Stress-Free Sundays, or not...

As a pastor's wife, one of my primary roles is to eliminate stress for my husband on Sundays. His job of communicating the Word of God is so vitally important that I don't want anything to distract him. We go to great extremes to create a stress-free zone surrounding Sunday mornings, but some days things just do not go as we planned them...especially when kiddos are involved.

Sunday morning begins on Saturday night for us. Every Saturday night, I pick out all 4 of our outfits and make sure they are ironed and ready to go in the morning. I also prep our breakfast for the morning so that it will take less time and hassle to cook in the morning. Andy's ritual Sunday breakfast includes 3 egg whites with 1 whole egg, 3 pieces of turkey bacon, a yogurt or some fruit, and a glass of juice.

We typically don't go anywhere on Saturday nights and all try to get to sleep early because Andy gets up with the rooster on Sunday mornings.

Well, I thought I was being really proactive this week because I had Sammy in his bed by 7:15 on Saturday night. Caedmon had taken a good nap that day and I knew he wouldn't be tired, so I set him up in his bed with some library books to help him calm down. Things were going great. Sammy fell asleep before 8 and Caedmon finished up his library books around 8:15. That's about the time that everything began to unravel...

Caedmon had a total and complete meltdown when trying to pick out his stuffed animal to sleep with that night. I know, paramount decision, right? After trying to calm him down and reason with him, he only got more defiant and violent and ended up without a stuffed animal at all. Sammy woke up about that time with a poopy diaper and didn't fall back asleep until 9:00. (Did I mention I have to stay in the room with him until he's completely asleep?) When Andy & I went to sleep at 9:40, Caedmon was still awake and we were just hoping he didn't get up and destroy the apartment.

Sammy woke up again at 1:30 AM and just wanted to "hang out" a little. Andy headed to the couch so he could get back to sleep. Sammy, on the other hand, was no too interested in sleeping. He wasn't crying and he would lay down in his pack-n-play. But every 15-20 minutes, just as I would be falling back asleep, he would stand back up again. It was like some kind of cruel torture method..."Haha, you thought I was asleep! Nope. And I want to make sure you're not either!" He finally fell asleep around 3:30 AM and I got back to sleep around 4. When Andy woke me up at 7, I felt like a total zombie.

The next morning at church, a staff member came up to me as the 3rd service was starting and said, "I think Caedmon has hives." Hives? Seriously? Yes. All over his face.

I was 90% sure I had Benadryl at home, so I loaded up both boys and headed home. The 10% uncertainty is what turned out to be true, so I called Mandy to see if she had any. Nope. The boys and I walked over to the little market at our apartment complex to see if they had any. Nope. So the three of us loaded back into the car to go to the grocery store to get some Benadryl. One hour later, we were home. And hungry. And exhausted.

So much for a stress-free Sunday, huh? Oh well, you win some, you lose some!