As a Stay At Home Mom of 2 Preschoolers, a 200 lb dog & 4 cats - I pride myself on being pretty darn organized and being able to multi-task like nobody's business. I can literally cook dinner, fold a load of laundry, wipe the nose of a child with the sniffles, talk to my mother on the phone, pull a kid's stuffed animal out the mouth of a mastiff, and do my income taxes all at the same time. However, even the most accomplished of super mom's has a "day" where it just all falls apart. For me - that day was yesterday.
The day was off to a good start - I woke up and didn't have hives (which I get randomly for a week or 2 seemingly unrealted to anything in particular, unless I ate a lot of dairy but even sometimes when I don't). I went into Lauren's room to find her buck naked (nothing new here)...as many times the outfit she planned on wearing is in the laundry and thus refuses to wear clothes until said article of clothing is "clean" (and by that I mean - I take it out of the dirty laundry and shake it out. Don't judge - any port in a storm). So I'm digging through the dirty laundry - Ben screaming at me to get him out of his crib - yes, he's still in his crib. The convenience of this is beyond priceless. He has never tried to get out of it, although I'm positive he could. But he loves the safety of his crib, and thinks the only way he can get out is if Mommy gets him out, so if this means he's in a crib until he's 14, so be it. So 1 kid is screaming, the other is naked, dirty laundry being savagely strewn about my bedroom....and the doorbell rings. It's 8:07am. What the hell? I peer out the bedroom window and see a CNG (Connecticut Natural Gas) truck parked in front of my house. This can't be good. I tell naked Lauren to wait upstairs and scurry down to open the door. Brynn - the 200 lb Mastiff - is barking and trying to get outside to the perceived "threat", so I open the door just a crack - Brynn's snout wedged instantly between the cracked door - and an official looking gentlemen tells me that our house is due for inspection of the gas lines. A bunch of things run through my head...like why would they show up unannounced at 8am? Isn't there a better system than this? I don't have a bra on. Maybe the guy is a disgruntled employee looking to bust his way into my home and tie us all up? Ben's screaming, Lauren's naked, and Brynn hasn't eaten breakfast yet. So I tell him this isn't a good time and he slides notice through the crack in the door that instructs me to call CNG to schedule an appt. Yeah - that's the 1st thing on the old priority list.
By this point, Ben is worked into a full fleged frenzy, so I run up and grab him out of the crib and continue on the quest to find Lauren's pink shirt with the zebra on it in the dirty laundry. The dog is downstairs barking at her food bowl, as the Mastiff has a hearty appetite and expects her 3 cups of food with beef broth and sour cream promptly upon waking. So you know - just in case I didn't already feel like my morning was a little hectic, I have the unnerving gutteral bark of the dog to remind me that I'm not moving fast enough.
Just as I see a flicker of the bright pink zebra shirt in the laundry (SUCCESS!) - Lauren's screams in from her room, "Ben pee on my floor!!! MAMA! Ben PEE!!" Oh seriously? Sure enough, there's Ben standing there - pull up on a heap on the floor - standing in a puddle of pee, crying. As I'm searching for paper towels and cleaner I hear the dog barrel-assing up the stairs and heading for Lauren's room (aka - scene of the pee crime). Lauren pipes up with "NOOOOOOOOO BRYNN!!!! That Ben PEE!" I get in there just in time to see Brynn licking the pee off the floor - Lauren pulling on her collar in a futile attempt to move a dog 4 times her size, and Ben still standing in the same spot crying. At this point I decide it's time for a glass of wine. Just kidding....I decide the best way to handle this is to split up this dynamic trio in order to be able to clean the pee with as little collateral damage as possible. First, I take the dog and lock her in my bedroom. I then put Lauren and her outfit in the bathroom tell her to get dressed and use the potty, then I set about the mission of cleaning up pee. I realize that Ben is just too much of a mess to wipe down and that a bath will be in order. Of course, the dog has to go out to do her business and eat (lest she start snacking on the cats) before I start the bath process, so I throw a bath towel around Ben and tell him to wait while Mommy takes the dog out and then it's time for a bath. He instantly throws himself on the floor - red-faced, fists balled and proceeds to scream "I no want a bath" over and over and over.....
Instead of fighting that battle right then, I figure I'll at least get the dog out and then fed and maybe Ben will be more agreeable when I get back. Sometimes he forgets what he's protesting - I should only be so lucky this morning. I throw on my flip flops and winter coat and head outside with the dog. If my Facebook friends could only see me now. As Brynn takes care of business I stare at my house thinking about all the crazy that goes on in there and wonder if this type of whacky is on par with the likes of Honey Boo Boo? At the very least, some sort of TLC trainwreck. If only there were midgets involved, then we'd really be on our way to reality stardom. I'm yanked from my thoughts by Brynn who has spotted a real threat....a neighbor's cat. Brynn gets right into "guard mode" and starts barking at the cat and it's then I realize that she's got her back foot firmly planted in her own shit. My to-do list is growing by the minute. I don't know if you've ever tried to clean the paw of a 200 lb dog. But it's a challenge. She automatically assumes it's nail clipping time and all hell breaks loose.
In any event, we all made it through the day....some of us less sane than others. When Brian called for his daily noontime check in to see how my day was going, I told him that I could understand now when you hear about these people who go into a "fugue state" - where they conveniently forget who they are, block out all memories and wind up in a bus terminal in San Antonio. Wandering around with no clue as to who they are and how they got their. I'd be willing to bet that many of these people are mom's who just needed a temporary break from the crazy :)
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