one of those days.....

My sister (in law) over at hulaseventy just put up a post about "40 ft ceilings" and I tell you what, could of used that phrase about a hundred times yesterday! I hate to complain, for a number of reasons: first, God commands me not to and, well, it's usually for a good reason that God commands to and not to do things. Second, I spend all day long telling my two year old to "stop whining" because it drives me crazy, so it's a bit ridiculous for me to spend time doing that same thing I know is soo annoying. And third, really, do I have much to complain about? I can walk, talk, have food to eat, a good place to live...etc...so a bad day once in a while ought to be no big deal. But I gotta share this day with you because it might make you laugh, might make you think, "hey, my day is OK!" and that makes it worth it. Let me tell you Andrea, it got even better after I left your house.

Things went pretty well all morning until around 2pm. I had been trying to reach my husband, who is out of town, (but coming home today so all you burglars, trespassers, and peeping toms can just back off!) anyhoo, I was becoming more and more frustrated as the day wore on. Not a big deal, but when you try 4-5 times to reach someone and they are continually unavailable it gets under your skin a little. Then while trying to reach him I spoke with someone on the phone who was real short with me and I was bristled. Again, not a big deal, but the ball was rolling.

I had decided earlier in the day to take my daughter to the pool. This would be our first time hitting the public pool, and I was a little unsure about how it would go, but it was a hot day and sounded fun. She was a real stinker while I was getting her ready, and in fact at one point I recall yelling out, "OK that's it! We're not going swimming!" Of course it was a ridiculous thing to yell because, in fact, we were going swimming...I had worked too hard up to this point to cancel the outing over some whining. So we finally loaded ourselves into the car and started off.

Just about then I realized I was below the 1/8th of a tank mark on the gas, so I had two choices. Stop to get gas, or drive without the air conditioning on and try to make it. I opted for the second, and took my chances. Whew it was hot! But I kept thinking, "this will be nice! we will be real hot when we get there and the water will feel so good!" The crazy "we're going to have fun no matter what" voice was beginning to sound in my head, and that means nothing can stop me. Well, nothing except a kid going to the bathroom in the pool.

Yes, that's right, upon arrival at the pool for our first big outing we realize there's no one actually swimming. Someone had had an accident in the pool and it was closed for the day. Great! Perfect! Try explaining that one to a two year old! Instead I got the wheels turning and came up with another plan--about 10 minutes further down the road is another public pool. We would head over there and have our fabulous day of fun! But, I was still on E, and that meant making a gas stop. We headed off to find the nearest gas station, blazing hot! Finally got there, filled her up, and hit the road again.

With a two year old everything is on a schedule. I have only so much time between events. She wakes from her nap around 3pm, and I have until around 5pm before I have to start thinking of dinner for her. Otherwise she freaks. When we pull into the second public pool it is 4:00. "Great! We can swim for about 30-40 minutes and then we will head down the street and get some pizza. Perfect!" I get us unstrapped, and begin the tedious process of putting on her suit, inserting the floatation inserts into the suit, packing up our towels, snacks, keys, money, etc, and enter the building to pay. A guy cuts in front of me for some chips. Finally I reach the counter. "Um one adult and one 2 year old?" The guy answers me "She's free, so it's $4 for you." I hand him the money. "Oh, wait" he says. "You just missed it. At 4pm we start members only swim. Im sorry."

What? "Wait! It's not for me, it's just for her! I wont even swim!" I began pleading with him. I couldnt believe it! "Well," he said, "I ...I..." "It's ok," I said, "you dont have to break the rules." And I scooped up Luxie. "We cant go, sweetie." And then it happened. I started to cry. I cried for about 5 minutes. Luxie, on the other hand, was just fine. "Let's go to the park!" and "I sorry mommy." What a sweet girl. I kept saying, "Youre a good girl. Mommy's just sad because we cant go swimming." How ridiculous right? My daughter is completely fine with the situation and Im crying because I cant take her swimming! I was just so hot and tired, and I had worked so hard to get us there! I thought we were going to have fun!

Later things simmered down and we had a pretty decent evening, but bedtime became a fiasco again. Somehow I had a huge allergy attack, and my left eye became incredibly irritated. So irritated that I couldnt even see out of it! It was terribly itchy and I could barely see my daughter let alone read her bedtime books. This, of course, made ME incredibly irritated, and I kept wandering into to bathroom to see if something was in it. At one point I started digging around in it and scratched my eyeball. I could feel the scratch mark on my eye. I had to hold my eye closed for the remainder of the evening as I changed her diaper, fed her a snack and did my best to read her bedtime books verbatim.

Finally, around 10:30pm I decided I was done with the day and headed off to bed. It's a new day, full of new surprises, and probably a few frustrating moments! But thank the Lord it's a new day!