Meh.

Here we go again…one of my many rant posts I publish whenever my husband leaves town.  Funny how that happens, huh?  He leaves and sh!t hits the fan.  The best thing I can say about it is that we all survived.  Grrrrrr.(Yeah, yeah, yeah, positive Abbey will be back soon.  Just let me have this one, K?)

I woke up the day he left hungry.  So. Damn. Hungry.  I had decided to give up my daily bread for a week, maybe two, to rid myself of the post-holiday bloat we all know so well.  (And also training for something I can’t yet talk about.)  And if you know me at all, you know that I depend on that damn piece of bread every morning of my life.  I look forward to it when I fall asleep, it’s the first thing I think about when I wake up.  Bread.  My soft, homemade sourdough bread.  It’s my thing.  But I needed to jumpstart my system to get back on track, so here we are.  It’s only temporary.  But still.  The struggle is reeeeal.

And since I wake up starving and ready to eat pronto, I’ve been prepping my breakfast the night before so it’s easy to do and quick to finish.  I’m not a microwave person, apart from the occasional reheating, but I’m breaking all sorts of my rules this week, so the night before I’ve been prepping my eggs and veggies in a glass dish so all I have to do is microwave it for a minute or so and eat it shortly after.  No cooking required, nothing but pushing a couple buttons while I wait for coffee.  I’ve done this before, no problem.  But for some damn reason, on this particular morning (of all mornings) this decided to happen….

It sounded like gunshots coming from the kitchen.  So instead of eating my quick breakfast, I cleaned it up off the microwave as my kids woke up demanding theirs…and just stayed hungry.I worked out, got cleaned up and dressed.  But only after I searched for the right pants.  You know those days when NONE OF YOUR PANTS are showing up to the party?  It’s like they all have a little meeting and say, ‘OK guys, today is when we’re gonna all f*** with Abbey.  Hey you, skinny jeans- tighten up!  You, wide leg trousers- run and hide.  You, boyfriend jeans- why are you even here?  Nobody invited you.’

I got the kids got off to school, then set out to Barnes and Noble in search for a particular thing that I was sure they would have.  A super important element to my day.  No.  No, they didn’t.  I went to the library…surely they would have it.  No. No, they were closed.  (Damn budget cuts.)  I was grumpy.

I came home, managed to get some work done, took out the trash, came back inside to find the dog staring and barking at something upstairs.  I walk up to find a cat staring at me.  She’s our cat, but an outdoor one, and she looked as confused as I was.  I went to grab her and she ran.  Of course.  Into the master bedroom.  I shooed her out of there, closed the door and saw her run into the playroom.  I shooed her out from behind the desk and she ran into the closet.  I shooed her out of the closet and she ran out into the hallway.  I closed the door and saw she ran into my daughter’s room.  (WHY ARE ALL THESE DOORS OPEN?!?!?!) I shooed her out of there, and closed the door (meanwhile the dog is helping me by barking and not helping me at all.) She ran into my son’s room.

(Now is the point in my story where I would like for you to visualize this- I was performing in a farce.  A damn Neil Simon play.  All the running and screaming, all the doors slamming shut.  I’m quite sure it would be funny as an audience member to witness.  However, as the reluctant ingenue, it was nothing of the sort. OK, back to it…)

The cat decided that in big brother’s room, she would go under the bed.  Her little grey tail was sticking out and I tried to push her out from the other end but she wouldn’t budge.  So I jumped on the bed and yelled until she ran out.  This time, with all the damn doors finally closed, she ran downstairs.  I ran after her- thinking of all the open doors we had downstairs- and found that she had actually decided to go back outside.  She was sitting on the door mat, licking her paws.  Completely pleased with herself.  I closed the last damn door, caught my breath and looked at the time.  Damn, I’m late.

I had an errand to run before I could get my daughter so I headed out.  Got stuck in traffic.  Of course.  Was late to pick up my daughter.  Of course.  And she was not a happy camper.  Of course.  Something about a broken stick and a lost cracker?  I was too tired to ask questions.  Went home, got her cleaned up and snack-ed before it was time to head out to get big brother.  Brought him home.  Went outside to play.  It was a beautiful day- that would surely lift the mood.

Big brother proceeds to ignore every request slash demand from little sister, leaving her to scream every minute of the hour we spent out there.  I go in to grab something from inside and immediately hear a loud bang and pitiful cry, followed my my daughter running inside to tell me in broken english that her brother had fallen off the chair and was hurt real bad.  Before I can make it outside I find big brother at the door with tears in his little eyes.  Turns out he was sitting in our iron patio chair backwards, so the chair just bucked him off.  He was fine, just a little banged up knee.  I performed the magic rub on it, kissed it and he was fine.  But not before the screen door decided to fall behind us.

Just big, fat fall.  Like it was hanging on by its fingertips and decided, yep…now would be a good time to let go.  I tried to get it fixed, get it back on track, but eventually gave up.  I just propped it up against the door jam and called it a day.  We played some more outside and then I noticed a big poop schmear on the outdoor rug.  (dog, not human)  OK.  Someone has poop on their shoe.  I checked both kids.  They were fine.  It was time to go in.  Big brother came up to wipe his feet off before heading in and wipes them right on the poop.  Of course.  I cleaned it up and we head inside.  Kids go wash up and head upstairs.  I look down.  There is now poop on the kitchen floor.  Now how in the hell….  Oh.  Right.  Never thought to check my feet.  Cleaned the floor.  Slipped and fell on the wet floor, but at least the floor was clean and poop free when it caught me.

Meanwhile my husband is on the road for a 6 hour drive.  And I realized, standing there alone in the kitchen, after the whirlwind of the day, that I felt kinda sad.  And lonely.  This is not like me.  I’m a damn independent woman, damnit!  I’m not one of those women who solely depends on her husband for happiness.  And yet…something about this day put me in a lonely mood.  So I texted my best friend (obviously) and called my mom.  (I mean…if I’m already being the sad, lonely wife…why not be sad, lonely mommy’s girl while I’m at it.)  She said she would come over later.  She did.

She spent time with the kids, and bathed the little one, while I bathed myself.  (Don’t you just love moms?) Then she left as I got the kids fed. Bed time approached and I fell asleep shortly after they did.

Woke up and hit the ground runnin’.  Exploded my eggs again, heard my daughter upstairs awake way too early.  Put her back to bed, which she was not happy about, but she fell back asleep. Worked out, welcomed big brother awake and fed him.  Scones for breakfast.  I gave him his and set out hers for when she woke up.  Then remembered we had Valentines to send in to school that day.  I gave him 23 envelopes to write on while he ate his breakfast. He messed up 22 of them.  Gave him 22 more.  He messed up 15 of them.  Gave him 15 more.  When he was done I came up to collect them and saw little sister’s scone half eaten.  He had eaten his scone and half of his sister’s.  Who does that?! I set out another scone for her.  I took the valentine envelopes and shoved a gummy heart and a Spiderman piece of cardboard into each one and threw them in his book-bag.   Little sister woke up just in time for us to leave to get big brother to school just in time for him not to be late.  Took her back home, got her and myself dressed and headed out for her school drop off.

Then headed to my sometimes office and got some work done…writing this here post, and feeling another damn cold coming on.  On my second cup of coffee and still starving and craving that damn piece of bread.