The ebb and flow

Well. Maybe not no-good.

But the children were amok.

It started out earlier than it should have. In the wee small hours. With a bed wetting. And a bad dream. And then another. Which meant all of the four oldest in the house were groggy, at best.
The baby slept until 9:00 {which was the day’s highlight. and a piece of the reason I couldn’t call the day no-good}. And then, the oldest and the baby and I toddled off to the library. While there, the baby lost my phone. And yes. I am blaming the baby. Because yes. I thought it made sense to let him hold it while I perused the shelves with the oldest. And soon. Very soon. It was missing in action. Thankfully, it was later retrieved at the desk {another small bit of good}.

We then picked up the middlest and headed out for lunch with friends. And outside of the loverly company and the delicious chicken sandwiches, lunch was a scene. The middlest got into your basic “fun-yet-not-so-fun” fist fight of sorts with another little kid who would not get off his back {no. Literally. He literally wouldn’t get off his back. And was picking him up. And then… a pseudo-boxing match broke out in the play area.}. These events resulted in me, carrying the middlest out of the play area to have “calm down” “scream” time. In the midst of this, the oldest also chose to behave badly. Like a-complete-disrespectful-jerk badly. “Go get me ice cream. NOW!” he ordered me. At which point, I responded, “every day of your life is not Disney World” as the parents around me stared like I had twelve noses, and farts coming out of my mouth. Shortly after the middlest resumed his playtime, I had to pull him out again when scrappy-boxer-kid wouldn’t relent {do you ever have to do this? I wanted scrappy-boxer-kid’s mom to pull her kid out. The kid that, it seemed to me, was picking the fight. Le sigh.} and we called the match.  I gathered the troops and told them to say their goodbyes. And seconds later, the middlest was nowhere to be found. At least 10 minutes went by… Okay… It was really like one, singular minute… Though it felt like a lifetime. So a minute had passed as I tore about the restaurant and somewhat frantically searched for him, when a lady inquired, “are you looking for a little boy?”  Um. Yes. {could she see the beads of sweat forming on my brow. Or was it the perma-eleven squished between my brows that gave it away?}“One just went outside and down the sidewalk.” WTF???!!! I am going to jail, I thought. Out the door I went, and spotted him around the side of the building. For good.ness. sakes. 

Phone – lost and found. Child – lost and found. Banner day, I thought. 

I corralled the children, thanked my sweet friend for putting up with our lunchtime insanity and took my trio home. As I lay the middlest down for rest time, he sweetly stated, “I love you mo-mmmmy. Even when you’re mean.” Geeeeee. Thanks. I sort of wanted to collapse. Or do yoga. Or take an Ambien, which I sadly do not possess. So instead, I sorted and priced. Sorted and priced. For a quick hour. 

I felt calmer when I went to spell the middlest from his “rest” and discovered he’d been up to his usual tricks. And this time, the result was Caveman drawings on his bedroom wall. Yep. Caveman drawings. 

Courtesy of the middlest. Luckily, in bath crayons. {That’s called grace.} Add it to the list. The list of this day. 

In the dinner hour, I completely spaced my standing guitar lesson. And later that evening, the hubs got the call we’d been dreading/expecting/awaiting — his grandmother had passed away. We rounded out the day by being up until midnight prepping for a garage sale. And I was honestly just thankful to have made it through the day alive. It was just one of those days.