lovemakesroom

It’s currently 3:06 AM on Friday.

I know this because I’ve already been awake once, mentally reviewing whether anyone has a field trip, court appointment, missing shoe, science project, emotional breakdown, or stomach virus waiting for me in the next six hours.

And honestly? At this point I’m too tired to sleep anyway.

Monday kicked things off with chaos wrapped in birthday cake frosting. It was my dad and sister’s birthday, which should sound sweet and simple, except life apparently heard “celebration” and said, “Perfect time for a medical mystery.”

Wiley has been throwing up every single time he eats lately, so he had a doctor’s appointment first thing in the morning. Meanwhile, I had stacked early morning meetings, FD6 had late start, FS3 needed daycare, and somehow all of us needed to be in different places at the exact same time.

So we deployed the village.

Wiley took FD6 to my mom’s.
I took FS3 to daycare.
Mom took FD6 to school.
Everyone scattered like a NASCAR pit crew.

We powered through the workday, did the afternoon shuffle of school pickup, daycare drop-off, back to work, and somewhere in the middle of all of it Wiley called saying the doctors think it might be his gallbladder.

Naturally, because why would life pace itself?

So we left work early, grabbed last-minute gifts and cake from Walmart looking like exhausted raccoons with debit cards, and raced to my parents’ house for the birthday party.

And honestly? It ended up being one of those nights I hope I never forget.

Simon Says.
Red Light Green Light.
Tag.
Hide and seek.
Kids screaming-laughing.
Adults laughing harder than the kids.
That beautiful kind of chaos where nobody cares about dishes or deadlines or laundry piles because everyone is just… happy.

We finally got everyone tucked into bed around 9 PM and absolutely collapsed.

Tuesday rolled in like a truck.

Except Wiley, somehow powered by caffeine and sheer determination, got up at 6:30 AM for his ultrasound appointment while the rest of us moved like sleepy slugs through wet cement.

FD6 ended up late to school.
FS3 ended up late to daycare.
I had to turn around mid-drive to pick up FS15 for bloodwork and labs before racing myself to work pretending I was a functioning professional adult.

Then came the usual relay race:
school pickup,
daycare shuffle,
more work,
homework help,
yard work,
flower planting,
lawn mowing,
steaks on the smoker,
mashed potatoes,
peas,
bathrooms,
teeth,
pajamas,
30-minute nightly cleanup.

Somewhere in there Wiley and I watched the Roast of Kevin Hart while I wrapped birthday presents and silently wondered if exhaustion counts as cardio.

Wednesday arrived dark, rainy, and gloomy — which honestly matched everyone’s attitude.

We hustled everyone through breakfast and clothes, doubled back for FS15, and raced to court in the “big city,” only to realize halfway there that the hearing started at 9:00… not 9:30 like I had convinced myself.

By some miracle we didn’t miss our portion.

Court brought some pretty major revelations, and afterward I took FS15 to lunch so he could process some feelings and talk through things involving his mom. Those moments are hard. Teenagers act tough until suddenly they don’t. And sometimes the best parenting happens over fries and awkward silences.

Then it was back to work for three hours.
Pickup FD6.
Drop at daycare.
Back to work.
Pickup again.
Walmart run for dinner ingredients.

Only halfway through the drive I realized FS3 — who has apparently decided naps are for the weak — was actively deteriorating in the backseat.

So we pivoted.

Grabbed only what we needed.
Met up with my sister for an early birthday gift drop-off.
Picked up Taco Bell.
Went home.

FS3 cried through most of dinner like his life was ending, FD6 quietly put herself to bed, and I stayed up assembling birthday treat bags while Wiley hunted down sleeping bags for a field trip.

We fell into bed exhausted.

Then around 10:30 PM Wiley started violently throwing up.

Again.

This time with diarrhea added for dramatic effect.

And that continued all night.
Into morning.
Into the next day.

Thursday morning started at 5:30 AM with FS3 yelling down the hallway after apparently opening the basement door, bypassing every gate in existence, and making his way downstairs before sunrise like a tiny feral escape artist.

Thirty minutes later?
K-pop music blasting from FD6’s room.

I marched in, confiscated the Alexa Dot, and informed her that perhaps we should not be hosting a pre-dawn nightclub on a school day.

Another thirty minutes later FS3 was crying again.

So we started the day:
breakfast,
getting dressed,
birthday hair,
special dragon braid pigtails,
birthday photos,
classroom cupcakes,
school drop-off,
daycare drop-off,
meetings,
work,
more meetings.

Then at 2:30 PM I flew out of the office, picked up FD7, dropped her at daycare, grabbed FS15, and raced back to court for a mitigation meeting.

Mom no-showed.

So instead we grabbed Red Robin to-go for FD7’s birthday dinner and made the best of it because honestly that’s what parenting is half the time:
adjusting expectations while still trying to create joy.

We finished the night dropping the older kids off at a friend’s house for house-sitting, getting everyone else showered and settled, brushing teeth, FaceTiming big sister, and finally crawling into bed wondering what exactly Friday planned to do to us next.

And here’s the thing.

Reading this back sounds insane.

Because it was.

But buried somewhere between the courtrooms, Walmart runs, vomiting spouses, late school drop-offs, birthday cupcakes, Taco Bell dinners, dragon braids, and endless laundry piles… there’s this weird little beauty to it too.

This family isn’t perfect.
This house isn’t quiet.
Nothing is polished.
Nothing is Pinterest.

But these kids are laughing.
They feel safe enough to be loud.
There’s dinner on the table.
There are bedtime routines.
There are birthday cakes and hugs and family dinners and people showing up.

And sometimes surviving the week together is its own kind of success.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Friday is loading… and I’m honestly scared.