Good day, Bad day

Let me first start by saying that today is a good day, again. Monday was a very good day. The girls played nice, I played nice, there was play-dough, painting, dancing, singing, lots of books, not much TV, piano playing, exercising, reading, a book on tape, a clean house, sunshine, laughter, and when Chloe went to bed that night, she said, "Dad, I am so happy!" It was glorious.

Yesterday was a bad day.

Why was it a bad day? Mainly because of one thing, which I swear never to do again ever in my whole entire life: I went to Kinko's with two kids. If the obvious harm in doing this is not ringing in your ears, let me add that I had about an hour's worth of copying, sorting, cutting, laminating and buying to do. (Further whining, ranting, and raving to follow.) I have not been given shy children who meekly cling to their mother while she runs her errands. My darling girls run and scream and push buttons and have no sense of stranger danger. (I've tried to scare them, believe me, I have.) They made a game of pulling all the pens, markers, staplers, etc., off their hooks in the displays. Chloe found a "pillow" (bag of packing peanuts) that she kept jumping on. A man next to us was trying to fix a copier, and had a large tool chest, mostly of sharp, pinchy objects which Chloe grabbed at again and again. The man on the other side of us was simply trying to make some copies, and Chloe kept pushing the buttons on his machine. (227 copies/color/double-sided/Copy.) Fingers were almost sent through the laminator. And I'm really glad I didn't see one of those reaper-sized paper cutters near us, or those near-laminated fingers would now be gone. Ellie kept running to and almost out the front door into the busy street. At one point, customers were knocking on the window trying to come in, because the girls had locked the door. I called Mike 3 times to come rescue me, but he was in a meeting. I held a squirming, sometimes upside-down Ellie on my side for the last half hour, while I tried to figure out how many copies of this do I need in which color and is it 1-to-2 sided or 2-to-1 sided . . . She thanked me by scratching my face. The cost of this, monetarily speaking, was about 70 dollars. (Emotional cost . . . ?) The kind salesperson helped me out with my two dears, my box of paper and roll of laminated cute stuff (10 square feet.) I thanked her, my gratitude (or at least need) was obvious. I caught sight of my red, agitated face in the window as I stuffed my goods and kids into the car. Never again.

We've run out of milk a lot lately, too. I can't face the grocery store. What was that story about the snake? (Ominous voice: "You knew what I was before you picked me up.") I knew I shouldn't have gone before I went, but then I thought, "Kate would just go and do it- it's no big deal." Well, I love ya, Sis, but from now on my motto is: DDWKWD. (don't do what Kate would do.)

I had Mike pick up pizza and cookie dough on his way home.