Where Is That Written?

So yesterday was one of the worst days of my life, for reasons I won’t yet go into. All I have to say right now is, life is really not fair. And even though this is a fact I know, I'm having trouble getting past it. But, as always, all of life can be summed up in words from The Princess Bride: "Well who says life is fair? Where is that written? Life is not always fair."

So, back to yesterday. The day just started out completely out of sync anyway, and I should have known it would be a truly awful day when I couldn’t find jewelry to match my outfit, and then couldn’t find jewelry to match each other when I found something decent to go with the outfit, and then somehow managed to make it out of the house without any earrings on at all! Let me give you a picture of how it went.

This is how wacky my morning was: I slept like crap the night before and have no idea why, other than I couldn't get my brain to stop. It was like I kept thinking all night long, and now I have no idea what about. Except maybe that the new nightlight in the hallway (one of those new-fangled, fancy LED jobbies, put there so Sweetpea would not fall down the stairs in an attempt to make it to the bathroom in the middle of the night) is far too bright to be right outside our bedroom door. Then I was so tired yesterday morning, of course, I didn't want to get up. I was making excuses not to get up, even though I was pretty much wide awake. Things like, “I can’t get up yet because my husband is still in the shower and there’s no way we can both fit in that tiny, little, I’ve-seen-bigger-phone-booths sized space, and I can’t shower in the other bathroom because it will cause him to have no hot water whatsoever.” Or “maybe if I lay here with my eyes closed for a few more minutes, I’ll trick myself into thinking I’m still asleep and therefore not be so tired when I actually do roll out of bed”. Then, when my husband left for work, he brought Sweetpea to our room because he apparently woke her when he went to kiss her goodbye. So I laid there waiting for her to go back to sleep. And laid there. And laid there. Once she finally zonked out, about 20 minutes later, I got up and got in the shower, and wasn't there five minutes before I heard what sounded like an elephant thundering toward the bathroom, and then futilely attempting to open the pocket door to the bathroom. Though it only turned out to be Sweetpea, she couldn’t get the door open any better than the elephant could have. You know how pocket doors go. You pull them open or closed by anywhere but the handle, or with any sort of uneven pressure on any section of the door, and they stick, hopelessly wedged at some haphazard angle. I had to open the shower door to help her, and all she wanted was to go watch T.V. At 6:30 in the morning. Ok, whatever. Being the wonderful, stable mom that I am, who only looks out for the best interests of my child, I told her to go ahead. Five minutes later she was back again saying she had to go to the bathroom, (I don't know why she didn't use her own bathroom), and I was once again having to help her open/close the pocket door. Then, the toilet lid wouldn't stay up, due to my placement the day before of a brand new toilet seat cover, so I had to help her with that. All in all I think my shower lasted three times as long as it would have had she just stayed in bed!

So, after a while of me getting ready upstairs and her watching T.V. downstairs, I heard her yelling for me and she sounded panicked. I have discovered, incidentally, that sound does not travel well between floors in this house. Maybe it’s insulated well, and that should be a good thing. But then again, it was my lack of response when she shouted to begin with that caused Sweetpea to panic. When I got downstairs, I discovered she had another bloody nose (that would be either the third or fourth one in 24 hours, thanks to the fact that my child has a very sensitive nose that bleeds at the first inkling of dry air). And I mean a gusher. She was soaked. Good thing she was just in PJs and I hadn't gotten her dressed yet. So after we got the bleeding stopped, I basically had to strip her down and then wash her down since it was literally soaked through to the skin. And does anyone have any cleaning tips on how to get blood out of a furry, fluffy bean bag that’s supposed to look like a puppy?

Once I got her cleaned up, changed and packed her some spare clothes just in case she had more incidents at daycare, and got myself dressed, finally, finally, we were both ready to go. Or so I thought. Of course I didn't realize until my sister tried to call and I had no hands to answer it that I had left my bluetooth sitting on the kitchen counter. And I didn't realize until I got to work that I left my IPod at home, so I had no music yesterday. Ahem. Anyway, we only left the house about 45 minutes late. Good thing I didn't have to go to Court yesterday. I could just imagine having to explain to the Judge why it is I’m 45 minutes late for my scheduled hearings. “Well, you see Your Honor, it all started with this new-fangled, fancy LED jobby nightlight.”

