FIRE!! This IS NOT a Drill!

OH.MY.WORD. Today has been a doozie! It just has been. ALL.DAY.LONG and its only a little after noon. I'm not sure how I am gonna make it through the rest of this day, except for GOD carrying me. I sound dramatic, but any of my closest friends, who just experienced the last 30 minutes of my day, will say, "she is NOT exaggerating!"

Like usual, I packed a lunch for my three youngest kiddos so that we could "ENJOY" a few extra moments with our friends before heading off for naps. (I say "enjoy" because this part of the day has high's and low's--the high is getting to talk with some of my best friends but the low's are that its like a mad house, there is COMPLETE and TOTAL mayhem most of the time, with kids screaming and Emerson eating all of his, and every other person's food, all while Mom's try to keep picking up from their broken conversations...you get the picture it's a zoo!

Today was no different except that I brought my frazzled self into the mixture as well...when I first realized I was completely "frayed" I should've known to pack up the kids and just go home...but no, I thought I'd stick it out, being with friends would surely make things better, right?

Everybody had eaten and was just playing on the inside playground when I noticed Lawson was over near the fire alarm. I only had a second or two to respond and I'll just admit my reflexes were too slow! There I am in slow motion yelling, "NNNOOOOOOO" over the crazed and already noisy chaos when he looks at me and he knows he's done something, and then it starts...lights flashing, siren blaring, and we're in a full out "emergency".


One of the other Mom's said, "oh there goes the Principal" so I took off to catch him. I explained to him that it was my child and I don't even remember him saying anything to me, he just grabbed his cel phone and ran off. I quickly walked back to the indoor playroom where chaos had ensued. Every person in the school was pouring out the doors evacuating the building, the cooks, the students, the teachers, those who were working out...you name it, EVERYONE was being interrupted by this oh so "small" thing my child just did, of pulling the fire alarm. Teachers were yelling at all of us Mom's in the play area, "THIS IS NOT A DRILL! YOU NEED TO GET OUT." And I, in my tears had to say, "it was my child, my son pulled the fire alarm."

Really? Truly? How can this be happening? I was and still am a frazzled mess from the way the whole morning had gone and now this? The past days have been really hard. Over the weekend three of us had the stomach virus and I've been playing catch up from that, then Monday Adam came home early from work feeling sick, Tuesday he HAD to go to work for some major meetings that started at 7am and he didn't get home til 10:30 that night, this morning he had another meeting that started at 7 so that's kind of what led into the spiral of things that occurred today and all the tears that came with it. I left my house this morning with everyone (all their bags, sippy cups, bottles, and homework) by 7:10 (which I must say is a feat in itself), I dropped my oldest at school, headed to my Mother-In-Law's house because she was going to take my other 3 kids to pre-school since I had a 7:40 meeting and Drop Off isn't until 8am. With the traffic in the morning, my estimated 50 minutes wasn't enough time to make the turn around so I walked into the Room Mom meeting that I was supposed to be in just as the coordinator was saying, "and that's about all I need to say". Really? Are you kidding me? That was fun! Then the rest of the morning consisted of me running back and forth to my house for a myriad of things that I kept forgetting, no less then 5 times. FIVE times in 3 hours, WHAT.IS.WRONG.WITH.ME?!!

You can understand my pain when you realize that I only have these precious 3 and a half hours on Wednesday's to run errands and get things done because on Thursday's I have been volunteering at Peyton's school. My time is precious and valuable, and today was just filled with constant forgetfulness, inefficiency and a lot of tears! A.LOT.OF.TEARS!
You can ask ANYONE at First Baptist Church who saw me...I was a WRECK! But Lawson didn't seem too un-done by the whole thing. While other children were crying and screaming in fear and scared to death that there was a fire, Lawson was just standing there, I honestly have NO idea what Emerson was doing and somehow, Ava Jane just kept sleeping soundly in her carseat through the WHOLE escapade (thank you LORD for such a laid back baby!) I have no idea how anyone could sleep through that alarm, it was incredibly loud!

This day has been crazy, its been emotional, I feel completely stretched, utterly at my limit but I have to say, just before I backed my car out of my parking spot I saw a dear friend in my side mirror, she had run across the parking lot to pray for me. What a blessing! To have a friend pray immediately, specifically, FOR ME, was so encouraging. God knew what this day was going to be like, He knew I was a frazzle then, and that I'm still in DESPERATE need of His help right now.

I'm realizing that there are limits to what I can do...I'm going to have to do some serious prioritizing and praying to ask God what specific things does He want me to spend my time doing, because there are just too many things vying for my time and energy and I do not want to waste a single moment on things that are meaningless and worthless. And right now, I feel like I'm doing a lot of things, trying to accomplish a ton of stuff, but I'm not doing any of it well. I sort of feel like I've failed this "drill"....but I'm hoping to have learned from this real life mistake. I'm going to have to slow down, I'm going to have to focus and ask God to show me what to cut out so that I don't repeat the harry-ness of today, ever again, well, at least not for a long time I hope!!

So there's a little blurp into my very wordy Wednesday. I hope you can rest in the Lord today, because, honestly, if I didn't have my God to lean back on in times like these, I have no idea how I would survive. Life is just too hard sometimes, it's just too difficult to navigate alone. I'm so VERY thankful that I have a loving Savior who wants me to lean into Him and to ask for His help and I'm SO grateful for the wonderful friends and family that God has placed around me to support and encourage me, without them I'd be in a real heap of trouble!!