My SH$%%Y Week & Fantasy Football Team

Sunday, 7:00pm: I'm at work, swamped, on hour #5 of a 7 hour shift (typically the number of hours I work in an entire week) on Labor Day weekend. A customer calls me all sorts of names and tells me repeatedly how stupid and awful I am. Then has the audacity to ask me what *my* problem was after I stopped being sweet in return. The man behind him took it all in, and apologized to me for this stranger's behavior. That's how bad it was. I thanked him, bit my lip to fight back tears, and managed to move on until my angel-on-earth GM asks me if I'm okay. I start bawling and can't stop for several minutes. Tip well and be nice, friends.

Monday, 1:00am: I realize that I am severely dehydrated; thanks to the excruciating leg cramps that have awoken me from my sleep. They continue for the next four hours, despite chugging water, using a massage gun, walking (read: hobbling), and a warm bath.

Monday, 5:00am: I get to sleep for the first time.

Monday, 7:00am: I am up for the day.

Monday, 4:00pm: After a trip to the park, board games, and day-off-from-school fun, I head back to work for another 5.5 hour shift; still scarred from last night's interaction and running on 2 hours of sleep. With a terrible headache and sore legs, I promise myself that I will go to bed as soon as I get home.

Monday, 10:00pm: Crawl into the sweet mercy of bed, thankful for a full night of slumber ahead.

Spoiler alert: This is where things turn for the worse.

Tuesday, 12:40am: I am awoken by a 70 pound dog jumping into bed while crying and dry heaving. Quickly remembering that she had not been interested in her dinner and went to bed with an upset tummy, I jumped out of bed and ushered her downstairs and outside. This is where I would spend the next 2+ hours cleaning up vomit, walking the yard with her while she ate grass, hand feeding her small bites, and running back and forth to the door.

2:30am: Cassie and I settle in downstairs; me on the couch and her on a blanket next to me on the floor. 

5:00am: I have a nightmare about a PTA event that does not even happen for another 5 months. My brain knows that it was a dream, my eyeballs know that they want to go back to sleep, but my adrenaline tells me that it's pointless and I should get up to make school lunches and start the day.

8:30am: Drop the big kid off at school. He hops out happily and heads in. I park and get Little Britches out of his seat and ready to head into his classroom. He is silently sobbing, yawning, and telling me through broken breaths, "I just want you, mommy." His saint of a teacher navigates the handoff flawlessly, he holds her hand and calms as they head off to start their day together. I, on the other hand, make it 3 steps and start bawling. I am tired, I have too much on my plate at all times, and I just want to scoop up my baby and snuggle him all day.

9:00am: I return home, Ryan greets me, and asks me if I'm okay. Oh, Ryan. Optimistic Ryan. Sweet, sweet Ryan. Do you see the bags under my eyes? Yesterday's mascara running down my face? Messy bun from 4 days ago hanging on by a single bobby pin?! Things are going great. I'm winning at life right now. Appreciate you asking.

2:00pm: I arrive to preschool pickup, having not been able to nap and also somehow not able to complete anything on my to-do list at home. I get in line and notice that for the 4th consecutive day, my child is wearing a backup pair of shorts. He is making it to the toilet at school, but struggling mightily to keep the pee *contained* to the toilet. Bless these teachers.

3:45pm: Ryan and Clark walk in the door, and the rush begins to get kids fed, Clark changed and out the door for soccer practice, the dog fed, and Linc and I out the door to PTA.

5:40pm: I am getting rapid fire texts from Ryan about Clark being thisclose to being dragged off the soccer field and to the car due to his poor behavior.

5:50pm: Remember that my fantasy football draft starts at the exact moment that PTA should be ending. Get my team page pulled up and ready to go so I can be ready the second the meeting adjourns. Things are turning around. I feel in control and ready to go. Oh, Heidi. Optimistic Heidi. Dumb, dumb Heidi.

5:55pm: A friend I have been trying to recruit to PTA for two years appears as promised, to sit next to me and check things out.

6:00pm: Meeting begins. 

6:45pm: I text our PTA babysitter to ask how things are going. She reports back that things are great and Linc is doing awesome.

6:47pm: She texts again that Lincoln has had an accident.

6:48pm: I shove my computer to my friend-who-is-finally-agreeing-to-her-first-PTA-meeting-ever, tell her I have to go, and ask her to take notes. I know that she was thinking that she had just been tricked into joining a cult and unwillingly became the cult secretary, but she jumped in without hesitation.

6:50pm: I have ran to the car for backup clothes, and sprinted back inside to grab Linc and get him cleaned up. We head to the nearest toilet, which is a student bathroom with the sink outside. I set him on the potty, take his clothes off of him, and grab some soapy paper towels to run back into the stall with and clean him up.

6:51pm: He shifts on the toilet, it automatically flushes, and he screams in terror.

6:52pm: I am trying to clean up a 4 year old on an adult-sized public toilet with soapy wet sandpaper posing as a paper towel. Note to self: Ask PTA to buy Bounty.

