On crying over spilt milk

Do you have days where you feel like everything is out of your control, where the only progress you make is on adding things to the to-do list? Days when your youngest son gets into the bathroom and plays with the potty his older brother just used while you’re trying to make breakfast? And then while you’re cleaning that up, the glass of milk you just poured yourself to drink while the boys eat breakfast gets spilled all over the library book and iPad? You know that day, the type where the entire contents of the boys’ wardrobe gets rearranged all over the room while you’re trying hard not to cry over spilt milk, and all this in the first thirty minutes of your day?

 

Well, on these days I try really hard to remember to get dressed before buckling Thing 1 and Thing 2 into their car seats and driving, anywhere really, in the hopes that by doing so the house will still be standing when we return.

 

I hit the drive thru and order a decaf caramel mocha coffee because I’m not kidding myself, I know I don’t need any more caffeine, just a cup of liquid sugar to keep my outlook on life sweet while the kid in the backseat asks his 200^th question of the day.

 

I keep the Goldfish crackers coming after strapping both boys into one of those giant carts at the grocery store that are impossible to navigate unless you’ve had a cup of sugar and the other store patrons avoid you like the plague due to the wild look in your eye.

 

I call up my husband to meet him for lunch, just to share with him how *my day is going*.

 

I meet up with a friend who gets it, as she has three boys, and then proceed to spend entire time with said friend retrieving one son from precarious positions on stairs and furniture while attempting to corral the other and keep him from getting us kicked out of the coffee shop.

 

And then I cry, when I’ve gotten home and both boys fall asleep simultaneously, allowing me 30 uninterrupted minutes of cleaning the house before a salesman rings the doorbell and wakes them both up.

 

Of course I ask myself why my husband couldn't have walked in the door ten minutes earlier, instead of while I'm in the process of scrubbing the floor and removing the entire contents of the bunk bed to the washing machine after an unfortunate accident that could have been prevented had I not been busy changing the diaper and clothes of another member of the household.

I ask myself what my degree is worth when I deal with cooking, cleaning and bodily fluids all day, wonder what has happened to the intelligence I'm pretty sure I had at one point.

I ask myself where I lost myself along the way, and wonder if it's something I'll find again once the kids have grown, like an unmatched sock in the dryer lint trap. Which I then remember I need to empty. Mustn't forget to empty the lint trap.