I'm stressed....and blessed

OK people, I'm stressed. Stressed, stressed, and more stressed. I'm at a point where all I want to do is curl up and pass out for the next 100 years like Rip Van Winkle. I'm spending my time trying not to get upset and yell every time one of the kids does something to get on my ever tender and frayed nerves, be nice to the equally stressed out spouse, who by the way shows his stress in much different ways than I do, and resist the temptation to make the family cat into tonight's dinner if she mews and wakes up sleeping children at 5 in the morning one more time.

Oh did I mention that I'm pretty sure all my stress has given my immune system a reason to take a vacation and I'm trying not to come down with whatever crud Matthew and Andrew have. My whole body aches and my head is throbbing and my throat wants me to go on an ice cream diet. Last night in the midst of my tiredness and achyness I managed to fall down (more slide down) the basement steps. Thankfully I landed on my left hip and not on one of my ankles. I now have a large bruise and I had a very hard time sleeping last night. In addition to the coming down with something aches, my muscles and feet are feeling the increased physical activity I keep subjecting them to on a daily basis.

So why am I so frazzled?? This is the final week before the Black Belt test in Tae Kwan Do. I have been training approximately two years for this but I still have the jitters. On Saturday afternoon I will be expected to run at least a mile, possible one and a half, do one minute of full sit-ups, squats, push ups (not the girl version and hopefully not knuckle), and a wall sit. After completing these wonderful items I then get to demonstrate every technique I have learned in the past two years... I estimate about 155 or so kicking, punching and blocking combinations. I also have 8 patterns to perform. They are a choreographed series of movements similar to a dance routine except no music or pom poms. I also have to have knowledge of Korean terms such as counting, body parts, different words or phrases commonly used, and I have two paragraphs of history that I have to repeat word for word from memory off a sheet. I only have to summarize the other 3 paragraphs. After all that fun is done then I get to break stuff. I think it will be 5-7 different board breaks. Almost all of the breaks I have done before but many of them are terribly difficult for me. I lack that "mind over matter" trick that allows a person to walk up and for no good reason at all break a perfectly good piece of wood. I'm hoping I don't have to break cement but I did have to do it at my last test so it could happen again. All told it should be about two to three hours of fun fun fun.

As if that wasn't enough to end my month, school starts tomorrow. Matthew is in first grade and Carolyn is in Jr. kindergarten. This will be the first year Matthew will be in a classroom without an aid. He did pretty well this summer in the program I put him in but I still worry that he is going to get off track with his work or his social skills will be sadly lacking and he won't make any friends. Yesterday we were at open house and one of the kids from the summer program came up and started taking to Matthew and asking him questions...Matthew tuned and walked away distracted by the sight of his old classroom. Must work on keeping focused when being talked to. Carolyn was pretty excited to go to "Kindergarten School" as she calls it. We met her teacher and she seemed to like the room. It was very crowded and noisy so she was a little scattered but handled it well. I'm hoping that she transitions into this new environment with very few behavior problems. She also has no aid and her preschool teacher felt that she really did not need one so I'm going with the flow. I really hope that she doesn't get too overwhelmed or nervous and starts acting like a cat and meowing and hissing or telling all her classmates she hates them. Oh well wouldn't be the fist time that happened. One interesting moment occurred when Carolyn looked around Matthew's classroom after we had visited her room. She looked over at Matthew and asked him where the toys were.

Well tomorrow is the big day so I'll be up early getting Matthew dressed and ready. I was hoping to practice the whole morning routine including walking to the bus stop but the transportation department didn't send the cards out until this week so I got my info today. We'll be practicing our Tae Kwan Do tonight but plan on making it home early so Matthew is in bed at a decent time. I mentioned all the stress that was going on during the week in this post but I should mention the blessed part. I am blessed that I do have a wonderful and supportive husband who is also testing for his belt on Saturday. Together we have studied and practiced and encouraged each other. Many of our conversations were less than G-rated and if our instructor ever heard some of the things we came up with during practice sessions our arms would fall off from the number of push-ups we'd be doing. When the going gets tough as it will on Saturday I'll be able to look over at my wonderful spouse and know that he's going through this too. As for the school stuff..well I'm on my own with those anxieties.