Worth Salvaging?

This entire week, I've been unsuccessfully trying to rise us up from the ashes of... well, a variety of things - sibling discord, momma burnout, upper respiratory infections, too much fun, another mini-van fender bender, household chaos. Really par for the course, all of it, but it feels extra intense and overwhelming at the moment. My innermost desire is to stay in my pajamas, brew a cup of tea and get under the covers with a good, but not too good, book. But there is homeschooling to do, often an argument to mediate, and laundry, dishes and groceries and planning for dinners or not planning for dinners and then trying to improvise one from something like a lemon, a can of tomatoes and a carton of tofu. We're out of tamari (soy sauce) AND garlic which does not bode well for hastily improvised dinners. I hear the voices starting to rise upstairs. Would it be wrong to sneak out the back door until the argument subsides?

Lucy truly nailed our whole problem earlier this week. After a big tussle over who would get to jump on the rebounder (mini-trampoline), I got frustrated and left the room, saying I can't homeschool if they are going to argue constantly. Lucy came downstairs and said, but momma, you usually just remind me of something else fun I can do and that helps Jasper and I move on and stop fighting. And I realized what was different this week: not them, but me - that sweet momma groove of cheerful redirection is eluding me... Hopefully on its way back soon.