I hate it when that happens.

I have a stiff neck. A sore, stiff neck, from tensing every muscle for hours and days at a time, I have panic attacks in my sleep and I woke up last night actually choking on stomach acid, life is a bowl of something, can't remember what though and it's probably best if I don't guess.
Actually whatever my deal is is almost certainly in my head because on the face of it, all is hunky dory. Obviously my head knows something the rest of me hasn't discovered yet because I am, quite frankly, a total cow at the moment.
I am jumpy and nervous and oh, I am so ANGRY.
The preparations for the party are going really well, we started early and so we can take our time and do things at our leisure, which is great isn't it? Well it would be but there is no school this week and so everything I do, there are 3 little boys here undoing it or 'helping' or not even pretending to help, they are HERE and they are touching and moving and dropping and breaking and losing and just TOUCHING. Oh the touching.
I know they are little boys and there are so many exciting things around, we don't do things by halves and so we have many, many props and decorations, I am 47 and when I look through the boxes I squeal and exclaim and I am so excited by the plans of what to do this year with everything, how much more exciting it must be for little boys and because we brought all the boxes down from the loft on monday there has been an enormous amount of touching and squealing and fighting with bloody plastic daggers and glow in the dark machetes.
Elijah seems to have a knack, oft mentioned before and as yet still not grown out of, of being able to merely walk into a room and have everything fall apart around him, Oh look! Eli is just standing there and yet all those decorations fell off the wall, whoops a drink is there and Eli is there and ...oh never mind, we'll clean it up.
H has been more quiet than ever this week, barely a word has passed his lips and all the while he is cleaning and tidying and doing all those dreary things that need doing even when there is a party to prepare for, he has cleaned cupboards, inside and out, he has cleared the yard and scrubbed it, he has worked and worked while I have fussed and shopped and fussed some more.
He won't touch a single thing to do with the party, until after the party when he will clean it all away and take down and pack up. He is splendid and worth having around I tell you.
This evening Jordan and Mel came around to help with all the high up stuff, I love to see how enthusiastic they are, I have grand ideas on what to do but when it comes to actually doing it, I feel all overwhelmed and weary, Jordan and Mel came over and they did everything I imagined and more and they were so excited and unweary. We did the hallway ( oh it looks so good!) we then went upstairs and started on Seth's room....it was late and I really just wanted to have Jordan put up the high stuff, the ceiling stuff, the boys escaped from the lounge and came upstairs, all 6 hands and 6 feet and 3 mouths and 30 fingers, we sent them back down explaining that tomorrow they could join in, Seth stayed behind and picked up the large blacklight and in seconds it smashed, all over the floor and with it so did my composure, patience, temper. In the most spectacular and horrifying way.
I often yell, no-one blinks or even takes much notice.
This evening was so much more than yelling, it was, well I don't even know what it was, apart from shameful and draining.
I hate it when that happens, it isn't even satisfying in that the tension is released because they dreadful feeling of shame fills the gap so perfectly.
H, bless his heart, came upstairs and quietly said " Ok, that's enough, let me move this out of your way" and took out the iMac that is in Seth's room ( wonder if he heard the smashing, followed by the screaming and thought I had smashed the lamp in my temper)
There is nothing that will stop a tantrum in it's tracks quicker than a quietly spoken, non judgemental word. Had H stormed in and started berating me for my totally unacceptable behaviour, he would have got a piece of it all for himself. The fact that he gently said " that's enough and let me move this out of your way" killed my outrage dead. I sat down on Seth's bed and just deflated, hypothetically that is, if only I had literally deflated too, shame things don't work out that way isn't it?
I slumped and I told Jordan and Mel that it was probably best if we left the rest for another day ( other days are becoming frighteningly scarce now though, will have to do a lot tomorrow!)
I have been sitting here all evening with my stiff and painful neck and feeling sorry for those who had to witness such a spectacle, Seth is unfazed by the whole episode, he's a tough nut that boy.
I shall take pictures when this house is all partified and ready, I shall take more pictures when it is filled to bursting with people and I shall breathe a sigh of relief when it is over and done for another year. I love that we do this every year, I also feel every year, right about this time, that I am completely out of my tiny mind for ever suggesting it!