**If you know what the title is in reference to, I tip my hat to you.**
I'm here to make you feel better about yourself (again). You know when I start out like this, it's about to be a sh*tshow. And sh*tshow it is. I mean, it's no big deal. Right? Everyone has bad days and everyone's thought they were the worst human ever at some point in time, right? Please tell me I'm right... Sometimes I think I'm the worst mom and Maintainer of Household to walk the planet. Well, I'm not worse than those who do horrible things like beat, abuse, or abandon their kids. Those kind of people really are the worst. But if you take all that riffraff out, I'm definitely one of the biggest messes out there. Today started like any other weekday morning. I stumbled out of bed and took my oldest to school. At 6:30am, mind you. She just started driver's ed and I'm highkey anxious for her to be driving so I don't have to make this insane commute every morning. Sorry, I like my sleep too much. But I digress... Anyway, when my youngest and I arrived back home, we had thirty minutes to get her ready for school. Which is normally no big deal. She's old enough to get dressed and ready herself, so it's basically me making her lunch and sort of calling out the time every now and then to keep her on track. But today, I don't know what happened. Oh wait, yes I do. I forgot to close the pantry door when we rushed out into the night, high school bound, and Max the Trash Maniac decided to search for something tasty (and gross) to munch on. If it were just that, just him sticking his nose in there and taking a tiny nibble, it wouldn't bother me. But instead, he scatters that sh*t to the seven corners of the world... I mean, house. And every time, I lose it. Not at him. He's too adorable and old and set in his ways to even bother getting mad at. But I do take my frustration out with the broom and sometimes mop and trash. So anyway, that threw me off schedule a bit. After I got it together, I started making L's lunch. It's the same thing every day, and I was feeling a bit adventurous and wanted to shake it up. I should never do that. It just doesn't end well when I do this stuff. I was digging around for some new additions when L came downstairs with only one shoe on. "Where's your other shoe?" I ask, already groaning inside because I know EXACTLY what she's going to say. "I dunno. I can't find it." *DEEP SIGH* I knew it. Okay, so, if you've read my blog for any length of time, or you know me through social media, you also know EXACTLY what happened. Rex. No, not Max. Rex. Our little street rescue rat who's fondest activity is stealing anything he can get his mouth around and hiding it in his klepto cave under our bed. Also high on his favorites list is digging out from under the fence and taunting me when I come after him, pooping in the dining room (and sometimes PEEING on our Roomba (yes, I said peeing)), and whining at me every 3 minutes to engage in activity number 2. He's a brat. He's annoying. But he's also so affectionate (after he's done jumping and biting at me when I come home) and loving and CUTE that I also can't get mad at him. I look at L, she looks at me, and we both head into my bedroom to shine a flashlight under the bed. 'Course, Rex follows us and gets excited when we both get on the floor at his level, which annoys us further because who enjoys getting their hair shredded by claws wildly scratching about? Lo and behold, her bright pink shoe was there, shining like a beacon in the darkness and that was a disaster averted because he hadn't had time to destroy it yet. Happy that the crisis wasn't a crisis anymore, I went back to making her lunch. I made the mistake of telling her I dropped her apple on the floor and bruised it, but gave her another. And before you think it, no, she won't eat a bruised apple, and I can't scold her because I diss bruised apples, too, and what can you do? But I thought my redemption was clenched by giving her another shiny new one. I was wrong. She looks at me suspiciously and says, "But would you have given me that other one, anyway, if it wasn't bruised?" I didn't get her question at first so we went round and round with me saying "what?" and "I don't understand what you're asking" and "Are you even speaking English, what are you talking about!?" After five minutes of me literally not understanding the words coming out of her mouth, it finally clicked. Oh. She wanted to know if I would have still given it to her because it had been on the floor. Sheesh, I... "Yes, but I would have washed it again." She gives