sometimes . . .

it sucks to be me.

Yesterday was one of those times. The morning started nicely. Hubby was off work as it was his birthday (happy birthday sugar). We slept in and the children got themselves up and ready for school. Such good kids! Hubby and I had a leisurely breakfast and lingered over coffee (him) and tea (me). He had golfing to do and I had shopping to do. I left the table first to shower and dress. When I returned to tell him the shower was his, I got a terrible look.

"That was your daughter's principal." Why is she always MY daughter when he's unhappy? I politely ignored the incorrect pronoun and asked why. There was an accident. Our lovely daughter hit another car in the truck my father gave her. Well, not another car, exactly. A bus. A schoolbus. Full of children. With her brother in the front seat.

I got into my car and drove to the high school. The ladies in the office sent for her. She started crying when she rounded the corner and saw me looking her way. She wiped her eyes. I told her she looked pretty good for a girl who had an accident that morning. Her response, "Well, this is really good mascara, Mom. It's waterproof." We got into my car and drove over to her parking lot (it's a pretty big high school). My husband had been told it wasn't a bad accident. I was expecting a dented bumper.

What I saw: a passenger door that wouldn't open, a cracked headlight and annhilated turn signal cover, a crumpled hood and hanging bumper. That was when I started to cry. Not one, but two of my children were inside when it was hit. Or, more accurately, when it hit something.

We did some serious talking and I told her things would be ok, then sent her back into school. I started making the necessary phone calls. First, Daddy. I told him what happened, that I was sorry, that she was alright. My father, who almost literally hit the ceiling when I had my first accident, said, "Baby, it's just a truck. Drive it home to me and I'll get it fixed." And I started to cry again. Daddy then reminded me of his birthday the year I was sixteen. When I wrecked his truck. Caved in the back of the cab with an oil field motor. With two of my cousins inside. And he laughed. I can assure you he did not think it was funny at the time.

By now it's 11:00am and I haven't even started the shopping. I had a cake to make for the elementary's cake walk and cookies to make for the middle school's bake sale. (Does it never occur to the powers that be that a family might have children in more than one school? I actually have one child in each of those PLUS another at the high school.) At this point there is no way I can shop and bake and drop everything off by 3:30pm, so I do what any resourceful and harried mother would do: I fake it. I buy a frosted cake and two dozen cookies at my favorite local bakery, take them home, put the cake into the box the school provided, put the cookies on a paper plate, cover them with saran wrap, and proceed to deliver them to the schools as if I had made them myself. So sue me. I'd had a bad day.

And it wasn't over. I inadvertently locked poor little Streudel in the master suite with no food, no water, and no litter box. I have a lovely bathroom with a tile floor. He did not choose to urinate there. He did not even choose to urinate on the carpet. The damn cat peed on my bed. Twice.

I think that's about it. Oh, wait, I didn't even tell you about taking hubby to the after hours clinic. He played golf and pulled a muscle deep in his shoulder somewhere. On his birthday. He did get some really good muscle relaxers, though. I think I'm going to take one and go to bed.