Sigh.

Ever just have a DAY?   You know, just a DAY.  

One of those days where you find yourself standing in the kitchen wondering if noon is too early to crack open that bottle of wine in the fridge.

Or you find yourself standing in the middle of chaos and find yourself completely aware that you are making a conscious choice between crying and laughing?

Yep.

Today was a DAY.   In the grand scheme of things, it was fine.  It will be fine.  I may have one or two more gray hairs or wrinkles after today, and I'm drinking the last beer in the fridge which is the last beer in the fridge precisely because it is GINGERBREAD beer  (seriously.  Who does that?!?!), but I'm pooped.   

We started with a speech therapy appointment for Theo.  He did fine, and it was only a half hour long, but MAN, I fought for that half hour.   I was dripping sweat by the end of it.  And dripping puke.  Baby puke.  Blech.  Baby Girl is a puker.  'Nuf said.   You seasoned special needs moms out there - I bow in your direction.  Holy smokes, it's tiring taking 5 kids to a 30 minute appointment in a teeny tiny therapy room where the other four kids don't fit and I have to instruct (cough cough bribe) them to focus on their schoolwork (that I packed last night) and sit and be quiet and show the world that they're NOT being homeschooled because they got kicked out of school.   I spent that whole 30 minutes trying hard to not drop the baby as I bounced back and forth between the observation room to watch his appointment and the waiting room where the other kids were supposed to be doing their schoolwork (key word: supposed).  I was just as tired as Theo was after that 30 minutes.  Yikes.

Got back home, managed to get the boys on task and close to completing their schoolwork when Baby Girl decided she was hungry and needed to eat.   I was sitting on the couch in the sunken living room, feeding the baby, when Joseph (the oldest child who DOES know better) took a running leap onto the couch and plopped his entire weight down HARD on the couch that I was sitting on.....and splintered the frame of said couch.  We were sitting on the ground.   So the baby - who was now angry that I'd stopped feeding her because she was NOT done - is now screaming on the floor as I'm trying to find some way to at least prop the couch up on some sort of brace to temporize it long enough to at least finish this feeding because there is NO more comfortable place in this house right now to feed the baby than on that couch.  

Oh, and at this point Joseph was sobbing because he "didn't meeeeaaannnn to break the couch."

I know, dude.  I know you didn't mean it.  But we have rules for a reason!!!  Sigh.

Then it was lunch time.   Lunch today was leftovers.  No big deal, right?  Wrong.  Nicholas does not do well with choices.  Especially when he's hangry, which he definitely was after a delay to fix the couch.  He finally made a choice as to what food he wanted to eat....and then took AN HOUR to eat a bowl of soup.  ONE bowl of soup.   

At this point, I was literally loading up the car with the other 4 kids and their gymnastics clothing and musical instruments and sheet music binders, while trying to force feed Nicholas his soup.  Did I mention that we woke up to snow this morning that turned to freezing rain...then slush....then just really really cold rain?   So there's that.  

Made it to music lessons on time and the littles napped in the car.   Thought things were going great, until I remembered that I had forgotten to book the dogs in the kennel for Thanksgiving weekend.   The one where we have reservations 3 hours away.   And the kennel is now full.   Sigh.

Gymnastics practice, a trip to the mall to return a shirt that we mistakenly bought in the wrong size, and then a trip to the craft store to help Nicholas (the one who doesn't like choices, remember?) pick out what craft supplies he wanted to get to make the Christmas presents that he wanted to make for everyone.  In the rain.  Oh, and my tire apparently has a slow leak in it because my low pressure sensor was on and I had to stop (in the rain) to blow up the tire until I could get it fixed.

Home by 7 pm.  Dinner in the crockpot.   A fussy sleepy baby and a sleepy toddler who didn't want to eat but just wanted to go to sleep.  Which means he'll be up by 5:30 tomorrow morning.   Fun.  

Oh and the three big boys were all working on their Christmas presents while all of this was going on.  One child is making things that involve cooking.  Another is doing a photo project on the computer, and the third decided on a project that involves painting.  With non-washable paints.

I'm tired.  Very tired.   While none of that was horrible (well, other than the couch, but Mike thinks he can brace it to temporarily fix it until a new couch is in the budget), it was crazy tiring.  With no break - just one of those days where you feel like you have to laugh or you're going to go insane.

You know.   It was a DAY.

Yawn.