This Day

You know. You know this day. This day was that day. The day when the first things you hear are your soggy five-year-old's reassuring words, "Mom, I didn't pee my bed. My shorts just got wet. And my sheets are wet. And do I have any clean underwear?" and your three-year-old pipes in with, "Mom, whenever you feed fish and dogs you need to wash your hands. Mom, let's go feed the fish and dog. Actually, you just feed them. I want a chocolate granola bar." So you stagger out of bed, too tired to do anything but follow orders from these small alien leaders who have apparently sucked the brains right from your head, and begin digging in the dryer, looking for the requested breakfast food, only to realize that on a good day, only clothes are stored in there, and that's the real reason you're in the laundry room in the first place, because Thing 1 is still standing naked requesting your assistance for clothing. You find clothes (hopefully they're his) and continue your zombie march to the kitchen to find sustenance for Thing 2.
Thing 3 is now awake and needing a shower because she seems to have the remnants of last night's Cheetos still clinging to her skin and one half her hair is cemented to her face with, well, you're probably better off not knowing. So you begin preparing her for a cleansing, but this is difficult because she's anxious and wiggling and the problem of remembering which direction to pull her pants to get them off her body seems insurmountable.
Finally she's in the shower, Number 1's out the door, and you remember that Number 2 needs a small picture printed for school. This shouldn't take more than a few minutes, right?, so you get your exercise clothes on thinking that we'll whip this assignment out and get a workout in before you can say Bob's your uncle and you have to take anyone else to school. You sit down at the computer, choose the picture, click print and ... no ink. Awesome. Let's change the cartridge. Only, how do I go about this on this newfangled contraption? Watch the informational video where the top of the printer magically lifts itself off and the cartridges slip happily into view and then fairies fly out sprinkling pizza to all the happy children. Ok. Step 1: figure out how to take the top off. Grunting and pulling and squeezing results in half the printer being lifted up at a horrifying angle while the rest remains steadfastly in place. Sephonnie, you have a college degree for crying out loud. How hard can this be? Finally after praying and frantically pushing into every nook and cranny, gold is struck and the top lifts away and the cartridges do, in fact, slide happily into view. Replace the one that seems bad. Print pictures. Shots of you and your beautiful daughter come out green and streaked. Ok, replace the rest of the cartridges. Print pictures again. 45 minutes and $45 in ink and photo paper later, you have two tiny pictures to show for your hard work and now 0% of the children remaining in the house are dressed and there is no time for a workout and in fact -aaahhh!!!- the clock says there's no time for anything.
Rush to school. A few minutes later, it's time to pick up Thing 1 and a friend. You do so and decide to run an errand on the way home, so you take three tornadoes into poor, unsuspecting Big 5 to purchase a couple things for your yet-uncompleted workout and the guy says, "Hey, you were in here last week, right?" I can't possibly imagine why we would have made an impression, as you're wrestling Number 3 who is riding backwards on your shoulders like a confused sack of potatoes and Number 1 & Company are darting around the store, hollering excitedly about their favorites from the weapons counter.
After a brief respite that comes in the form of death-threat-enforced naps and lunchtime, you're all getting packed up for a Welcome to Kindergarten night at the elementary school. Cute, right? Except that poor Josh is still at work and won't be home for hours so the whole crew is coming with you and Kid Uno to learn about kindergarten. You walk into the school, juggling three bundles of joy who begin sprinting around the school's cafeteria like this is the first time they've ever been let out of the cage and the poor teachers try to squelch the immediate look in their eyes, "Um, lady, I think you're in the wrong place. The clown college is down the street," and instead they earn an Academy Award for saying, "Welcome to the Wolf Pack!" like they're genuinely glad we're there.
The teachers are awesome and keep all three kiddos entertained for an hour and a half (except for the few moments when Number 2 feels left out and begins crying loudly, "I wanna go to kindergarten, too!!") and then you reach home to put the kids in front of a couple episodes of Horseland and hope that the clients coming for their workouts any minute now aren't offended by the enormous pillow fort that is still inhabiting the front room.
And then the small ones are in bed, and you collapse on the couch with a new episode of Psych and the banana butterscotch blondies you've been waiting to dig in to, and hope that you are revived enough to try it all again tomorrow.
This day. You know this day. When you love your kids and work this hard, there's bound to be this day. I read a quote that seems very applicable. Here is my own little interpretation: "Behind every great kid is a mom who's pretty sure she's screwing it up. And behind every mom who's pretty sure she's screwing it up, is a Sam's Club-sized bag of chocolate chips that give her the courage to try another day anyway."