Hell in a hand basket.........

Today I have a migraine. And I had to take my two youngest to get braces, which entailed a lot of waiting around, making a $700 payment with my credit card (because who has $700 lying around in their checking account? Oh, you do? Let's talk after, k?), then taking the newly-metaled kids to Panera for lunch. I suggested soft food - mac and cheese - but Harrison chose a gigantic hamburger, fries and two apple pies from McDonald's which he then took into, and ate, at Panera. Arlie had soup and a turkey sandwich and I'll admit it was kind of hilarious to watch her eat. She looked like she was having some type of seizure with all the facial gyrations she was doing. We went home for a short while before I had to run out again to take her to gymnastics, and, on the way, pick up her two carpool buddies at school.

My head was feeling kind of spacey/woozy and I was SO tired. The heat in the car and the Christmas music damn near put me to sleep at the wheel but I pressed on. I considered taking a nap in the parking lot, but needed a few things from Target, and had to pick up Hannah in short order, so I just went to Target. I was sort of dazed and confused, tired and cold, and just wanted a bed or a warm bath or something.

After picking up and dropping off kids here and there and finally arriving home for the night, I announced that the pork chops I was planning for dinner wouldn't be a good choice for the new braces and we were having pudding instead. Because I bought the mother lode of pudding, yogurt, soup and ice cream yesterday at the store. Soft foods, yay!

I was putting some snacks into a little snack basket I keep out in the kitchen when I found a piece of paper folded in quarters stuffed in among the granola bars and popcorn. It was a permission slip for a field trip that my son had brought home for me to sign. When I said "Hmmm, what's this? Does this need to be signed or something?" he produced another copy from his pocket, also folded in quarters. Well. At least he remembers what he forgets. Or something.

Then, I went to throw the original permission slip in the recycle and remembered that it was garbage night. And my son, who's job it is to do the garbage, was playing on his iPad. The Satan of all distractions. The evil force of nature that should never be brought into any self-respecting home with a teenager. Money is not the root of all evil. It's the iPad. So, of course I yelled at him for not doing the garbage - which he then couldn't do because he had to go to band practice. "I'll do it when I get home!" he said, swinging his bass out the door. Yeah. Right.

As I walked back to the table, I noticed a box of vanilla wafers that has sat, opened, on the kitchen table for three days now. Hannah got them out and has been told no less than three times to put them away, but there they sit. Undoubtedly stale by now.

Then, my phone started ringing and it was Hayley at work saying she had a "bad cough" and would I have any reason to go up to the mall so I could bring her some cough drops? Um. No.

Harrison's guitar is sitting in the corner by the back door - definitely not the place it belongs. But it was so much easier to just lean it against the nearest solid object than to walk it ten feet back to the living room where the guitar stand sits. He managed to get his backpack in the right place, but his bag of "goods" from the orthodontist office is sitting in the middle of the floor.

And this is why our house goes to hell in a hand basket on a daily basis. I suppose I could clean it all up, but then how would they learn? And I have this headache.........

This is why I eat cookies for dinner. Don't judge. You drink your wine. We all have our vices. Pass the Advil.....