Would you like some cheese with that?

Warning: This post contains unnecessary, self-centered, and gratuitous whining.  For those of you who don't like that sort of thing, or those that actually have lives who deserve whining, please tune in next time for something more humorous.  And that includes the comments, too.  [you know who you are, anonymous]


So, this year has been a... crazy... year.  I reserve 'bad' for things that include trips to the hospital and or consultations with the insurance company.  So it hasn't been bad, just crazy.

And I think that I've done a relatively good job dealing with it.  Perhaps if you talked with my children or husband they might disagree, but as they don't write this blog, they can't tell you otherwise.

I like to pretend at least that I'm an optimist person who just deals with situations while at least attempting to stay cheerful and looking at the bright side of things.  Evacuation?  It might mean being away from home for awhile, but it's a good excuse to read a lot of books and order out a lot.  See?  Less cooking.  A good thing.  And I love libraries in the US.  Having a baby seven weeks before moving overseas?  Sure, it's a little fast, but see the above about cooking and books.  Plus, I don't have time to be worried about baby not sleeping well.  Good attitude.  Go me.

But with twelve days to go before departure, I'm starting to feel this year catch up to me.  I can deal with moving.  Again.  I'm okay with living in temporary housing when we get to post for an unspecified time.  Again.  While I'm not looking forward to paying a driver $180 a week to get things done, I can deal with not having a car for several months.  Again.  I can even deal with a five week-old baby and all of its vagaries.  For the fourth time.

But when that five week-old baby decides to fight me every single time I nurse and tries to scream and cry every single time I put him down to sleep when I know he's tired and just wants to sleep already, and repeat every 2 1/2 to 3 hours, I get a little tired of the show.  And then I have to decide what makes the cut for stuffing into our eight suitcases because we don't know when we'll be in our real (hopefully, fingers crossed) house and so we have to fit everything we might need for three four children crammed into a three-bedroom apartment in January in downtown Baku with just Drexel Heritage to keep us company for an undetermined amount of time, I might feel a little more stress.  And then of course there are still those three children to keep occupied in the three-bedroom teeny-tiny townhouse we're in already in December with no parks in walking distance and no desire to leave because it takes 45 minutes to get everyone out the door and in the car, I might admit to hiding out from them.  But only sometimes.  Oh, and add in the wonderful feeling of bleeding cash out of every pore as Sophia breaks the GPS and we buy a new one and the car requires $700 of repairs and we have to pay to have the house cleaned and carpets cleaned and oh! Brandon has only two suits with him which won't work for an undetermined amount of time before we're in our (hopefully) house and can get the rest of our things so let's go take all four of the children suit shopping.  And don't forget about the tailoring.  And don't forget Christmas. And that lovely red-eye international flight with said fighting, crying baby.

I think I could handle all of that except the baby, but when the baby is thrown in, I'm done in.  I can hardly handle the baby under normal circumstances.  Newborns are not my favorite.

So, I'm going to do the reasonable thing and leave the children and go to Ikea and Potomac Mills tomorrow.  All.  By. Myself.  Because what we need right now is to spend more money and acquire more things to ship overseas.

End of rant.