One of Those Days

 It was one of those mornings.  After staying up too late organizing groceries, working out, and cleaning, my short night's sleep was interrupted after about an hour by a fussy 15-month-old and was abbreviated even further by the same dependent morning person of a child wide-awake and ready for the day at 5:45 am.  After I rubbed the sleepiness out of my eyes, got him a cereal bar, milk, and Sesame Street, I decided that I could at least get an early start on my day's work, right?  I logged into the online school and found both a message in my inbox and a voicemail, though not a rude one, from the parent of an over-achieving 7th grader (I know the type) for whom I had mistakenly tarnished a 100% in Life Science by entering a "0" for one of her assignments.  Oops.  Okay, fine.  I'd eat some dirt, admit my mistake and change the grade.  Easily fixed.  I got the necessary email sent to the office while Bode's pterodactyl-like scream reminded me that he wanted BOTH of my arms wrapped tightly around him, not typing on my barely-in-reach computer with one hand.  As I was trying to maneuver the computer closer to me in order to accommodate his demand, one hand still firmly wrapped around my needy boy, I ended up bumping it, which caused it to CRASH onto the floor.  Noooooooo!!!!!  Fingers crossed, I paused, then gradually picked it up, bracing myself for the worst while hoping for the best.  And this is what I saw:

Oh.  Great.  For the second time before 7:15 in the morning, I had to contact our office administrative assistant in order to have a tech ticket submitted on my behalf.  She responded, "Well, at least the day can't get any worse, right?"  Well...it might not have gotten any worse, but it certainly didn't get any better.

While I was trying to clean up from breakfast, Bode decided to take the batteries out of the remote and hide them, no doubt in order to prolong the morning's television time as I still don't know how to power off our somewhat new TV without it and who knew where extra batteries were.  Without my babysitter that day, I did my best to manage, entertain, educate, and parent my active kiddos throughout the day while performing my teacher duties (now on my personal computer), doing a sub par job at both.  Oops, spilled pop on my other keyboard.  Oh, Bode can reach the light switch from his crib now and filled his room with brightness during nap time. Great, Maggie stayed in her bed just long enough to convince herself she had taken a nap, and after I finally managed to persuade her to crawl into the guest bed in my office while I worked in attempt to truly get her to sleep, she promptly had an accident.  And that was the end of that. Then a work emergency kept my dear hubby longer than expected at his job so that I couldn't get my required parent phone calls in before my two hour parent-teacher conferences commenced at 5 that evening.  At that point of the day, I was thinking that upset parents would almost be a vacation as long as the door to my office was CLOSED.

This kept the kiddos busy for awhile.  Transferring dried rice and chickpeas.

"Oh no!" Bode agrees the house is a mess, even after vacuuming up the spilled rice and chickpeas.

Asia surveys the damage in the living room.

It's on days like this, that despite all evidence to the contrary, full of self-pity, I am convinced I have the worst lot in life.  As a couple days' time has separated me from these events, I can look back and think how completely untrue and awful that thought is.  I know indubitably that I am so blessed beyond what I could ever hope or imagine.  I have two precious and clearly adorable children as well as a loving and supportive husband in addition to the numerous other people and circumstances the Lord has placed in my life.  I'd like to think that these so-called trials, as completely minuscule as they are, are shaping me and refining me.  I know days like this will happen again.  It's inevitable.  But I can choose to let it stress me out and focus inward, or by God's grace, allow it to help me grow. 

My sweet girl trying on my shoes last weekend.

Bode watching Maggie and Daddy shovel some snow.

Hard at work.