elements of an identity crisis (or at least a pity party)

My mom has this friend from college named Sandy. Sandy has 4 kids, mom has 3, and they are both always really busy. Sandy and mom have both always been dingbats - with a large love for life and lots of interests and activities, and still always finding time to talk on the phone for hours.

Once, several years ago, mom went to visit Sandy. I forget the circumstances exactly, but somehow mom and Sandy sat in Sandy's house talking ALL night, while Sandy's car was left running out in the driveway. I believe they were frightened by it when they finally noticed a running car out in front of the house late at night. Oh, we all loved that story! Those 2 kooky ladies- how could you do something like that? What a couple of dingbats!

Last night, after work, Thomas and I stopped at the grocery store. We meandered up and down the aisles, and ran into an old friend from my days working at the daycare (she just dropped her oldest son off to start college, and looked like she might cry when she saw Tommy holding a box of oatmeal creme pies and said "I left Alex with a box of oatmeal creme pies.")

My family called me no less than 4 times on the cell phone, to make grocery requests.

When I reached the cashier, I couldn't find my keys, to hand her my "advantage card". Uh oh, I thought, I must have left the keys in the car or, worse yet, lost them.

(You see where I'm going with this, don't you...)

As Thomas and I walked out to the parking lot, I caught sight of the minivan. When we got closer, I realized, to my horror, that IT WAS STILL RUNNING. What the hell?

Who's the dingbat now?

I wish I could say that was the worst event of the evening.

Thomas was delighted to discover a spray bottle of sunscreen in the backseat. "Mommy, tan I put on some sunscreen? Betause I-I-I will get a sunburn." I half-heartedly tried to talk him out of it: "it's getting to be nighttime. The sun isn't going to be out much longer, and I don't think you'll get sunburned."

"YES, I wiiill!"

OK, whatever. I was still reeling, trying to figure out how I had gotten me, my purse, and Thomas out of the car, grabbed a cart, and walked into the store, all without noticing that the van was still running.

So halfway home, Thomas (of course, why didn't I see this coming?) gets sunscreen in his eyes and starts screaming. By this point he had it ALL OVER his hands and face, and now was frantically rubbing his eyes- just making it all worse.

By the time I called Bill AGAIN, to tell him to be prepared for a screaming child who would need an immediate bath, I think he was ready to pack up the rest of the family and leave us two brainiacs to fend for ourselves for awhile.

No- actually he took pity on me, and when The Office came on at 8:30, he offered Kate $10 if she would get the boys ready for bed, so that we could watch one of our favorite shows together! (Kate would have done it for free, but since he offered the money, she wasn't going to turn it down.)

That was nice. But still, once I got in bed, my mind starting running... We were having a rough night, so the boys went to bed later than usual, and Tommy had eaten a tootsie pop for dinner, so wasn't sleepy (sugar buzz). "Great" I thought. "Now it will be hard to get them up in the morning, and our whole day will start off badly."

They actually got up ok. But if I think too much about the series of events that make up my morning, I get such a discouraged feeling:

Get up, go downstairs. House smells like trash. Tie up garbage bag and put out on back porch. Henry doesn't have any clean underwear: do a load of laundry. Spend too long typing in my blog- hurry up and hop in the shower. Boys wake up, get out their clothes and my clothes. Pack Henry's lunch, label miscellaneous school supplies, fill in missing phone number on emergency form. Get boys dressed, drive Kate to school, stopping at Starbucks on the way (for Kate and Henry- I had made coffee at home). Come back home, wait for the bus. Take bag of trash out to the trash cans. They are filled with rain water, so dump out yucky rain water first. The whole while Henry is shrieking "I don't want to go to school, I don't want to get on the bus." Bus arrives. Literally drag Henry to the bus, finally carrying him. He starts crying real tears and saying he doesn't want to go to school. Half of me feels sad for him, other half wants to say "tough. Every kid has to go to school. Get over it."

When I got to L's house to drop of Thomas, and told her about the past 14 hours, she said "well, where are the Timbits?" She always jokes that she can tell if I'm having a bad morning, because I show up at her house with Timbits for the kids.

But, you know, I'm on this goddamn diet.