I cannot remember the last ‘bad’ day that I had and for that I am incredibly grateful. I know if I sat and tried to dig something up I could, but the fact that nothing immediately stands out to me makes me feel super lucky. My kids are generally very well behaved and my husband is a rock star dad who comes home and immediately turns on daddy mode. I try really hard each day to find the good…or at the very least, not sit and sulk if something hasn’t gone well. Today was one of those days though where I said to myself “How is it only Wednesday and how the hell is it only 2:30pm?!” Warning: minor foul language ahead. I couldn’t speak it today with tiny ears listening but I sure can type it!

I woke up with a headache that would. not. quit. I have been having really bad hip problems lately (MRI #2 scheduled for next week) so I woke up feeling like a truck side-swiped me at full speed. My foot is achy thanks to plantar fasciitis issues with all the walking and running I’ve been doing as part of my Body Back program (more on that in another post soon)…overall I woke up in a shit mood to my baby crying in his room and my toddler yelling at him from the hallway “Enough! Enough, Alex! STOP!!!”

…Good morning, sunshine. Go ahead and insert a massive eye roll emoji here.

After the normal breakfast chaos and extra toddler yelling (and me forgetting about my coffee), I chugged water hoping to fix my headache. No luck. Ok, I would start getting dinner ready for later in the crockpot. Opened up the chicken set aside to make shredded BBQ chicken and the smell made my stomach turn so badly I nearly got sick. We’re usually really good with making sure food doesn’t go bad but somehow we lost the battle with those chicken breasts. Empty the freezer: no other frozen meat. So alright, there goes dinner. Shit.

Alex is the happiest baby in the world except when he gets tired or hungry, both of which seem to occur out of the blue. He chose that exact moment to decide that he needed a nap 5 minutes ago and all hell broke loose. I know better than to take a super tired child to the store so up for a nap he went. My sanity also decided that it was time for Moana for the toddler. No shame in my mom game today. I thought things were looking up until Caitlin had a meltdown because I wasn’t singing loud enough with her.

Alex woke up and off to the store we went only to be met with a grouchy woman who decided that we were in her way trying to get through the aisle and she felt the need to literally yell “UGH EXCUUUUSE ME”…for the record, we were not in the way. She gave me the side eye, I can only assume for not making my well-behaved toddler sit in the cart and/or she was just mad at the world. I helped Caitlin with her banana and moved on. As we approached our car, I noticed a giant truck had parked next to me, over the line, leaving me about 3 inches of wiggle room. Really, can you not stay in the lines? This kind of parking has always bothered me, but it’s a whole other level of frustration when pregnant (no, I’m not!) or trying to get kids in their car seats safely. We managed to get into the seats and all I wanted to do was go home and get chicken in the crockpot and take some ibuprofen for the never-ending headache.

Get home, clean chicken, put in crockpot and turn around to find Alex trying to grab something from the trash and put it in his mouth. Instinctively, I go to swipe whatever it was out and then realize I didn’t wash my hands first so, cool – probably just gave the poor dude salmonella. Shit! I heat up some chicken nuggets and serve them with leftover chick-fil-a sauce for the kids because it’s been PB&J for like, the last week, and we all deserve some variety right? I’m mom of the year over here…

All I can see is the dirty ass floor downstairs and the vacuum that’s been sitting in the hallway begging to be used for the last week, my head is still pounding, and Caitlin asks to watch another movie and I realize…

Yep. Yes you can, kid. I’m going to watch with you, ok? She literally clapped her hands and said thank you so many times is came out sounding like “tank you tank you tank youuuuu mommy!” I’m usually pretty tough on screen time limits but today, I just didn’t care. I realized sitting down and playing with Alex while I watched with Caitlin that every single thing that had bothered me today was stupid and silly.  Who cares if dinner is a little late? Who cares what some old lady thinks of us at the store and who cares about my floor?!  If you know me, you know I am usually on top of  my cleaning but sometimes you just have to say screw it. Plus, how lucky am I that I get the chance to say ‘screw it’ and sit and play with my kids? Perspective.

We finished our movie and went upstairs where we chased one another up and down the hall until Caitlin couldn’t stop laughing and Alex was sweaty. My headache went away and my stress level drastically dropped. Dave came home and another pair of hands were on deck to help for the rest of the evening…plus being Wednesday, I get to escape a for a couple hours to go workout.

I had zero point in this post other than to say if you’re having a bad day, I get it. Too many people only write about the good and fun and frankly, staying at home with kids means there is a lot of shit days in between the fun ones. If you’re a mom (or dad), especially those of you who stay at home, I get it. It’s hard. You think it would be easy but it’s not. There are days when those big things just never seem to end and there are days like mine where it’s just little things over and over that just eat at you and make you want to scream. There’s no break, so make yourself take one.

Rules and schedules be damned, sometimes you just need to have some fun.

xoxo