Frustrating day

Today is our anniversary, hardly a day you would expect to be frustrating. But, just like birthdays, anniversaries fall on any day, and children don't usually make a point of inconveniencing themselves just because it is a special day for the adult in their lives. I often get admiration or sympathy for having three boys. Usually that isn't terribly warranted, but on a day like today just maybe I'd accept!

It started off badly with me not getting enough sleep. On Saturday night we discovered that a deadline has passed back in August and no one had followed us up on it. It required a five minute Powerpoint presentation to be done about us for a conference in Australia next weekend. Well, the presentation didn't actually take me long to do, but figuring out how to get it to Australia as posting it is no longer an option actually kept me up late last night and I woke with it in my mind this morning. A bad start to a day that involved my teacher-husband at work on a student-free day. That means the teachers are free of students, but parents are not free of children!

Somehow the boys were terribly needy today. I rarely got to work on this frustrating technological problem longer than 10 minutes without interruptions. I did get it done, however the effort it took with all the distractions left my mind and emotions rather tattered.

To add to the frustration my 11 y.o., new middle schooler had an assignment he needed to get done by Wednesday. Yes, he'd procrastinated, but he also didn't really know how to start in on this largish project. He had all the knowledge, just didn't know how to move from there to organising it into sentences and paragraphs under headings. His dad had helped him a certain distance, but as I was the lucky one left at home today it fell on my shoulders to push him through to the end.

In the middle of all of this boys two and three didn't want to miss out on some attention. Plenty of,

"He hit me"
"I'm bored"
"Can I play computer games?"
"I've got another bleeding itchy bite."

A fly screen in the lounge got knocked out into the back yard. Boys wrestled uncontrollably in a small room. A musical instrument blasted in my ear. My youngest managed to misjudge the distance between his face and the heavy front door and gave himself a black eye just before we went out for an exercise "break", prompting a collapse and words like, "I can't walk." Later my five year old's piano practise brought only giggles and no real work, but it was interrupted by questions from his brother like, "The words on the computer are balded (sic). I don't know what to do."

My husband was at work from 8am till 8pm. Thankfully he dashed home briefly over dinner and gave me some moral support.

What kind of anniversary is that? Frankly I'm glad it is over. We'll celebrate another day, once we can find someone who'll take this rowdy lot for a while.