This product requires assembly...

The words I am learning, slowly, to dread with my entire soul! Somewhere up there with hearing M's pee hitting the floor. What a day!!Here is the culprit of my stressful afternoon...my oldest's old loft bed that we moved into my son's room this afternoon. It's very similar to this one in the picture.

As you know the day started well. K's birthday and all...she was happy with the gifts she got(the Sims2 Pets EP, a frog puzzle from her friend T, a YMCA T-shirt from her brother and sister and money from her Nana) then there was the outing to lunch and a movie(the plan was to go see 'The Santa Clause 3') with her Grandmother and two friends. I decided since we were down to two kids(from the temporary 5) that I wanted to do a little retail therapy for my PMS so we all trooped out to the van and went to JYSK to buy a bunk bed for the girls. M will be turning 3 on the 13th and it's time to put her in a big girl bed. I have a mattress for her all I need now is a bunk bed to put the two girls in. K had a loft bed and I had M's toddler bed set up under it to get her used to the bunk feel. So the deal was; buy the bunk bed(or 'monkey bed' as M calls it), take apart the loft bed, re-assemble it in A's room and assemble the bunk in the girl's room. What fun. I remember vividly the massive amount of stress I had putting the loft bed together(starting with getting home and then having to send J all the way back to IKEA to get the bolts to put it together; a 45 minute drive one way) in between dealing with my then 8, 3 and 3 month old children. I love to assemble things...or rather I love the idea of building them but then when I start to do it I realize that I am not in any way shape of form a visual thinker. The same thing happened today. We got the bunk bed(needs assembly) very similar to this one from IKEA only we got ours at JYSK. Perfect for my girls. Then we headed for home, J and I lugged the bed into the house and then he went to the grocery store to pick up a few things we needed while I started on the great bed move of 2006.

My first step was to take apart the existing beds in the rooms. I don't really like taking apart large pieces of furniture because in my house that is when you find out where all the dirt, toys and unnameable things have been hiding in that room. I was not disappointed...although I wish I had been. So with both bedrooms tore apart and a beginning made on the taking apart of the loft bed J gets back from the store and we put most of the food away...the house is a mess...we had had 3 tween girls hanging out there just a couple hours before, I hadn't unloaded the dishwasher so all the dirty dishes were from one end of the kitchen counter to the other and A & M were very interested in what Mommy and Daddy were doing so were underfoot rather than nicely watching TV like we wanted them to. At that point K dropped in quickly with her Grandmother in tow(who I am sure thinks I'm the trailer trash ex of her wonderful son and a rotten Mom to boot) to see my house in this state...I had actually managed to avoid her seeing the house when she came to pick up the girls by getting them to wait outside. They, of course, had to add to the general confusion by bringing more stuff into the house(pudding etc...from grandma). I was in the middle of my first fit of the day because M had dome something(I think she was just getting underfoot that time) and was in no mood to deal with my almost-perfect ex-mother-in-law..so I hustled them out as soon as I had given K her forgotten item(like I hadn't told her 4 times "Think of what you will need...and pack it.").

Then back to the disassembling. I had started it out all wrong and J soon set me straight and we got moving again. We got it all apart(or enough to move it anyway) and headed for A's room with it...meanwhile we're dodging the dog and the cat...both of who are in the hallway and M who can't seem to stay out from underfoot for more than 2 minutes at a time. We get all the pieces into A's room and plan how we're going to put it all back together...we do our best to lift the bed part(where the slats are to hold up the mattress) and it pretty much comes apart in our hands...little white plastic fasteners everywhere!! We both take a deep breath and say "It's okay it'll be easier this way anyhow." Then we hear a splash...followed quickly by a thud and M's crying. M had taken the 2l box of chocolate milk off the dresser in her room(where her father had put it after she brought it to us from the fridge and he didn't think she could reach it) and poured it all over the floor and area rug in her room...the area rug that I had just cleaned back in August or September. She had then slipped and fell in it. I had no sympathy at this point and was very angry. So I placed her, once again, back into the living room and told her to stay there and then I burst into tears. Poor J, I really cry easily and he hates it when I cry. We set up another plan. Get the bed together, he would cook supper while I put A's room in order, we would eat, I would put A's bedding on his bed and set up M's old crib mattress in A's room, then I would bath them and vacuum the area rug in the girls room and he would carpet clean it(we own our own carpet cleaner) while I cleaned up the very very messy kitchen. After her initial crying over me being upset with her M fell asleep on the couch and A helped us by handing me bed slats once we got his 'new' bed together and placed in the room where we wanted it. Then we went ahead with the plan...relax, supper, carpet, carpet, kitchen...and so on. We'll put together the new bunk bed tomorrow and maybe I'll see if I can convince A & M to go play outside!!

The upside? Yup I can almost always find bright spots in even my most frustrating days. K's face when she realized I had put Pets on her computer, A tickling me for a good 5 minutes in the kitchen by sticking his head up the back of my shirt and tickling me with his hair, M calling her new bed a 'monkey bed', seeing A's room mostly cleaned up and both of them settled in listing to me read their bedtime stories, the news that J has booked my birthday(Thursday) off so he can spend the day with me, watching A & M play in A's room after their bath and A saying he missed K.

Was I upset today? You better believe it!! Tired? I sure am! I cried and felt overwhelmed and yelled and laughed and smiled today. I gave my feelings a good workout...I must have felt every single one today. I'll sleep very well indeed. At the end of the day, I am glad my name is Mommy!