A Mom's Uneventful Day... it's all relative

Today was a day for ALLL of my senses to be ruffled in one way or another, and yet it was one of those uneventful days in the whole scheme of things. I started the day off feeling heart palpitations over all the work I needed to get caught up on and simultaneously feeling a deep calming from hearing hard rain out my window as I worked. Ahhhh a nice reprieve… it’s all about balance.

I missed breakfast and was nearly sick when I arrived to a lunch meeting where I had the most delicious meal, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t speak a word throughout… I’m a great listener in these situations. Later, as I drove down the highway, I realized I’d left the house without my water or ice tea, and I found myself so thirsty I was almost in a panic when I got to the front of the drive through line… what. is. taking. so. long?? I was hoping I hadn’t made a mistake trying the strawberry infused iced green tea instead of my usual plain iced green tea, but at this point I was so thirsty I didn’t care. The window slid open, and I was anticipating that long, cold drink when I heard, “oops! I didn’t see it sitting there. Hey, you guys! I didn’t know the unsweetened strawberry iced green tea was sitting here, and I knocked it over. I need another one!” Luckily, I have an excellent poker face, years in the making and now nearly impossible to crack, so, instead of showing my desperation, my horror, my inner turmoil, my P - A - I - N when he looked at me apologetically, I just gave him the warmest smile I could muster and said, “That’s ok. It happens.” 

Not long afterwards and clearly before I straight up DIED of dehydration (close call), I had my drink, and I sucked down about half of it before I took another breath. It tasted like soapy water… so much for the potential for a strawberry infused green ice tea habit… not happening. But I drank every bit of that soapy water and was glad for it. When I got home later, I drank 2 whole glasses of water… like Dickey cup sized, not your standard 16oz glass. I’m guessing that delicious lunch I had was SUPER HIGH in sodium. But I lived to tell about it. Would I do it again? Oh, it was totally worth it. Note to self - don’t forget your water bottle next time. And maybe a banana. And some cabbage. And a back up water bottle.

I made a mid-afternoon pit stop that ended up giving me pause. It’s a bad thing when the drive thru people at the ice cream shop smile at you like they were expecting you, right? Like when one in the background looks in your direction too and nods at you like, “Yeah, I knew you’d be here for your Choco Roco today.”  I need to give this further consideration. It felt like I should be embarrassed and maybe even… apologize?

As the work day drew to an end, the rain had cleared and the sun was out, and I decided it was time to clear out the flower cemetery on our front patio and walk way. I stopped at a gardening center near the house. One of my most favorite things in the world is to walk up and down aisles of flowers, plants, vines, shrubs, trees, taking in the fresh smell in the air, reading about plants I’m not familiar with, smelling everything that has a petal on it, and daydreaming about beautiful landscapes. As I was putting plants and flowers in my shopping cart, I found myself behind this guy who was deciding on some creeping vines, and I kid you not I was suddenly bombarded by a fart that smelled like it came from someone who recently ate french fries… does anyone know what I’m talking about here, or am I the only one who has run into this species of fart multiple times in my lifetime? I found myself trying to back out of the aisle since I couldn’t go around him when I realized a store employee had pulled in behind me with a cart full of shrubs. So there I stood trapped in this rancid cloud of old fast food grease. I would not be surprised to see that my bad cholesterol has spiked the next time I get a physical just from exposure alone. I blame that turd in front of me that tried to pretend that he didn’t know that I knew that he knew that I knew that he knew… (that I knew?)… that he gassed me.

After surviving Agent Brownish-Green, I left and headed home. By this time it was sunny and very humid, and I was sweating like… well, I won’t get political… but fill in the blank… we have lots of options as of late. I got just about everything planted and thought I’d do some laundry too. Then I came inside and sat down. And then laundry didn’t happen.

What did happen is that, after a quick bath and changing into a comfy dress I’ve worn more times than I should admit this week, a bunch of little boys piled on me, and we snuggled for a bit, each of them arguing over who was telling me something first. After that exhausting exchange and dinner prepared by our very own superhero, we started our Friday tradition with a movie while I went to the kitchen to heat the pot I use to make popcorn. I looked at the counter and remembered that Javi had asked me to read this book about Pearl Harbor that he’d read so that we could talk about it afterwards… this boy is straight from my heart! “Of course, I’ll read this book, baby!”, I said.  And now that it’s Friday night, maybe I finally will read more than a page before I pass out into a comatose sleep.  Sorry, school library… I’m pretty sure this book is late. Neverless, my heart swelled again as I thought about how precious to me this topic is… I see lots of book reading and comparing notes ahead for us. 

Before I finished making the last batch of popcorn and I was still thinking about how anxious I was to read Javi’s book selection, Alice jumped up the inside of my dress the way he always does when I wear anything flowy. Now if you have never experienced the swatting between your legs by a cats’ paws who is overdue for another application of soft claws, let me tell you… it’s just charming. :<  Of course, there’s a big difference between sharp claws actually puncturing your toot and just grazing it, but you are still forced to fearfully imagine what *could* have happened.. cue the cringing and shortness of breath I experienced. So I seasoned the popcorn while holding my dress between my legs in the front and the back so as to prevent any swaying that may have tempted Alice beyond his ability to control himself, and I then penguin-walked the bowls into the living room.

My dear husband poured me a delicious beer of some bavarian sort. I took a sip and heard a package hit the doorstep. Woohoo my Amazon package arrived, and I could now give Max his allergy pills and with a pill pocket instead of messing with the jar of peanut butter (winning!).  I mistook the smell of poop all over the kitchen for the opened bag of pill pockets… this was after sniffing everything around me including my own shoulder, arms, and then… oh yes… it’s my fingers…  from touching the pill pockets… and then I felt the best kind of relief a tired mom can feel short of a near miss of catastrophic events… it’s not poop! whew.

And now I sit here typing away while my husband watches a hockey game and my boys watch Peter Rabbit. Today I experienced anxiety, calm, hunger, delicious food, embarrassed that I have a whole crew of close friends at the ice cream shop who use to be strangers, near fatal dehydration, annoyance, rehydration with soapy water tea, inspiration and wonderful smells, nausea from french fry farts, the satisfaction of making our patio look nice, and the relaxing bath afterwards, a headache from my kids arguing, and warm fuzzies from our cuddle time, dinner made by someone else, gratefulness, the comfort of our tradition of making popcorn and starting a movie on Friday nights, the sweetness of a request from an 8 year old who loves to read like I do, a close call that could have ended up with stitches in my nether regions and utter gratefulness that I wouldn’t have to do the starfish for a doctor wielding metal objects too close for comfort, the initial fear of hidden poop followed by the relief of knowing it wasn’t, sitting here with my family and it’s Friday night.  

So, yes, this has been a wonderfully, uneventful day in the whole scheme of things.

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