Rain, Strep Throat and Poop....Oh My!

You know those days where you wake up and expect to get so much done and the day to go smoothly? I don't know why I ever wake up like that, to be honest. Every single day never goes as planned. That's the magic of life. However, I still woke up today expecting a certain thing from this Monday. I was pretty happy because Mr Baby had slept from 8pm-6am! It was GLORIOUS! Once I opened my eyes and sat up in bed, my oldest came in to tell me that my middle child was sleeping. Uhm...it was 9am....why was he still sleeping. One thing you need to know about my children, they sleep great BUT they rise and set with the sun. The latest they've ever slept is 8:30am and that was so long ago I don't even remember. I kinda brushed it off because we'd had a crazy busy, exciting, fun filled weekend. Then he wakes and comes into my room. As I saw him coming down the hallway I knew what I was in for. You could just see on this face that he was burning up. I took his temp. Yup, 101. Full blown fever. Then I realized he hadn't said a word. SO weird for this kid. I asked what was wrong and he said his throat hurt. Oh goodie! So I called and scheduled him an appointment that wouldn't take place til 3pm. Well, that worked out well, since I needed to get up, feed a baby, pump, feed the oldest, divvy up some medicines and prepare. By the time all of that was done and we were getting close to leaving the sky started looking gray and promising. Promising of rain. I love rain! SO much! More than rain? I love thunderstorms! Except, when I have to drag 3 kids out in it. One who's sick and one who's in a heavy carseat carrier. Ugh! We make it into the car just as it starts coming down. I was hoping it'd let up. It of course got 10x's worse. I prayed on the way there, that God give us a front parking space. I know, I know! Such a trivial thing to pray for, but I was really hoping for it. Guess what? He gave it to us! Even though we were right up front, it was still quite a bit of good walking distance to get inside. So, I made sure to tell the kids to prepare. I hopped out and by the time I made it to the trunk to open it up for the stroller, I was SOAKED. I mean SOAKED through my hair to my scalp, kinda soaked. Once the trunk was open I was able to hide under that and set up the stroller. Finally got everyone loaded and huddled under the trunk. Finally I said "GO!" and we took off. Only, as I pulled the trunk down, a bucket of collected rain water fell directly on me. Perfect. Then I started sliding out of my flip flops. I ripped them off, while trying to cover the baby's carseat with a changing mat. Of course before we were even halfway the thing had blown off. The older two thought this was great fun and quite hilarious. The child in me, wanted to join and screams of laughter and giggles. But the Mom in me knew as soon as we walked into that cold air conditioned hospital, we were gonna freeze. We finally make it indoors completely soaked. Like we'd jumped into a pool. While checking into the Dr she hands me a check list sheet to fill out and I basically soaked the piece of paper. We were there for hours. Positive strep test. Which honestly made me happy because we can fix that with antibiotics. The Dr thought it could also be Hand Foot Mouth and if you're a Mom, you run screaming from that! So strep, even though contagious, was fixable. Perfect. Of course the whole time we were waiting at the Doctors it was barely drizzling outside. Once our script was ready and we started for the car, you guessed it. Torrential down pour! I stood inside the doorway to make sure  it wasn't going to let up any time soon. Well, it didn't. There was a lady standing there waiting as well. I asked if she was going to be there for a minute and she JUMPED at the chance to help me. She stood with the kids while I pulled the car up as close as I could. Of course getting soaked. When I get back to the kids the lady is simply GUSHING with amazement. "I've been chatting with your boys and they informed me that you homeschool TOO???? On top of taking care of all of this??? I have two 1 year olds and I could never handle that! How do you do it???" Soaking wet and a little thrown off I responded with a "God, prayer and coffee!" She laughed, but I don't think she realized how dead serious I was. Which cracked me up. She got to asking me what my husband does and when I explained that he was currently gone, her eyes got even bigger. (Believe me! I didn't believe it was possible!) She was simply amazed I was managing all I was managing. The funny thing about that, is when people see what I do, they don't see the silent tears at night, the yelling at my children, the mistakes I make all day every day. They just see the surface. And it reminded me how much we don't see what God does. It's easy to see he's blessed me with a Godly, handsome, strong husband and 3 very healthy happy children. (minus the strep throat of course haha!) But it's not easy to see WHY I had to drag three kids out in pouring down rain because one of my kids is sick. I don't see WHY my husband has to be away from me 85% of our 7 years of marriage. But yet, here I am. Loving life. Loving the trials and tests. Of course after I get home and for the second time get soaked by the rain water that had collected on the trunk while loading the kids up and finally settle in, I realize Baby's got a poopy blow out diaper. Well of course he does. I'm exhausted, soaking wet, cold and I still need to get dinner on the table, divvy out medicine again and pump. As I'm bathing the baby I realize, every second I breathe, it's a blessing. Every Monday I wake up and it's nothing like I plan, it's a blessing. Every time I have to drag three children out in the pouring down rain, it's worth it. Because God's put me on this earth for a reason. He's made my life a certain way for a reason. I will embrace it and thank HIM for it!