My terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Today was awful.

It started out nicely enough. I thought I'd pop by the store, grab a few things I needed and then head out to the park for some fun with the kids while my husband attended a meeting. But then life happened.

I'm not sure what was going on today, but it seemed like everywhere I went I was stuck in some sort of comedy routine.

I went to the grocery store - but I forgot half the stuff I needed and had to zigzag through the store several times before I found it all. It couldn't have helped that I had both of the kids with me and my toddler was darting all over the place talking about turtles. When I went to check out, I swiped my card through the reader, but the machine froze up. Twice.

"Oh, it's no big deal," the girl at the cash register told me, "It does this every two or three hours. We just have to wait a few minutes and it will be fine."

I glanced towards the line of customers behind me who were glaring at me as if this were somehow my fault. I don't think they had the cashier's "no-problemo" attitude about it.

On the way home the car flashed warnings at me that all my tires were dangerously low on air pressure. I made a mental note to have my husband find out why they got so low so fast.

Because of the delay at the store, I didn't have time to pack a proper picnic, so I just threw the stuff I thought I needed into a bag and we took off. My husband made it just in time for his meeting. I parked the car in front of the playground area and started to get out when my son called out, "I'm thirsty, mommy!"

"Darn it," I thought, "I forgot the drinks." So I put the car back into drive and we went through a nearby drive-thru to grab a huge cup of iced tea. We drove back to the park. I found a nice place to sit and eat and my son hopped around excitedly as I packed the stroller up. After I had put all the picnic supplies in, I realized I had left the diaper bag at home. I thought to myself, "Good thing I changed the baby before I left."

I picked up the baby to put her in the stroller and discovered she had pooped. Not just a little poop either. This was one of those breastfed-baby poops that built up over three days' time and came out in a horrible explosive mess. It was all over her clothes. It was up her front. It was up her back. It was in her hair. There was a puddle of it in the bottom of her (previously) nice car-seat. It was everywhere.

I wanted to cry at this point. I stuck my (now screaming) baby back into her car-seat. I put the stroller back into the car with the picnic supplies. (Squished the bread.) I grabbed my toddler (who was hopping away from me) and stuck him back into the car (where he proceeded to bawl).

We drove home. The baby got a quick bath and a change of clothes and I hurried to get both of them back out the door. I tripped. The baby and the little guy were fine, but I landed on my knee pretty hard. What's worse? When I went out to unplug the car (we have a Volt) a piece broke off of the charger and stayed inside the charge port! The charger costs $120 on it's own, and I have no idea if it's covered by warranty or not. (I sure hope so though!)

We drove back to the park, me dreading to tell my husband about the charger. As we pulled into the park, it suddenly began to rain. And it wasn't a little drizzle either, it was a downpour. We sat in the car and waited and waited and waited for it to stop.

It finally seemed to let up, so we packed up quickly and ran to a nearby pavilion. The park was nearly deserted, and I thought it would be nice to just eat in peace and then just let my son chase ducks while I nursed the baby. We had almost finished eating when I noticed a red car pull up near my vehicle. The occupants just sat there watching us for a long time, but they didn't make any move to get out. Because my husband works at the park, I know that people will commonly park near a vehicle that they intend to rob, wait until no one is looking, and then smash the glass in and grab everything they can before speeding off. I watched them for a while, nervous because they matched the description of the people who had broken into a car there about two weeks before. I told my son to hurry and pack everything up. We dumped all of our stuff into two bags and threw it in the stroller. He cried and whined about not getting to play, but he followed me back to the car. As we started to approach, the red car suddenly backed out and sped off quickly. That only seemed to confirm my suspicions and I rushed as I was putting everything back into the car.

Unfortunately in my rush, I hadn't bothered to seal the brand-new Doritos bag up. I also hadn't noticed that it was hanging nearly upside-down when I put the stroller in. Chips flew everywhere onto the bottom of the car. Everywhere. Oh well, what's $2.50 down the drain in comparison to possibly getting my car broken into? I finished putting everything (and everyone) back into the car. I thought this was as defeated as I could get this day. I was wrong.

As I was pulling up to the park office I heard my son pipe up from the back, "Mommy, I have to go potty!" After I went to take him out I realized he had already wet himself, and I didn't have a change of clothes. The baby began to cry and I was on the verge of doing the same myself. Luckily, my husband came out to save me and I could tell him all about my day. As I was retelling it, I was reminded of the story "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day". It wasn't as funny of a concept in real life though. I seemed to remember that somewhere towards the end of the book, things got slightly more cheerful for Alexander (although I might just be imagining that part), and he decided that his life wasn't so bad after all. I sat silent on the drive home, wondering if something would happen to cheer me up on this worst of days.

When we got home I sat down to get some work done and told everyone to leave me alone. My husband came in about an hour later to intrude on my solitude.

"You have to come see this," he whispered at me. He left and I got up to follow him back to the bedrooms, thinking that he probably just wanted to show me our son sleeping in a funny position.

When we got back there though, I could hear our toddler talking really quietly. I peeked inside the door. He was next to his little sissy, talking so quietly in her ear... "And thank you Jesus for Mommy, and for Daddy... Sissy you have to pray like this. Talk to Jesus, Sissy. And thank you for toys, and this turtle, and beans, and the squirrel..."

I turned back towards my husband and smiled. It wasn't such a bad day after all.