The Day I Planned

On any given day, I plan for a few things to go horribly wrong -- nothing catastrophic, just a spilled meal on the floor, E bumping her head. I don't know what it was about this day -- maybe the fact that day care's Columbus Day holiday hadn't made it into my planner before Friday or the fact that I was just feeling "blah" today -- I think from my flu shot. Low-grade fever and all-around icky feeling. I just couldn't plan for the series of events that followed this morning.

Day care was closed this morning, and Mark and I had to work out taking care of E while we worked. This involves a unique trade-off system in which we get as much work done as possible while the other works then trade off for any conference calls, etc. More often than not, the one in charge of E is still trying to keep up with work while answering email on the phone or sneaking a peek at the laptop.

That's exactly what I was doing when E ripped the mouse cord out of my computer. She slammed the mouse on the floor a few times then ran across the kitchen dragging it behind her. I let her go, as long as I could see her and worked with my track pad instead.

Then she came over and grabbed my iPhone charger cable. I grabbed the other end to prevent the cord from breaking. She pulled harder until I had to let go, and she tumbled to the ground.

I tried to distract her with a video and played between emails. I just had to get through 1 hour.
She threw a toy dog at my screen.
I took her in the kitchen to have a snack.
While I went to the fridge, she got her raisins out of the cupboard, opened them, dropped them on the floor.
I got a sleeve of crackers for her. I opened them halfway and handed them to her, like I would for Mark... forgetting that she was a toddler.
She dropped an entire sleeve of crackers on the floor.
While I went for the broom, she danced on the crackers.
I gave her a mug with some hot-cocoa in it. She did so well with a big-girl cup! Day care says that's all she uses there now.
I gave her a big-girl cup with her milk in it.
She dumped it on the floor and all over her shirt.
I took her in our room to change her. It was like trying to bathe a cat.
When I finally got it on, it was on backwards.
Ten minutes later, I got it on correctly.
She jumped off the bed and got herself wedged between a bag of clothes and a suitcase.
I tried to get her out as she went limp and laughed.
When I finally got her out, I was stuck.
She ran in the bathroom, turned on the sink, and soaked her clean shirt.
I caught up with her, ushered her out of the bathroom.
As I closed the door, she ran back in our room to wedge herself between the bag and suitcase again.
I got her out and brought her back to the kitchen where she stood on a chair at the counter.
The crockpot was within her reach, and I moved it, so she wouldn't get burned.
I burned myself on the crockpot.
I used a bag of broccoli to soothe my burn.
E cried, because she wanted to eat the broccoli.

Other tantrum-worthy moments:
She didn't want the purple milk cup.
She didn't want to eat carrots out of a green bowl.
She only wanted to eat macaroni out of the green bowl.

Throughout the day, I told her not to climb/stand on the furniture.
She jumped up on her chair, which tipped, and the back of the chair hit her nose.
It didn't look that bad, but her nose started bleeding.
And bleeding.
I got her nose to stop bleeding.
She climbed back up in the chair.
She did a somersault into the recliner.
And out of the recliner.

I gave her a bath, snuggled her, kept my cool (for most of the day).

She pinched me, scratched me, and hit me with a toy. She found a stray Sharpie and colored all over the floor. I scrubbed it for 20-minutes straight.

I yelled, I screamed, I cried, I put her in time-out.

She cried too, asked me, "What's wrong, Mommy?" "Are you sad, Mommy?" I know she just wanted my attention. She's never acted like this before, not all day. She was also exhausted. She stayed in her crib for 2 hours this afternoon, but refused to sleep.

Mark came home at 6:15 and took a phone call while I brushed her teeth, gave her fluoride, and read her a story. Then he put her to bed for me.

When he came out of her room, I asked him if he'd do the dishes for me and put E's lunch pail in the dishwasher for tomorrow.

He said, "Oh, I didn't plan on doing that tonight," got himself a yogurt, and sat down on the couch.

Any other night, I would have flipped... and given a really long, sarcastic, soliloquy about how today went exactly as I had planned. But, I didn't. And only because I was exhausted... and, more than that, I had decided that I was done parenting for the day. I would now plan to get some freelance work done and hold onto the one small aspect of my night that I could control -- work.

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And, he just went into the kitchen and did my dishes... He must have sensed my eye daggers.