Why I *need* a maid

 We had a sitter coming over to help my mom with the 8 kids while Jon, Noelle, Josiah and I went out for Noelle's birthday dinner. The plan was to go to Texas de Brazil which is a fabulous restaurant with tons of scrumptious food. We had been looking forward to this night for a while now. No kids. Yummy food. SCORE.

I started cleaning up the house in preparation for the sitter and our date...quite a task considering the 8 children running amuck. 

The kitchen floor was SO filthy from everyone playing in the yard and coming inside continually so I decided to mop. I HAD to. It was a necessity.

Most people would consider mopping an ordinary job. Nothing fancy...just a sink full of water, a mop and a strong arm...right?

Wrong.

Not when it comes to me.

As I am happily mopping (yes, you can be happy and mopping at the same time) and minding my own business, I am suddenly attacked by a large, hefty barstool. It came at me from my side, thinking I was unaware of it's presence. I suspect that it's plan was to foil my mopping attempts and not allow me the satisfaction of a clean floor in retaliation for my allowing the kids to paint whilst sitting upon it.

The stool lunged at me, narrowly missing my head and instead, being caught off balance by my stealth maneuvers, came crashing down upon the top of my ankle bone and scrapping it's way down my foot.

Now, most people might have flown into a sudden rage and attempted to throw the barstool out the large, glass window that was oh so near...but instead, I calmly removed the battered stool from my leg....sat down...and proceeded to cry. (crying makes it feel better)

I remained seated for quite some time because I could NOT WALK. 

That could prove difficult...

My only thought?

"Are we still going to be able to go out tonight????" (the question of a desperate mother needing some quite adult time)

In my mind I had several choices:

A. Stay home, which was not an option in my mind.

B. Go ahead and go out with Josiah and the Griggs...and crawl through the restaurant since I could not walk.

C. Find a wheelchair. Tempting........except you must remember my very recent tailbone injury while mountain biking. Oh, you do not remember? Hu. That must be because I decided not to humiliate myself by divulging that story. (oops)

As I was trying to sort out in my mind the best option, my mom called and is sick and cannot help watch the kids.... my sitter Natalie arrives and her poor little son is screaming.....my iron broke and I could not iron my dress....and Findlay is super fussy as we are trying to convince Natalie she CAN watch 8 kids with no problems even though her wee one is upset...!!!!!!

End of the story.....we went to eat at Carrabba's instead of the Brazilian Steakhouse (we plan to try to go again next week) and were home inside of an hour. I had to hang on to Jon (until Josiah met us there) and HOP into the restaurant. Yeah.

Happy birthday Noelle!

I should be thankful for my "free" hour....well, free is a fluid term here because we did take the baby and had to leave suddenly because Findlay was hysterical. I guess dinner with one child is easier than dinner with 8!

In conclusion, I want everyone to know that I am taking donations for a maid service to clean my kitchen floor. If you care to contribute to my sanity, er, clean floor...feel free to contact me day or night.