Happy Birthday, Haleah!

Three years ago today, my firstborn arrived after a very "labor intensive" birth! I looked at her today and could not believe that she is a walking, talking, inquisitive, independent human being. She is smart as a whip and is very driven. She has big ideas, a wild imagination and amazes me every day with how much she observes about the world around her. Haleah loves life, even though she has a serious side to her. She is a lover of the outdoors and adventure. My baby is growing up! Sometimes I can't even believe that I grew her inside of me. This thought amazes me on a daily basis. Other than it being a special day because of the significance of Haleah's birth, it was a rather humdrum day around the house, with a couple of exceptions...

I took the girls outside to play and decided to sweep up the patio. I was going to sweep the cobwebs from inside their playhouse too. Then David appeared and volunteered to help tidy. In doing so, he found a black widow spider in the playhouse and one under the kids' Sand and Sea toy as well. I told David that I could also guarantee that there would be spiders underneath the truck cap/topper that we had stationed on the patio. It just looked sketchy to me.... Well, he lifted it up and it took all that was within me not to start swearing in front of my kids. Out of the pile of leaves jumped a MASSIVE brown wolf (?) spider. I have never seen the likes of it before. It was the biggest arachnid I had ever seen. It must have been about 4 inches in diameter. David started doing a tap dance and was freaking out too. We were both squealing like little girls. He had his Crocs on and needed something more than that to kill that huge animal.

After the giant beast of a spider was slaughtered, and the topper was tipped upwards, more inspection took place. David uncovered two more black widows, and I just unleashed more shrieks. God help us! I had the broom with me, but could not even bring myself to sweep down the topper to clean it off. I was literally paralyzed with fear. I told David that we are bringing that topper to the curb tomorrow with a 'For Sale' sign on it. It's got to go. And I think the playhouse is going to have to go too. We can't keep this kind of haven for these spiders. I cannot function in this kind of environment.

Towards the end of the day I was so tired, but I had to get to Walmart for our staple items, and I did not want to have to go late at night when David got home from work. Luckily the weather cooled down due to a brief rain storm, so I was able to manage with the three kids.

The end of the night was rough for me, and my fuse short. It wasn't the kids' fault, in retrospect. It was just that I was (am) entirely exhausted. I feel so defeated that my house is such a mess. I can never get ahead of it, though I try (I just cleaned for an hour before blogging). And I know I've blogged before about not worrying about it and letting it go, but tonight it just got the best of me. I look around and can't even get to the deep cleaning. I just vacuumed yesterday and today the house is trashed with things like Goldfish snacks and tiny pieces of toilet paper. And Haleah peed on the bathroom rug (had a potty training mishap), and laundry never ends. And I clean the litter box, but the house still smells. And I haven't dusted in ions and it just looks so gross. And my garage is an ever lovin pit. And I have kids' clothes to sort by sizes and rearranging to do. And I have all of my photo albums and boxes out in my room to "organize," but I don't have big blocks of time that I need to look through them without kids grabbing at them and ruining them.

David tells me I'm not a failure, and I love him for that. I'll just keep trying to do my best and raise my kids through another year...