A Series of Unfortunate and Average Events

Oh my children....I sometimes wonder if they are truly scheming to make me mad.  Or perhaps I'm part of some sinister experiment to find out how many minor frustrating events it takes to cause a normal person to become crazy.  No, that can't be it, they would have to start with a normal person to begin with.  My mom is taking a friend out lunch, so I can't call and cry to her about my frustrating morning. So, I'm typing it here...and ignorning the sounds emanating from Bob (what we call that middle dining/school/living/etc. room for lack of a proper name).

So today my morning goals, get eggs cleaned and in containers, do the dishes, start the laundry, go through a bag of clothes to give away.  My first obstacle was in the form of bird seed scattered all over the kitchen, from the last child I told to feed the bird, sticking to my feet cause my nerves to begin to twitch.  While I was in process of mopping up random spots in the kitchen to use the vacuum, my youngest came in and demanded I make penne noodles.  I told him no, not for breakfast, and put them back. He proceeded to whine...another sure way to make those nerves fire...then threw a mini tantrum while putting them away causing half the box to dump on the floor.  So now the floor is bird seed mingled with pasta and the floor must be done before I can even think of tackling my to do list. While I'm bringing the vacuum in, my daughter decides she wants to sweep, which in theory is a good thing.

During this time my oldest is trying to mow the lawn and I have to run out and adjust the settings as he's badly lugging the motor.  As I'm returning my youngest again has a melt down because I wont let him go outside while his brother is mowing.  His helpful sister enlists him to handle the dust pan and they proceed to sweep while I vacuum.  I finish and am able to get the eggs cleaned and put in the fridge.  I begin to put away the dishes in the dishwasher only to be joined by a helpful youngest who wants to put away the silverware.  I decide to push the ewww factor when thinking about how dirty his hands are and let him do it. Our immune systems need to work out sometimes, right?  We finish this task and I begin loading the dishes. He returned just in time to help his sister move the dog crates to sweep behind them, spilling water all over the floor in the process.  I finish loading dishes and go to move the crates back.

When I return little miss is getting herself chocolate milk and saying things like, "It was good of me to ask you, wasn't it?" all the while.  In fact, she is paying so much attention to how good she is being that she isn't paying any attention to what she is actually doing and manages to dump an entire glass of chocolate milk on the floor. I grab towels, tell her to go in the other room, I'll get her more later and please pay attention in the future. I would have normally made her help in the clean up but by now my frustration levels have risen to the "red alert" mark.  After pushing my sham-wow equivalent into the crease where trim has not yet been put up and milk has seeped, I collect all the dirty rags and run them over to the other side of the house, and into the wash.  Milk, allowed to set in towels results in stinky throw away towels.  Trust me, we've done this many times.

On my walk back to the kitchen I notice my phone sitting open with what appears to be dirt on it.  Sighing, I grab it and proceed into the kitchen to grab a baby wipe to clean it. After cleaning and drying the phone, I notice some weird brown liquid on my hand...and now back on my phone.  I look at the baby wipe container and it is covered in it. Smelling it, I determine it is not anything frightening...but wait....that's....vanilla.  The expensive vanilla extract container that me in my hurried stupidity had left on the counter was on it's side and had not been shut.  About 1/4 the contents were spilled all over the counter.  I thought, how blonde of me to now shut the lid then realized that brown spot on the phone was the vanilla.  The bottle was apparently too tempting for my youngest as he took the rest of the banana bread, and subsequently dropped some in the living room and tried to feed the rest that he claimed he wanted to the dog....dropping crumbs the whole way shortly after I had vacuumed.   After cleaning the phone, baby wipe container, counters, bottle of vanilla and my hands, I felt mommy needed a short time out to put it all down and hope it would bring some humor or at least calm back to me.  It has worked as far as the calm,  I'll have to wait a while, I think, for the humor.