Today by noon I found myself thinking “I’m sure glad this day will end and tomorrow will be a new day!”  I am so thankful for second chances, for new beginnings, for the fact that tonight I can go to sleep and start over with a clean slate.  The whole idea of the 24 hour day was really a stroke of brilliance (big surprise there!) since sometimes, the day gets all messed up for itself and it just needs to end so it can begin again.

This was that day for me.  Caleb went to bed hungry after choosing to go without dinner.  He was whimpering for a big breakfast with eggs and sausage and cheerios and toast with honey and orange juice and a little glass of milk.  I promised I would come through and got up and showered early so I could make a nice breakfast and be ready to be out the door shortly after 9 AM with my troop.

After a ridiculous amount of whining about breakfast, it was served.  But as soon as it was, there was

“He called me poopy!”

“He’s pretending to shoot me with a gun!”

“He made a mean face at me!”

“She isn’t allowed to eat breakfast with the kitten in the baby sling!”

“I want a spoon not a fork!”

So much whining.  I felt compelled to retort something rude about how everyone should appreciate the nice food I’d made and stop talking.  It made no difference and the slinging of words continued as I got Audrey changed and ready.  What should have been ample time to get everyone ready and out the door turned into now-we’re-going-to-be-late as we quickly burned through the extra time we’d had.

At about the time we were to leave I went to pick up Audrey from the back yard.  She was holding a stick I thought.  No, actually her hand was GLUED to a stick.  A fly trapping stick to be exact.  One that had just last night been hanging from the top of our house.  How in the world it got down I don’t know.  How sticky it really was, I also did not know.

Really sticky apparently.  I pried her little baby fingers off of it (along with the dead flies also stuck to it), threw it into the dirt and then looked at her hand.  It was stuck in a fist and she was trying to lick off the glue.

Not good.  This morning went from mildly unpleasant to moderately disastrous.  I tried to wash it off.  Not a bit came off.  I tried a mound of Purell hand sanitizer.  Nothing.  I tried hot water and soap.  Nope, didn’t touch it.  She was getting pretty annoyed now.  Was hoping to suck her thumb.  Big problem.  I didn’t have the package but was sure it wasn’t meant for human consumption, let alone baby human consumption.

I marched over to the neighbors (before my unspoken rule of ‘don’t knock on neighbor doors until 9 AM’). I asked for some rubbing alcohol and they gave me some along with that pumice scrub cleaner you use after you’ve worked on your car.  They worked somewhat mixed with some vaseline.  Audrey was at least able to separate her little fingers now and get her fisted hand undone.  That was enough progress to hightail it out the door.

I got all the kids buckled, ran back in to go to the bathroom super fast myself.  Which I did.  Only to find that Caleb in his hustle had peed all over the toilet seat and now my rear was very wet.  With pee.   This put me quite certainly over the top.  I ran back out to the car to leave but first opened Caleb’s door and yelled (or spoke very, very loudly enough for any of my neighbors to hear) –

“My bottom is ALL WET!  Do you know why Caleb?”

Caleb squinted his eyes at me and said no.

“It is wet, all wet because you peed on the seat, all OVER the seat and you did not clean it up.  Do you think I like having a wet bottom?  No, no I don’t.  If you happen to pee ALL OVER the seat that is fine.  But what is not fine is you not cleaning it up so that when I go to use the bathroom I do not sit in your pee and get it all over my bum.  That is NOT FINE WITH ME.”

I shut the door, hoping to feel somewhat vindicated but of course just feeling embarrassed that my neighbors probably heard me yelling about my bottom in the driveway and guilty for not having better control over my emotions this morning.

Then we spent 10 minutes talking about what everyone had done to contribute to the very poor morning.  After some silence and some apologies we all rallied and went to play in the fountains and had a lovely time laughing and chasing each other around outside while Rylee attended Princess Camp.

“Fit For Motherhood” that’s what the tee-shirts said on the trim, skinny, exercising ladies who breezed by me as my kids played at the outdoor mall this morning.  I was  happy sipping my triple shot latte, glad for a moments’ respite from the harried morning.  They stretched and strolled and departed.  I drank more coffee and pondered if I was “Fit for Motherhood” today.

Maybe it wasn’t a shining moment in my mothering marathon.  Maybe I wasn’t sure if I was up to the task today.  Maybe the day wouldn’t get much better.  Probably not.

But there are some things that aren’t maybe, things I know for sure.

My kids know I was sorry.  I know they were sorry.

They know I’m not perfect.  I know they aren’t perfect.

They know I love them.  I know they love me.

Thank goodness for a new day tomorrow.