me her "look" and I know we're in dangerous waters, so I rush to reassure her. "Really, really well." Before she could say anything else I zip up her lunch bag, and rush her out the door. Guys, I didn't even look at the clock. Mistake number..., well, I've lost count. We're headed down the street when I do finally glance at the time. Oh boy. It was 7:59. The bell is at 8:00. Now, we live quite literally behind the school so it takes less than 2 minutes to drive there. And YES, I drive it because it's been cold and I don't want to change out of my snuggly fuzzy pants that are 5 inches too long and sweatshirt and fuzzy socks to walk across the street and over grass, so just judge me if you want. I don't care. Obviously, I drive a bit faster, but not much, because I'm still in the neighborhood and people are walking about and I'm not gonna risk it. However, once I got on the main road I floored it, racing into the school drive and up to the drop-off lane only to watch as the last teacher walked inside, locking the doors behind him. I missed it by 3 seconds. Just... To my credit, I remained calm. You're probably thinking it's no big deal, but one of my fears is drawing attention to myself by oh, say, walking into class or a meeting or a party, late. I blush horribly and my ears get hot and I get panicky and clumsy and it's awful. And L has inherited this lovely phobia, so you see why I had to remain calm to keep her calm...and, well, yeah. And that, my friends, is how I came to park in the front of the school and walked across the parking lot casually talking to the police office arriving for his security shift, and into the school where not only the front office staff greeted me, but so did the principal, in MY SNUGGLY FUZZY PANTS THAT ARE 5 INCHES TOO LONG AND SWEATSHIRT AND FUZZY SOCKS. L looked like she was about to cry while I'm trying to brush the whole thing off to the officer and I think he took pity on both of us and handed out police badge stickers. I gave her a hug and the patented "you can do it" mom smile/nod and watched her walk up the stairs with her backpack and scared face, and wanted to cry. Sometimes you can't help but think of yourself as a failure, no matter how much you know deep in your heart it's not that serious. She was a minute late for class. I had to walk across dirty pavement in socks and messy hair. It's not the end of the world and it won't even matter tomorrow that it ever happened. But in that moment, the whole world feels like sh*t because you're the mom and supposed to have it together... for her. You would have thought... hoped... that was the end of it. Surely that's enough WTF moments for a day. But the universe said "wait, there's more!" and chunked another WTF WHY IS THIS HAPPENING WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU moment straight at my head. It's no surprise, really. I mean, all of this is par for the course. But I was just so over the shenanigans, that when I walked through our bedroom and stepped in a cold, huge, wet spot IN MY FUZZY SOCKS, I broke a little. First, nobody likes stepping in puddles in socks. That's a known fact. But second, and far more importantly, NOBODY LIKES STEPPING IN PEE. ON THE CARPET. FOR THE 500TH TIME. I guess Emmy couldn't let Max and Rex have all the fun. I guess she thought I'd feel incomplete if she didn't do her part. I guess she was ultimately thinking of me. Sigh. I wish there was a way I could make her understand I'm totally okay with her waiting to pee until she's outside. In fact, I endorse it so hard. I tell her this, and she looks at me with alert ears and bright eyes and waggy tail, like she's really gettin' it. So I can't figure out if she's too lazy to let us know, suddenly physically incapable of letting us know, or getting back at me for bringing Rex into the house and thus usurping the "youngest kiddo spot" she'd held for so long. Or if she's just a sh*t. An adorable sh*t. A sweet and loving sh*t. But a sh*t all the same. A sh*t I... you guessed it... can't get mad at. I'm tired now, so I'll give you a brief rundown of what followed: washing pee out of the carpet... vacuuming the stairs, which if you saw my FB post, is full of my hope... scrubbing the kitchen... laundry...and finally, FINALLY, taking down the Christmas garland on the stairs. Yeah, yeah, I KNOW. I'm awful. I'm busy. I'm tired. I hate un-decorating. But, hey, at least it came down, right? I mean, this time I didn't leave a whole-ass Christmas tree up all year long... Now, don't ya feel better?
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