Better grab a snack....it's a long one

After admiring my blog, I'll have to admit that I have a "happy" little theme going. I guess the problem (if you can call it that) is that I tend to only write about the sweet, fun, cute moments - all real.....of course! But, my life is far from perfect. Yesterday and this morning were an unusually difficult stretch of time for me. We all have "those" days, but when it bleeds into the next day....that's just irritating! I'll attempt to chronicle my last 24 hours without too many of the boring details.

A quick background check.

Dave is out of town...not the problem....just a fact.
We just moved Poppa up here...again, not the problem...just a fact.

That being said...here it goes.

I got up early to run to Starbucks before the kids woke up. Now, before you call DSS and in my own defense, I did tell William where I was going and turned on his bathroom light (you know, just in case the burglar couldn't find him in the dark). Anyone who knows me, knows that I would do just about anything, short of selling my soul, for a yummy cup of coffee.....especially that first morning cup! Ok, you can relax...nothing bad happened at this point. However, my reward was a nice cup of cold coffee! Really!!! When I told the barista she actually dipped her finger (eeewww) in my cup....agreed....and then poured me another cold cup from the same pot! Side note: To my Powell children reading this later in life......Stay in school!

Surprisingly, this was not the beginning of my downhill spiral....not yet anyway. I managed to get the kids off to school, happy and on time. Whew....

Flash forward to after school. William had his 2nd cross country meet and it just so happened to be at a school near Poppa's new house. I decided, with all my wisdom, that an outing with Poppa and the 3 younger kids would be fun and we could all support and cheer on WP. Now would be a good time to mention that the "after school" hours are not my favorite.

A typical "Powell" afternoon looks like this:

• homework (always painful)
• phone rings off the hook
• door bell, door bell, door bell
  
• snack this....snack that
• when is dinner?
• practice here
• practice there
  
• yada yada yada

Yes, I know....it looks just like every other red blooded American family.....cry me a river....right!?!

In the midst of it all I loaded up the ol' family truckster and that's when I noticed that the seats were NOT put back into the car properly after Poppa's move. You wouldn't think it would be a big deal...it was. I don't usually cuss, but "those" words seemed to be the only words that kept swirling around in my head. I had to bite my tongue and do deep breathing exercises just to keep them from slipping out of my mouth. I did however leave my husband a "sweet" little voicemail. I'm sure he loved it!

We got to Poppa's house and dropped off our dinner for after the race. The kids enjoyed a quick spin on Poppa's walker/seat thing with wheels. We then jumped back into the car, plugged the school into the GPS (which I have a love/hate relationship with). John Cleese (aka. the GPS) clearly sensed my tension and knew not to mess with me. So we made it to the school without any u-turns and in record time. Unfortunately, the parking lot was jammed. I asked Poppa if he could walk or should I drop him off at the gate? He said he could walk with his walker. Your what? Yep, we forgot his walker! So I dropped him off at the gate and then parked. Naturally the meet was running behind schedule, but right away Anna announced she needed to go to the bathroom and then David informed me that he was "starving" and spent the next 1 1/2 hours telling (crying/kicking the ground) me and the rest of the "spectators" this little tid bit. Good times! Meanwhile, John and Anna were super busy.... arguing.....over nothing. Poppa was already fatigued since he didn't have his walker with the little seat on it! I should also mention, it was at this point, that I noticed that his fly was down. It just kept getting better!

William finally ran and Kings won the race....highlight of the day! Cool down time....just for William and his team...not me. People continued to ask what was wrong with David while Anna continued doing kart wheels despite the crowd around us. At this point, I decided the gang should wait in the car. I also decided that we would skip dinner at Poppa's because it was already after 7pm. We dropped off Poppa and grabbed our dinner (leftover pizza) again and headed home. As we got out of the car, David announced that he didn't want pizza and stomped AGAIN! I sent him to his room while I heated up the"slop" in the microwave. I then headed up to his room to talk to him about his attitude. Instead, I found him sound asleep. I realized then, that his full-day kindergarten was the culprit for his lovely behavior. I made a mental note not to push the new kindergartner past his limits and then added another award to my already quite impressive "Mother of the Year" collection. With a few grunts and groans about no dessert and no TV time, I scooted the others off to bed too.


Again, flash forward to this morning. I got up early just like yesterday, only this time I didn't go to Starbucks. Mainly because of the fear of another luke warm $2 cup of coffee and not because of the burglar (those awards just keep piling up). I then proceeded to get half of my kids on the bus before the door bell rang. It was our neighbor informing me that Madchen had slipped into their broken screened door and was now lurking somewhere in their house. UGH! And finally, because of the "cat-tracker" excursion....I was late for my new "bootcamp" class.

That was more like a novel and not an entry, but I sure do feel better. It helps that Dave comes home tonight - yeah! That is, after homework, snacks, cross country carpool, dinner, a meeting at the school, baths and the bedtime routine are already done....but at least he will be home.

So for now, I'm gonna chalk it up to "just one of those days"! I look forward to tomorrow and my "happy" themed life scattered with a few of "those" days.