6:54pm: He is cleaned up, wet clothes (down to the socks) are in a pile on the floor, and I grab him off the toilet in a hurry to get back to the meeting. He screams, "I STILL WORKING" and I look down to see that he has explosive diarrhea. And I have pulled him off of the toilet. So now it's everywhere. On him, the toilet, the backup clothes, and the floor. Automatic flusher still going off every 4.5 seconds. So helpful to an overstimulated mom in a stressful situation with an upset toddler. And we're both covered in poop.

6:57pm: I track down the babysitter and give her instructions as though she has just been promoted to the head of the Secret Service. I need you to walk into the meeting, find Erica, and tell her I need a youth small shirt. Meeting. Erica. Youth Small Shirt. Return it to me, here, in this public bathroom stall that is now a crime scene. She deserves a raise.

6:59pm: She returns. I have gone through an entire roll of toilet paper, 6 trips to the sink outside, I've stolen a trash bag from the bottom of a trash can to put the biohazard clothing into, the automatic flusher has gone off 82 more times. PTA meeting is still happening upstairs. My phone dings that my fantasy football draft is starting.

7:00pm: Am I in Hell? Is this actual Satan-at-the-helm Hell? It feels like it might be Hell.

7:02pm: Lincoln is clothed in a diaper (that he hasn't worn in a year) that I dug out of the bottom of my car center console. I am pretty sure that only 1 side even has velcro on it. He's also wearing a shirt that just *barely* covers this sorry excuse for a diaper. No pants. No socks. I am holding his hand and running through the parking lot with a garbage bag flung over my shoulder like it is loot that I am robbing from a bank. Only instead of a large sum of money that could really turn this week around, it's 2 full outfits worth of soiled clothing.

7:05pm: I am texting every person I know in the PTA meeting, because the door has locked behind me. We are now stranded outside. Lincoln is in a shirt and a too-small diaper. I smell poop on one (both?) of us. My friend that I have invited to PTA for TWO YEARS has been completely abandoned by me and is typing away on my laptop, doing her damnedest to keep the pieces of my life duct taped together. Also, it's my turn to draft.

7:11pm: We have been let back in, the meeting has wrapped, I have apologized to and thanked my friend repeatedly, I dump ALL of my remaining responsibilities on my fellow board members, shove everything into a bag, and flee with a half-naked toddler. And it's my turn to draft again.

7:22pm: We arrive home, and Ryan asks how PTA went. Oh, Ryan. Sweet Ryan. Unsuspecting Ryan.

7:22pm: I am shouting orders as if we are in actual war. The front door is wide open. "LINCOLN AND I NEED A SHOWER! DOOR NEEDS SHUT. THERE'S POOP IN THE BAG. DO NOT OPEN THE BAG! GET TO THE TUB, LINC. IT'S BEDTIME. I NEED TO CHANGE CLOTHES, AND I THINK I HAVE 4 WIDE RECEIVERS AND NO RUNNING BACKS!!!"

Wednesday, 12:47am: Finished the PTA meeting notes, this blog post & a candy bar, abandoned all hope of winning this fantasy football league, and went to bed.

Y'all pray for me. And someone please trade me a running back!

Garbage Trucks, Stab Wounds, Floods, and Drums

I was feeling fancy yesterday, and wanted to make my family Hasselback potatoes with dinner. Knowing that they would be fairly time intensive, I started working on them as Ryan left to pick Clark up from school. We didn't have any chopsticks, so I grabbed the long grill fork to pierce each potato and use as my cutting guide, ensuring that I would not cut all the way through the potato. Things were going great until that last potato. Whether it was always going to be the last potato, or it became so after the following incident, philosophers will be debating until the end of time.

Ryan wasn't gone from the house for FOUR minutes when he received a video call from me, on the couch, writhing in pain, bleeding, and informing him that I couldn't feel 2 of my fingers. While the grill fork did, in fact, prevent me from cutting all the way through the potato, it did not save me from shoving the grill fork into one side of the potato, out the other side of the potato, and directly into the palm of my hand that was stupidly holding onto the far end of the potato.

I'm fine. Or at least mostly fine. Either luckily or terribly unfortunately, I have also stabbed the same palm with a knife, and didn't have full function of my thumb for a couple months. So, I am experienced in this type of injury. I stopped the bleeding, assessed the fact that I don't need stitches, cleaned the wound, drenched it in neosporin, and covered it with a couple of bandaids. Before you think I'm reckless, I also texted the three people I know who have any experience in the medical field whatsoever, and 2 out of 3 of them said my treatment protocol was "probably fine". 

I made it through the night, hand extremely sore, but otherwise okay. My day today started at 4am, when I just couldn't sleep anymore. Being down to one hand, I figured I could use the extra time to get everything together. Ryan and I have had to postpone our standing date night for several weeks due to various illnesses and crazy weather, but TONIGHT was looking real promising. I knew that the house was in need of some cleaning that I had been putting off, but was feeling pretty confident in my ability to get everything done in 13 hours.

