Stumbling away...

My husband and I went to Las Vegas last week...on Valentine's Day, actually. Neither of us are big on that holiday, but our 5th anniversary was on the 9th and we waited until this weekend so that we could enjoy a LOOOONNNGGGGG weekend together, with President's Day being today.

As I was preparing to leave, Murphy's Law kicked into overdrive around here. (The whole if it can go wrong, it will go wrong deal.) My parents said that they would be over here by 5pm at the very latest so that I would have an hour and a half to do last minute things without the added bonus of trying to wrangle and feed my two little munchkins. Well, as luck would have it, there was just enough snow that day to make a mess of the roads, so my dad was late getting home from work, they were late leaving the house, and traffic pretty much sucked the big one. In addition, Chris was late leaving work and got to do his own traffic fighting stunt, completely crushing all hope in me that I would be able to actually focus on packing.

It might just be our little slice of crazy over here, but from 4-6pm is pretty much known as "the witching hours" in our house. Those two hours between Georgia's afternoon nap and dinner usually present the biggest challenge for me during any given day. The kids are restless, tired, somewhat bored, and so am I most days. There's also the whole dinner thing in there, too. I hadn't even thought about dinner Wednesday night because part of my mom's generous plan involved her bringing and feeding the kids for me. Clearly, that got blown out of the water.

I was trying to pack myself for 4 nights in Vegas -- attempting to account for unknown weather conditions, fancy dinners, casual dinners, and lounging by the pool attire. At the same time, I was trying to pack up two kids for 4 nights at their grandparents' house -- and trying to cover my bases with regards to having enough clothes, church clothes, pajamas, underwear, food, medicine, loveys, etc.

That's stressful enough in itself, right? Well, add to that the fact that my *ahem* well intentioned mother-in-law did my laundry on Tuesday. Most people would probably be exceptionally grateful and appreciative of another person doing laundry without being asked to, but for me -- it actually added to my stress level. The thing is, I am ultra anal about my laundry. Chris has tried three times to do laundry in our five years of marriage and I think he pretty much just gave up after that. (I wasn't very nice about it.) I don't mind doing laundry -- I really don't. I have a very specific organizational system for the whole process and usually plan it out. My MIL came over to watch the kids here on Tuesday afternoon while I saw a couple of clients. I hid the ironing from her because I knew if I didn't, that's all she'd do while she was there. I *thought* about asking her to PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don't touch the laundry, but I bit my tongue as I left because I didn't want to be tacky. Well, that will teach me. I had three loads of laundry -- one in the dryer, one in the washer finishing up and one in the basket. When I walked in the door, the first thing she said to me was "I hope you don't mind, but I did the laundry." And there it was -- all three loads, piled up on the recliner and loveseat. As I tried not to roll my eyes in agitation and managed an "Oh, okay", she added that my bra was hanging on the rack in the laundry room.

Perfect. Doesn't everyone want to be greeted by their MIL telling them that she has hung their underwear up for them? Seriously.

Anyway -- I'll just say that things were "folded" much differently than when I do it and our clothes were all together -- I sort them by family member as I fold, so I was just out of synch on that end, and those three loads were *of course* the stuff I really needed to pack for all of us.

Okay, so back to the chaotic pre-departure evening. As luck would have it, both kids were pretty wound up -- Mitchell was really excited to go to stay with my parents, and I think Georgia was just feeding off of both of us. I worked up a sweat running around and trying to do a million things at once, toting the kids from room to room to room with me. Finally, my parents arrived and I was able to bark orders at them and try to not leave absolutely everything at home. The plan was to leave the house at 6:30. My parents arrived around 6:20 and Chris got home at about 6:45.

We said goodbye to the kids, leaving me in tears. The funny thing is, neither my dad nor my husband really said anything about my crying. My dad asked if I was okay and Chris gave me that "You're going to be fine" look. I think they were afraid if they asked for details, I'd actually give them and no man wants that. We were all fine with them talking sports and me sniffling alone in the dark.

Our plane ended up being delayed for almost two hours, which just added to my sense of frustration. Hurry up and wait. Why I expected anything else is beyond me.

The good news is that my husband I enjoyed a wonderful, long weekend away. I knew we would, and really, it didn't matter *what* was in my suitcase. I don't know why I get so stressed out in situations like that -- I was doing the best I could with what I had to work with and I still got snippy and freakish.

Oh my goodness -- here comes that dreaded line -- I'm becoming my mother.