while and we try to get them to eat some lunch, then we put Julia down for a quick nap and I run out to get the cake and some balloons. Meanwhile, Gabe’s eyes are looking puffier since his soccer game. So I also stop and buy him allergy eye drops (which he henceforth referred to as “poison” after giving them to him once).

Then, we all get ready to go and I wake Julia up to find she’d wet the bed because I pumped her full of three cups of cranberry juice. We throw the sheets into the wash and take off. We get to the bowling alley, and everyone shows up and it’s mass chaos trying to get 18 children to bowl. Gabe for some reason is acting like he’s on speed and is buzzing around karate-chopping and finger-shooting all of his friends and some of the parents, and Julia has asked to go to the potty 87 times.  After an hour and 15 minutes, we were all at about the eighth frame and we called it a game. We go to the party room, where every child grabs a really loud, annoying party horn and blows on it for half an hour. Who was stupid enough to buy those? Oh right. Me. So, we did the cookie cakes and ice cream and presents and everyone left. And Gabe’s eyes looked horrible. And Julia asked to go to the bathroom again.

Without horns blowing in my ear I found I could better listen to that nagging voice in the back of my head hadn’t shut up all day. I didn’t want to find out that Gabe had pink eye and wouldn’t be able to go to his last day of school and I didn’t want Julia to wake up with a kidney infection, so we packed up all the balloons and presents and loud, obnoxious horns and drove to the waiting room of the Mason Urgent Care.

We checked in and I took Julia to the bathroom another 75 times. We color, we sit, we wait…and finally the kids go back where we learn after an hour and a half that Gabe has allergies and Julia has nothing wrong with her.

(I know I’m taking a long time to tell this story…keep in mind I’m half asleep here.)

It’s about 7 now and we’re all starving so we go through the Chick-fil-a drive thru and go home. We eat, and I take Cole for a walk. As we are finally getting the kids to bed, Cole throws up everything he just ate in our upstairs hallway. So Jay cleans that up and as the carpet cleaner is soaking in, he notices that Cole has been sleeping on Julia’s bed the whole time we’ve been gone. It’s completely covered in hair. So we clean that up, and as I throw her pile of stuffed animals and pillows back into her bed, I discover a big, brown spider the size of my ear under her favorite bear.

Now friends, I know I’m given to hyperbole, but this spider was every bit as big as a human ear. I have only seen bigger spiders at the zoo (thank God). I have a spider scream reserved for anything bigger than a dime. Imagine the blood-curdling scream that came out of my mouth when I saw this tarantula. We cleared the kids out of the room and Jay smashed it with the bottom of the carpet-cleaner can. If he wasn’t around I would have removed everyone, closed the door, and sealed the cracks with duct tape until he returned.

Okay so barf cleaned up, spider removed, additional spider check done, nightlight on, fan on, princess CD on, drink is waiting for me downstairs, turn out the lights, go to close the door, and “Mommy, I have to go potty!”

Drink was eventually had though not as good as it would have been five hours prior.

I’m seriously falling asleep here so I leave you with these lovely parting shots:

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