How Quickly Things Change

This morning was an exercise in the roller coaster of emotions that come with my occupation. Overseeing my oldest two children getting ready for school went as smoothly as it usually does. Maia was ready a little faster than usual and required few reminders from me to stick to her morning routine; that was wonderful! Mason had a little melt-down over something that I cannot even remember; that was annoying!

After they went to school, I loaded up my little ones and took Teensy and Selena to preschool. For the first time since it started, Teensy happily entered the strange new house without a single tear! Hallelujah!

I took the chance to run to Costco to fill-up my gas tank and buy my week's worth of milk. (Buying a week's worth of milk at a time is a recent discovery of mine and I don't know why I never thought of it sooner; it's a dream!) Anyway, I cruised through Costco, managing to buy only items on my list (okay, except for one Barbie DVD--but two of my girls have birthdays coming up and it was such a good deal!) and keeping Mackenna in the cart the entire time.

After we came home, Kenna and I had a little chill time and I chatted for a minute on the phone with my sister. Then, we loaded back up to go pick up the girls. Teensy and Selena had had a wonderful morning at Miss Rebecca's house and were somewhat loathe to leave the My Little Pony toys and the pet turtles, but they came without putting up too much of a fuss.

The weather is just so perfect today that I promised the girls we would have a picnic lunch outside. They played happily while I made sandwiches and washed grapes. We headed out to the front where they ran and played between bites. I was overwhelmed with a feeling of contentment as I sat outside on this gorgeous day, enjoying my turkey wrap and watching the girls giggle and play.

Then Marlee had to go to the bathroom. I herded all the girls in since it was time to start reading books before nap time. I wasn't quite in the house yet when I heard commotion in the powder room. I knew the toilet was overflowing before I even saw it. I dropped the lunch trash and lunged into the bathroom to reach around the toilet and shut off the water. Too late. Water was going everywhere! I ran to the basement to get a towel.

Well, one towel was not enough! When I went to look for a second towel, I ventured into the laundry room which is directly below the powder room. The exposed duct work was dripping with the toilet water from above! Yuck! It dripped all over my back. Isn't that lovely? There is no way to escape being under the duct when you are in my laundry room; it's just that tight of a space.

Grumpy to have toilet water now on both the hem of my pants and soaking through the back of my shirt, I ran back upstairs to finish cleaning up the flood and mop the powder room floor. (Ironically, and irksomely, the last chore I did before going to bed at two o'clock this morning was cleaning and mopping my powder room! Ugh!)

While I was mopping I could hear the girls behind me in the living room saying something about...cotton candy? I turned around to have a peek. They had unzipped the throw pillows on my good couches and were pulling out the stuffing! BIG No-No! All feelings of contentment were long-gone when I growled at those three girls to put the stuffing back in the pillows zip them back up.

How quickly I let my mood change. I was a real grump. Happily, I report that I got over it and read a few books to the girls, put them down and am now enjoying some nice quiet time. Ah, the contentment is back.