Despite the fact that I’m desperately working on trying to get my ducks in a row, my ducks still look very much like squirrels who are running around like it’s Armageddon. (Case in point, I kept trying to write ducks but typed dicks twice. Send wine.) Anyway, today has been a freaking beast. So much so that a friend encouraged me to share my story, and who better to share it with than you, Dear Reader?
My day started a little earlier than normal. Last night The Twins requested that I wake them up early so they could have cereal before we left for school. (A recent obsession with cereal containing marshmallows has overtaken their tiny brains.) Always one to try my best to make my mornings easier by means of bribery, I acquiesced. They shot out of bed excited for cereal and I made my way to the kitchen to fix it. Things seemed to be going well until I opened the refrigerator door to see that it wasn’t running. Last night the refrigerator and the herb garden that shares its outlet unexpectedly shut down, I thought I’d tripped the breaker and made the mistake of trusting the twins to tell me when the light came back on as I tried flipping the possible switches. (Our house was built in the 70’s so we can’t trust the breaker labels or the wiring in the house.) Little boogers lied. The light did not come on and I was too dumb to double check. Fortunately, the refrigerator was still icy cold on the inside so no loss there.
I called my Dad for advice and set to finding an extension cord to plug the refrigerator into another outlet. Turns out it was an outlet problem not a breaker problem. Live, learn, and make your husband fix it when he comes home right? With the refrigerator back up and running I set to work on making that cereal. In a moment of adventurousness I decided to serve it in cups instead of bowls so it wouldn’t get spilled. I served the cereal to my very excited monsters and started my bath. We were now running slightly behind schedule but not terribly so.
As I made my move to hop in the tub I heard a shriek from my bed. The Conqueror spilled her cereal….on my freshly laundered bed. I moved to strip the bed before the milk could get to the sheets and proceeded to traipse around my house butt naked praying that the neighbor wouldn’t come outside and see me through the curtain-less living room window. I told the girls to get off my bed and eat their cereal standing up while I put the comforter in the laundry room. Another shriek from my room alerted me to a now completely spilled cup of cereal all over my floor. As I cleaned up the mess The Conqueror decided to take advantage of my warm bath and hop right in to wash the milk off.
I shooed her out of my bath and told her to get dressed while I cleaned off. I took a deep breath and hoped that smooth sailing lay ahead. My hopes hit the fan when I got out of the tub and realized that I couldn’t find one pair of the girls shoes. Normally the shoes they wore wouldn’t matter much but today they were retaking their spring pictures at school and I’d already promised they could wear their fancy shoes. In the process of madly searching, I also realized that my keys were MIA. The time seemed to be passing with increasing rapidity and my lizard brain began to take the wheel. Lizard brain Mom = cranky crazy Mom who yells.
Hair styling time turned into me yelling at The Conqueror for throwing a fit about her hair style. Then we both cried because I yelled. I apologized and we moved on. One girl settled for boots instead of fancy shoes and I found my keys outside (God knows why). When we finally got in the car, (irreversibly late by this point), I was so frazzled that we got down the road before I realized that The Hun wasn’t even buckled in.
Thankfully my friends at work were comforting and helped me laugh, and the kids seem to have survived the morning unscathed. It’s been a long day so when we got home I treated myself to some time in the garden and let the girls jump on the trampoline. We’re having hotdogs and fruit for dinner because at this point I’m just trying to survive until bedtime.
Blessings and prayers to all you Mom’s and Dad’s out there who were driving an out of control struggle bus today. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to make it through. Bedtime approaches. I love you all.
Mom Van Confessions 