Chaos over the last three days

I haven't been here because it's been ridiculously busy. Ironic, though, that when you are the busiest and have the most to blog about - you don't have time! Here are some snapshots from the past few days. Just as the excitement leading up to our eldest son's birthday reached fever pitch, the clouds rolled in and rain set in for days and days. It has rained almost continually since Thursday! You will easily underestimate the phrase, "excitement reached fever pitch". Our soon-to-be-ten-year-old couldn't concentrate on even a book (we usually have trouble getting him to put books down). It filtered down to his siblings and they were over strung. The smallest thing set off fights, angst and melt downs. Our middle son is very spirited and feels things strongly. He had a meltdown at 3pm on Thursday over something very minor. It took him more than an hour to recover and in the meantime he kicked a dent in one wall. A similar event happened the next morning and another hole. When I say "fever pitch" I am not kidding. To be honest, when the party finally began at 3pm on Friday, it was almost a let down, in emotional terms. We are still recovering some sense of normal emotions, even now. Because Saturday was also hectic. The boys and I had a 3 hour farewell party with kindergarten friends (think 10 Japanese women, 15 or so kids and 30 balloons in a small room)! Closely followed by an indoor picnic (still raining) with the CAJ year 8 families. Today has mercifully been quiet. Church/Sunday School this morning and rest this afternoon. We might have gone out to run them ragged at lunch time (not raining) but we opted for rest time instead and by the time we roused ourselves, it was raining again :-) Tempers are still not great though. Our 10 y.o. is arguing and arguing with us. It is miserable, but a sign of the times. We are going through change, he is out of routine and doesn't know how to handle that emotionally. Tomorrow my husband has to go back to work and I have to do a visa run. Meaning I have to drive an hour, with my 3 volatile boys, to our area's immigration office to put in a visa extension application form. I'll let you know how that goes! Suffice to say that I've spent some time this evening downloading free children stories from here to put on our iPod, in the hopes that I won't have to scream at my kids for two hours. There you go: if you had a wonderful vision of missionary children, it has gone down the toilet! Thanks for reading. Maybe later I'll tell you about the broken telescope, the dirty...but now clean slime, and the flowers in the soup tin!