As everyone got up and headed out of the house, Lincoln and I shared some morning snuggles and talked about how today is trash day at our house. Tuesdays are big days around here. We never miss an opportunity to watch big trucks drive up and down our street. He pre-emptively opened the curtains, and then occupied himself with a toy.

While I had a moment, I figured that I better start working on cleaning the kitchen. I organized and scrubbed the counters, disassembled the stove grates and deep cleaned around the burners. I took the grates over to the sink, plugged the drain, and started the hot water so they (and some other large dishes) could soak before getting scrubbed. We have a large kitchen sink that takes a while to fill, so I started the robot vacuum and grabbed Lincoln his morning snack.

As Linc finished his snack, I asked him if he needed to use the potty. He said that he did, and took off running for the bathroom. After I get him situated, I usually leave the door open while I gather a new diaper or pull-up, and get a few things together for him. But today, I noticed how the bathroom sink could probably use a good cleaning. So I stayed with him and cleaned the sink, mirror, and vanity. By that time, Lincoln was done and eager to get his reward. Both of us pleased with our work, we flushed, washed hands, and gathered our things to head to the couch and get him dressed.

It was en route to the living room that I remembered the dishes in the sink that were soaking. I did some quick mental math to calculate how long that water had been running, and then braced myself before looking into the kitchen. Y'all, I now know what it felt like to be on the Titanic. Water was EVERYWHERE.

The sink was completely full, the counters were flooded, and there was enough water on my kitchen floor to have a current. I waded through the water and managed to turn the faucet off, while frantically thinking of a plan for damage control. Meanwhile, Lincoln, naked as a jaybird, ignored my distress and sprinted to the window to wave to the garbage truck he just heard driving down our street.

For anyone not picturing this accurately, *this* is how my naked 3-year-old was greeting our entire neighborhood.

Suddenly, the flooded kitchen wasn't my biggest problem. So, there's that.

I yanked our little streaker off the back of the couch, closed the curtain, and wrangled him into a diaper. None of which are easy tasks with two good hands, so I was struggling pretty hard one handed. There was no time to think of actual clothing, so I cut my losses and let the wild animal run free in nothing but a diaper.

Knowing that I still had to deal with the kitchen, I told Lincoln to head upstairs with me to grab some towels. While up there, he reminded me that he had yet to receive his bribe treat for pooping on the potty. It's usually a handful of mini m&m's, but he knows that we have a couple of drums sitting out in our guest bedroom and asked if he could play the drums instead. Figuring he would need less supervision and had a much lower chance of choking while I would be trying to dry up an ocean on our first floor, I agreed.

Once downstairs and able to consider my options, it was easy to see that I didn't have many. Our hot water is really hot. Like, fires of Mordor hot. I had a sink full to the actual brim of Hell fire hot water, and a river of sudsy water all the way to the dining room. And I have one good hand. And my 3 year old is upstairs beating on the drums as though he's auditioning for Blue Man Group.

Much like my freshly self-inflicted stab wound to my own hand, this is fine.

I threw some towels on the floor and grabbed every large storage container and bowl that was within reach. I started carefully scooping out the still steaming hot water into each container I had - did that include the dog's empty food bowl? Yes, it did. It didn't take long for me to realize that this was a futile effort, and that I needed to get the dishes out of the sink. 

One good hand, standing in ankle deep burning water, with the chorus of 'Wipeout' being poorly played by my half-naked toddler one floor above me. Just a quick recap.

Trying to work smarter (remember how I used the grill fork in place of chopsticks?), I knew that I could not reach my arm all the way to my elbow down into the burning hot sink water to unplug the drain or gather the dishes out. So I found the tongs. And I painstakingly, one-handedly, pulled each stove grate out of the sink with tongs.

As the last grate came out, something happened with the giant crockpot that was also soaking. Something science-y. Water displacement? I don't know, but I'm sure that Bill Nye has a super interesting lesson on it somewhere. The crockpot started to shift, and with it, came massive bubbles. Giant, hot, soapy bubbles are now BILLOWING over the top of the sink. It's Pompeii up in here now.

Thinking that maybe if I start the garbage disposal, the suction might displace the plug (I don't know?!), I quickly turned it on, but heard the only sound in the world worse than a toddler being left unattended with a drumset; the screeching and grinding of some utensil stuck in the garbage disposal. So, that didn't work.

Neither did using the oven mitt. Or the snow shoveling gloves. And I dropped the tongs. 

Left with no other choice, and time not on my side, I gathered up that superhuman strength you hear about when mothers lift cars off their kids, and I stuck my one good hand into the erupting volcano of hot, sudsy water, and retrieved the plug. Mercifully, the water drained. And my husband didn't swing by for lunch in the midst of the ship quite literally sinking.

When he gets home tonight and asks me how my day was, I will be able to truthfully report the following: Lincoln pooped on the potty, I can feel my fingers again, I fixed the garbage disposal, and I mopped the kitchen floor. The rest of this little adventure stays between us, mmmkay?