What a Day

Today was "one of those days".  While it was probably one of the worst days I've had in a long time, it was also a good reminder of everything I have to be thankful for.  If this is really as bad as it gets, then I've got it pretty good.  As one "bad" thing after another kept happening, I kept reminding myself that it really wasn't that bad in the scheme of things.

The day didn't get off to a terribly good start.  I think I finally fell asleep sometime after 2 a.m.  The temperature reached a whopping 101 yesterday, and our apartment felt like a giant sauna.  It was pretty miserable.  We finally resorted to getting ice packs out of our freezer and putting them in bed with us, and at some point we just decided that the whole situation was pretty funny and we gave up on being irritated about it.  However, we did decide that we would be getting an air-conditioner asap.

Of course, Jesse still woke up right on the dot at 6 a.m. this morning, despite the fact that he was up 3 hours past his bedtime last night.  You can imagine that he was a little bit difficult this morning.

As soon as James left for work, I got busy filling out the paperwork to get an air-conditioning unit installed in our apartment and making a doctor's appointment for Jesse (he has had really smelly ears that aren't getting better, and I wanted to make sure he didn't have some type of infection).  I got Jesse a 9:15 appointment, which meant that there was just enough time for Jesse to get a bath and me to get a shower (there was no way we were going anywhere without bathing first...not after living in a sauna all night).  When it came time to round up the diaper bag, I couldn't find my keys.  This is not unusual, as I'm very good at sticking them in random places, but after 5 minutes, I began to wonder if Jesse had done something with them.  I searched in all the usual spots (under the couches, in the trash can, in the toy bins, etc.), but couldn't find them.  Meanwhile, Jesse is either screaming for my attention or spilling milk all over his toys.  Next, I went to our friends' apartment, thinking maybe we had left them there last night, and I even went down to the laundry room, thinking maybe I had set them down there, but nope, no sign of them.

At this point, I decided that Jesse must have thrown them in the trash the previous day, and that they were long gone, since James had taken that trash out already.  But then it occurred to me that since yesterday was a holiday, the garbage men probably hadn't come yet.  I grabbed my rubber gloves, stuck Jesse in his stroller (after taking a break from my search to change a very dirty diaper), and went down to the trash room, determined to find yesterday's trash.  I called James and he told me which trash can he had put it in, and after digging through the entire trash can, I did manage to find it.  About this time our building manager walked by, wondering what on earth I was doing.  He was sympathetic when he found out what was going on, and he helped me get Jesse's stroller out the door while I carried the toxic waste outside.  I went through every last piece of trash in the trash bag (which was quite possibly the smelliest job I have ever done in my life), but still no signs of the keys.

Since I didn't have my keys, I was locked out of our building, so I decided we could take the time to re-trace our steps from yesterday.  I was thinking that maybe the keys had fallen out of the stroller on our way to the parade, or that maybe Jesse had taken them out and stuck them somewhere.  We went by the produce store to see if they had fallen out there, and we went to the real estate office where we had been standing to watch the parade, but no one had our keys.  We went back home and waited on someone to enter or leave the building so that we could get back inside, which was luckily not a long wait.

By this time I had been searching for nearly two hours and I was dripping with sweat.  I was about to take a break from searching and just wait until Jesse went down for his nap, but I thought I'd do just a little bit more .  Well, lo and behold, my eyes stumbled upon them sitting on top of a box in our hall closet, right at Jesse's height.  I was super relieved, and this is the point when my day started turning back around.

Not only did I find my keys, but we managed to snag the very last air-conditioning unit at our local hardware store.  This was a miracle, because I had called them at 12:30 to see if they had any units left, and they had only one.  They wouldn't hold it for me, and James wouldn't get off work until 1:00, so all we could do was hope and pray that he could make it there before it was gone.  His boss ended up letting him leave 15 minutes early, and he booked it over there to get it.  It was still there, and just minutes after he staked his claim on it, someone else walked in asking about it.  Talk about perfect timing!  And then to add to this, we were able to get priority on the wait-list for air-conditioner installation because we have a child.  Probably within 10 minutes of James getting home with the unit, a man arrived to install it.  We had no guarantee that he would come today, and were told that it would likely be tomorrow, but he told us that they told him our apartment had to get done today.

A day that had a very, very crummy start ended up being quite good in many ways. I am thankful for all the ways that God has provided for us today.  Of course, he didn't have to, but he did, and I am grateful for that.

Oh, and in case you were wondering about Jesse, it seems that he must just have a case of stinky ears.  No ear infection whatsoever.  Poor guy.  I think he must just be constantly dirty from all the sweating he has been doing.  We really do bathe him daily (sometimes twice now), but he just never looks clean.  Maybe the a/c will help :)