It's nice to be taken care of

The work on the house continues apace. The framing is done, the electrical and plumbing are roughed-in, and new windows are being installed. It sounds so easy, doesn't it, just putting in new windows? I thought it sounded easy too, until the large saws started ripping into the exterior brick on Thursday. I had not taken into account the fact that some of the windows are not exactly the same size as the old ones nor the fact that we are adding a couple of windows. To add windows one needs to make holes and to make holes requires great amounts of noise and dust. (Truly, it looked as though the fog had rolled in inside the house.) I've always known that I do better with calm and quiet, but it was not until the past two days that I fully realized how poorly I do with continuous loud noise. By Thursday night I was at the end of my tether...headache, less than no patience...you get the picture. So, by Friday, when it continued, I was seriously wondering if we should take a trip somewhere. But that's not really an option considering what's on the 'to do' list this month. And, I had promised A a sleep-over party with some of her friends on Friday night for her birthday and we had 4 girls coming. They couldn't very well sleep in the accumulated brick dust, so that would need to cleaned up, plus the meatballs for the meatball sandwiches needed to be made for dinner and a cake made for dessert. I wasn't sure I could rouse myself from my stupor (and headache) to complete it all. Well, my older children came to the rescue. M brought me a glass of water and some medicine and then she and A took care of the vacuuming and dusting, B made me a cup of tea and made the meatballs. After A was done helping clean, she made her own cake. (I felt vaguely guilty about this until I realized how much she wanted to make it.) Even TM joined the game by doing some dishes. By 5pm when girls started to arrive I was feeling more human. And while not having to do the work myself was nice, what was even nicer was being cared for by my incredibly competent children.