By that time, Sweetpea was not going to make breakfast at daycare, so she told me she wanted tea and a Snickerdoodle from the tea store (which equates to the drive-thru coffee place I get my coffee at sometimes). Luckily there's one not too far from our house. So, being the wonderful, stable mom that I am, who only looks out for the best interests of my child, I said ok. But only if she had a banana, too. You know, because that makes up for all the sugar she’d have in the tea and the Snickerdoodle. As it turns out, they didn't have a Snickerdoodle. So instead she wanted a glazed doughnut. They were all out of glazed. So she wanted a chocolate doughnut. The trouble with that is that it was a chocolate doughnut with chocolate frosting on top. Thick, messy, smear when you breathe on it, chocolate frosting. So after getting the frosting everywhere - and I do mean EVERYWHERE – as she dug her fingers into it and then licked it off the fingers, she decided she didn't want the doughnut itself. By the time we got to daycare, I was actually really happy to be dropping her off. Is that wrong? You know, being the wonderful, stable mom that I am… I managed to get her cleaned up a little there, though wet paper towels don’t do much for chocolate frosting on green sundresses. Did I mention she used me as a crutch to keep her from falling while getting out of the car? Wet paper towels don’t do much for chocolate frosting on pink cotton shirts, either. When I at long last stumbled with her into the classroom, I told her teacher the extra clothes I brought were for her bloody nose, in case she had another bad one yesterday. The teacher informed me that she has one at daycare nearly every day. Well. That would have been nice to know, don't you think? I knew she had had a few, but apparently they have only been informing us when it's gotten on her clothes. So. The good news is she apparently had no nose bleeds at daycare yesterday. That they told us. Since she came home in the same chocolate-covered green sundress she arrived in.

I’ll skip over all that happened in the middle, since things just really went downhill once I got to work, and I’m not yet ready to discuss them. One good thing, as an off-subject side note, I did have a friend send me a link to a new blog, called Cake Wrecks. It’s FABULOUS!! If you get the chance to check it out, I highly recommend it. Make sure and read the notes down the sidebar, so you get some history on the blog material before you get too far into it. Incidentally, I think my current favorite is “Extra Terrible”. Thank you Iguana Montana (of Legally Bankrupt fame)! And I’m so terribly sorry I will be unable to make you your Millennium Falcon cake this year due to…uh…a prior commitment. Yeah, that’s it. A prior commitment. Let me tell you how very disappointed I am. Really.

Last night I needed to go shopping for a formal blouse, shoes for myself and shoes for Sweetpea for my mom’s installation this weekend. She’s being installed as Worthy Grand Matron for the State of Wyoming in Eastern Star (a.k.a. head hauncho for the State for the Masonic organization of Eastern Star). Needless to say, it’s a big deal. But also very dressy. I am to be an Emblem Bearer for the ceremony (i.e. I get to walk in carrying one of the emblems of the Order) which requires me to wear a white formal. Or a formal white skirt and dressy white blouse of some kind. Thankfully mom had a skirt that I can wear, but that leaves the blouse and shoes to me, since I also discovered in moving that every single pair of actual dress shoes I own, while all heels, are also all black. Now is not a really great time to be searching for white heels, let me tell you. But, I have no choice, and hey, maybe I’ll find some on sale. One can only hope. So last night I drag Sweetpea with me to Payless to try and find shoes.

Her dress is one she picked out all by herself, though not something I would have ever assumed she would pick. While in Wyoming visiting my family, we went shopping at the local shopping mall. Sweetpea found this dress, all by herself. I didn’t even take it off the rack or give it a second glance, since it is most definitely a party dress. It is a very pale yellow, with white polka dots, made of chiffon with a pleated skirt and a gathered bodice, plus sleeveless with ribbon straps. She absolutely fell in love with it, insisting she needed to have it. It wasn’t until my sister suggested she could wear it to the installation that I even considered the purchase. We sought out her size, tried it on (her first experience in a dressing room where it was her trying the clothes on), and made the purchase, with me being especially happy that the dress was on sale. I warned her that it was a special dress and we must save it for the installation. She agreed, and while she has asked to wear it since then, it has only been once or twice as we get closer to the installation. It didn’t occur to me until last week, however, that she has no shoes to wear with it. I have been able to get her to wear little this summer other than flip-flops, and I have a slight inkling that filthy, hot pink flip-flops will not match very well. In Payless we immediately found a pair of white leather dress shoes for her that were adorable. They are closed toe, but still strappy, summery sort of shoes, with cute little bows on them and faux heels. She insisted on trying on both shoes. So, once we had both shoes on her, she climbed on top of one of those benches Payless has with the padded top for trying on shoes and the mirror on them, and suddenly took a flying leap, landing firmly on her feet, without slipping, in a true Olympic gymnast stick-it style landing. She then turned, looked me squarely in the face, and said “ok, these are hoppy shoes, we can get these.” Ok then. Unfortunately I did not have the luck she did, and three stores and 45 minutes later (at closing time), I still had no shoes, and a blouse that turned out to be cream-colored instead of white. The search continues.