The First Bad Day

Welcome to my Bad Day. At least the first public one.

As a mom of four active (read: crazy) young children, I've been kicking around the idea of writing a blog for a while now, focused on my crazy-usually-crappy days.

I'm sorry, I was just interuppted by my eight year old, who informed me that Winnie, our 12 year old yellow lab, just tinkled (our polite word for pee) in the TV room.

This is why I'm posting, starting my own blog. I want to have an outlet from which to vent, and to create a place for other people, most likely moms and dads, to visit and ultimately feel better about their own day.

It's never a dull day in this house, after all. Here's a rundown of today, all before 6:00 p.m.

* Informed yesterday that my two and a half year old daughter may well have asthma. She's wheezing and coughing from a lingering cold and I have to give her SIX treatments from her nebulizer each day. When she cries, it compounds the situation and you all know what it's like to stop a tempermental diva of a toddler from crying. Sure.
* Aforementioned dog knocked down the garbage not once, but three times. For the last one, I heard a loud BOOM as I was upstairs doing (whatelse?) a poopy diaper change. My nine year old was just sitting a few feet away with Gameboy, totally OBLIVIOUS, while the canine knocked the top off the supposedly secure garbage can, spilling the contents all the way down the basement stairs. Of course, with my bad day luck, the contents included coffee grounds, eggshells, and several dozen discarded cooked peas. Ewwww. Had to vacuum it all before hubby came home.
* Dog, later and when left alone for the afternoon, finds my dad's box of Fannie May butterscrisp candies. It's a one-pound box, left way at the back of my office desk. No explanation needed, right? Lonely, hungry dog eats chocolate. Not good for dog's digestive system. See tomorrow's bad day post for the icky results.
* Emptying dishwasher that I ran at, oh, 9:00 a.m at 5:30. Break a glass bowl all over the tile floor, sending rainbow-y fragments of glass everywhere. My daughter, in the next room, stands precariously next to one shard. In bare feet, as I am.
* I clean up the broken glass with my vacuum that does not turn on or off, but just works when plugged in. I decide to vacuum the entire first floor and slurp up an errant eraser in the family room, which spurs, oh, a small fire in the vacuum. Or at least what I discern to be a fire, but some smelly smoky stuff coming from the base. Being a reasonable person, I take a tupperware filled with water and pour it into the vacuum, ruining it for sure or at least really boosting my risk of electrocution the next time I plug it in.
* Boys are fighting non-stop, bored from staying at home on spring break when it's 30 degrees and snowy. We're supposed to go to Michigian tomorrow for a brief getaway, but guess what? Winter storm warning with 8 inches of forecast snow. Daughter can't run around in snow, as fun as that sounds, because of her asthma, and the boys will be so disappointed that they can't either, because if they go and she doesn't, she'll just stand at the window, wimpering, then wailing, then screaming, then probably gasping from her breathing issues. So that's a defnite no.
* Di d I mention I already had the vacuum out, because Tornado Toddler Girl decided to open and dump the teeny weeny pellets of fish food all over her brother's carpet? Oh, yes, nothing smells quite like fish food further ground up in a vacuum. Combine that with burning rubber and you'll get an olfactory sense of my house today.

I'm sure there's more to come in this bad day. Welcome to my world of chaos and venting. Feel better about yourself and your own life -- check back tomorrow to see how my day is going!

The best part of the day: the five minutes I spend in bed trying to read People magazine after I've put the kids down for the night, kissed them, told them how much I really do love them, tried to write an article or follow up on email after 9:00 p.m. , caught up on TV news and made a a half-hearted attempt to order the dirty dishes in the sink so I can get them in the morning.

Oh wait, I almost forgot I must take out the garbage, since it's laden with broken glass and I have a dog that likes to knock over garbage cans. I have visions of feet cut up so I gotta dash. In my world, that can be a reality in seconds flat.

WELCOME TO MY FIRST BAD DAY. In context, of course. There's always worse and, in a brief disclaimer, realize that people have all sorts of real and awful problems every day. I really am grateful for health, home and family, I just wish I had a normal life, like so many other moms, the ones with manicured nails and lawns, seem to.

BYE!