A fly on the wall

Just when the (sometimes) controlled chaos that exists in my life everyday starts to become second nature, I get a little slap in the face to bring me back to reality.

I should have known this was coming too.

Last night I was telling (ok, maybe I was complaining to) Kevin that I had nothing to do today. I finished all the laundry. The house was clean. He didn't have any office work for me to do. What on EARTH was I going to do all day today?

Talk about a jinx!!!!!!

I wake up this morning with a splitting headache. One could blame it on the kahlua mochatinis I made last night, but I like to think it was the weather. This was also the kind of morning where CC's up at 6:45 ready and raring to go...the same kind of morning where Ryland wakes up screaming. Not the crying screaming, but her screechy "I'm trying to talk to you" screams. The screams that, two hours later, are still continuing. These are not the screams you can ignore. They do not fade into the background. They only become more piercing as the day progresses.

Quick! Find something to put in her mouth so the screaming will cease...this shouldn't be hard, my baby is a bottomless pit. She eats all day long. (When she's not eating, she's moving...which is why she's skinny as a rail. She still does not sleep.) So when the screams get too intense you can usually sit her in her high chair with a bunch of mum-mums, gerber puffs and saltine crackers and she's good to go. Well not today! Today she prefers throwing all her snacks on the floor and laughing about it. But then she realizes that if the snacks are on the floor she can't eat them. So she screams...again. We repeat this over and over until I try bananas instead. Apparently it's more fun to smash the bananas into her hair than it is to EAT the bananas. Peas and carrots? They belong on the floor too. Mommy gives up. A jar of baby food? She spits it out. And then she smiles about it.

All the while, Cierra's in her room playing day care. Today she's the teacher of the baby room and her floor is COVERED in baby dolls that she's putting down for a nap. So on top of the screams from Ry I hear "Jason, get your mat" "Clara, Clara and Clara...wake up so you can go night night". Yes, wake up to go to bed. She's a tough teacher. And all of her girl babies are named Clara right now. Tomorrow they'll be something else, but today it's Clara. After nap time it's "cheerly girl prac-ace" and she's chanting...I mean SCREAMING..."give me that sing you need to rock wis...green green green green, goooooooooooold".

So there are now screams on top of screams...it's like I have surround sound. The screams are only broken up by the sound of my silent tears. I kid.

I give up on Ryland in her high chair about the same time that CC sends all her babies home for the day...and comes into the kitchen with my nemesis...Play Doh. The world's messiest toy. I turn my back on Ryland to give Cierra the standard "please don't make a mess and don't leave little pieces or your sister will eat them" and in that short time span, my baby has undecorated the bottom half of my Christmas tree.

So I run into the living room to get a wire star out of her mouth...just as CC spills her water all over the kitchen floor...and slips in the mess. So now they're both crying. And I walk away from the situation to fill up my coffee cup and bang my head against the fridge. Did I really say today was going to be boring? REALLY?

All this happened in the first two hours of our day.

Well now I can re-clean the house since it's covered in cracker crumbs and soggy play-doh. I can re-decorate the tree and just accept the fact that ornaments can't live on the bottom this year.

The girls are playing with plastic food quietly in their room. I'm taking some time to myself to type this. Perhaps we're on the up and up! hahahahahahahaha Sorry, I can't say that with a straight face...I know my kids too well. And rightly so, Cierra just asked me if she could play "no more monkeys jumping on the bed" with Ryland...gotta run!