And then, there are days during which...

Any honest parent will tell you that there are days that, despite your best efforts, every little person seems to have mainlined crack stashed somewhere in the toy bin, and every little loose end unravels at such an alarming pace, you're convinced that your entire life is swirling down the proverbial crapper. Non-primary caregivers, child-free friends and parents too old to remember this sensation may raise an eyebrow, but, I assure you, Jonah days come to all of us.

Take today, for example. Today, we weeded the garden, cleaned out the car, ate three nutritionally fantastic meals (yes, cooked from scratch meals), talked to some friends, read books to the littles, did two loads of laundry, cleaned the kitchen and got this season's herbal vinegars going. On paper (or screen), that looks lovely enough.

However, in reality, what *actually* happened was thus-grab yourself a bag of chips or something:

I took the toddler outside near the garden boxes with me (so she wouldn't eat any more mud

from the water table on the porch), when I heard blood-curdling screams-the kind that should

be reserved only for death by axe murder or having your hair lit afire-coming from inside

the house. I snatched up the baby and charged down the hill like an angry mother elephant to find that my 6.5yo had told the 4.5 yo that she (the 4yo) wasn't *actually* a baby buffalo; she was only pretending to be one. This had disappointed my 4yo deeply. Ah.

Remembering that my cell phone was in the car, and, upon it's retrieval, being visually reminded that our car was a disaster zone on wheels, I took the younger two mostly-clothed children to the driveway with me, and began to de-junk the car. One bag for trash, a laundry basket for all the socks that my very sensitive children's feet had kicked off in the car during the past few weeks. (And jackets and books and dollies...you get the picture. ) Eva honked the horn at our neighbors a few times, and Naomi picked dandelions happily. Until...

"NOOOOO, Lexi!! NO!!!!! MOOOOOOOOM! Lexi's got a chipmunk, and it's still ALIVE!"

Long story short, I ended up whacking our cat on the head with a broom after it released the very live

chipmunk in my bedroom, to prevent my animal-loving 4.5 from crying for 2 months over a National Geographic mini-enactment under mommy's nightstand...and the terrified chipmunk raced into my bathroom for cover. Amidst shrieks of "GO, mommy, GO! Catch the chipmunk in a box!!", my dingy, sloppy ponytail bobbing, I attempted herd the poor rodent into a Rose Mountain Herbs box with a stinky mop that I've been meaning to wash.

It didn't work. Instead, chirping away, it skittered down the hall and into the girls' room, where it tried to climb the curtains. Eventually, I cornered it in the entryway, where it ran into another open box by it's own volition, and promptly pooped. We took it outside.

Heart pounding, I decided it was time to shift gears. I did a few moments of meditation and deep cleansing breaths.

Then, my children watched far too much Avatar: the last Airbender while I cleaned the kitchen and folded laundry, until I decided their brains were likely being turned to mush. I suggested that they draw comics about the chipmunk escapade.

Then, I started dinner. After breaking up a WCW-esque fight over who got to use which colored pencil to make "I love you" cards for me, my 2yo gave up and decided to hide in the corner and poop instead. Smelling something that I hoped my cooking wasn't producing, I rounded the wall to hear her saying, "Look, I do poop in my pants! I take diaper OFF. It stinky. Poopoo on my hands." She informed me of all this gravely and calmly until I

tried to thwart her decision to go to the bathroom and scoot across the counter to wash her own self off, after which she screamed like a tiny, exhausted banshee.

At that point, it occurred to me that, during the melee betwixt myself, the cat and the chipmunk, I'd left the laundry basket of socks/etc out in the middle of the front yard. Upon retrieval of said basket, I smelled another odd smell and this time realized that it WAS dinner. ::sigh::

I swear I'm more sane and put-together than this, left to my own devices.

And I wonder why I'm often compelled to eat too much chocolate. :OP To my credit, I consumed a mug of nettle tea and not a tray of brownies. Now, it's a 80% cacao chocolate and Mitch Hedberg kind of night. God, I love that man.