T-minus 22 and counting

My head is throbbing. Throbbing. I normally don't get headaches, but I have one that advil and tylenol won't touch.

Eddie is on call tonight. He says it's busy, which means that he'll probably be up all night.

My car had a flat tire today. So instead of grocery shopping and cleaning my bathrooms, the kids and I very, very carefully drove to the repair shop and waited for an hour plus while it got fixed.

Maren is six weeks old. If you've ever had a six-week-old, you probably remember that six weeks is when the screaming, colicky phase peaks, which means that I'm doing every task one-handed and bouncing.

All of that is pretty par for the course for my life these days. But the thing is, I'm expecting eight houseguests this weekend and the first ones arrive in a little bit less than 22 hours. In that time, I have to clean the whole house (including the kids' bathroom, which got slimed with a goldfish cracker and water concoction Annie and her friends mixed up), clean the car (including the all of salt from a huge bag of pretzels which Isaac spilled last week), shop for food for the birthday party and the blessing luncheon, and a whole bunch of other tasks I put off today while I was making something to cover my hooters so I could breastfeed the baby around my father-in-law and brothers-in-law.

It's going to be a busy weekend around here-- a birthday, a birthday party and a baby blessing. By Tuesday, my house will be quiet and messy again. I'll check back when things settle down.

--originally published 2/7/07