Fifth Anniversary

I was miserable. The girls were cranky and poor Elijah was teething. Shem had neem working on a house day, which left me alone with the kids. To make matters worse it was our 5th anniversary. We had made a pact when we got married that we would celebrate everyone, and so far we had held to that; this year was different though. Shem and I had gotten in a big argument a few nights before and we had not talked since. It was a stupid row, but neither of us wanted to be the bigger person and apologize.

"Mama Evi hit me!" Adah cried.

"Adah pulled my hair!" Evi exclaimed.

I put a crying Elijah in his cot and went over to check on my three year olds. They were both a crying mess. I got them each a bowl of raisons and put them in my bedroll. We cuddled together for a little while before I put them to bed. I was cleaning up their blocks when I heard Shem come in.

"I thought you would have been home sooner." I said.

"I am sorry, I lost track of time." He replied. "I was helping Japheth with some woodwork."

"Well in case you had forgotten, tonight is our anniversary. On top of that Elijah was upset all day and the girls have been fighting." I shot at him. "It would have been nice if you had come back to help at one point today."

"I told you I was sorry." Shem said.

"Sorry is not enough!" I yelled at him.

I threw the things in my hands at him and stormed into the girls' room. I crawled onto Adah's bedroll and fell asleep with her in my arms.

The next morning was awkward. Shem took care of the girls while I fed and cleaned Elijah. He had a fever from the teething and just wanted to be held. Mother had given me some herbs to rub on his gums and though it helped with the pain it did not do anything about the fever. I ignored Shem for most of the morning and by lunchtime even the children had picked up on our anger.

"Mama's mad." Evi said to Adah.

"Evi eat your soup." I told her.

"Ila let me take Elijah." Shem said.

I handed him the baby and went to get a jug of milk for the girls.

"Look Ila, I am extremely sorry for yesterday." Shem said, walking into the kitchen. "Neither of us has gotten much sleep lately and we just took our anger out on each other."

I let out a sigh and slid down onto the floor, crying. Shem put Elijah down and sat next to me. We sat together for a few minutes before I broke the silence.

"Your right." I told him. "I'm sorry I got so angry. I am just so tired and Elijah has been screaming non-stop and the girls are always fighting."

"Maybe it wouldn't hurt to have Mother come by and watch them all for a while every day." Shem suggested.

"Mama!" Adah yelled from the sitting room.

Shem and I both got up and went about our day, hoping tomorrow would be easier.