Mommies are fast. My children are faster.

Have you ever had ONE OF THOSE DAYS?

It is 9 pm, and my children are finally asleep, and I can almost give a little chuckle in my fatigued state of mind.

The day:

6 am: ADDIE: "mommy, I can't go back to sleep. My ear hurts." Addie was also up in the night several times with a terrible cough. Ear infection I am sure.

6:30 am: Kenneth leaves for the airport to California.

7 am: Ian awake

8 am: make 9am appt for the kids to see the Dr.

8:15: Try to feed two toddlers with no appetite

8:20-8:45: attempt dressing them and bundling them up for the cold. They thrive in their new-found stage of independence they think they have by saying "no" as much as they can and running away from me as much as they can.

8:45: leave for the Dr. I close and lock the front door and realize I left my house key on the kitchen counter.

9 am-10am: Dr.'s office: Addie has two ear infections and a sinus infection.

10-11am: scramble trying to find a willing boy to climb my balcony and break into my bedroom. THANKS WARNER!!!!!

11am-11:45: unsuccessful getting Addie to take any medicine. It ends up all over her and all over my floor. AS I get her ready for naptime, Ian is shoving raisin bran in the humidifyer he took apart on my living room floor. While I am getting Ian ready, Addie attempts to get a better look at my christmas cards and ends up ripping half of them up in the process (sorry guys!) While I put Addie in her bed, Ian is tearing up all my folded laundry. Oh, and pulled the bag of brown sugar out of the cupboard and was attempting to spread it on the couch when I fortunately caught him.

11:45-1:30: Ian learned how to climb out of his crib this week, and he is proud of it. Just when I thought he was finally asleep, I hear a pounding on the door. He naps in our bedroom, and managed to pull out all the DVDs from their cases and spread them all over the floor. No wonder he was so quiet! Addie won't go to bed because she can here me attempting to keep Ian in his crib unsuccessfully. Neither one of them nap.

1:30pm: I give up. I sneakily put Addie's medicine in her milk, and she drinks it...mostly. While I am taking Addie to the potty, Ian spills the rest of it on my bed sheets. They are pink now.

1:45pm: A realtor calls wanting to show our condo. "TOMORROW!?!?!" I plead.

2 pm: Kenneth calls. He missed the second leg of his flight and now has 6 more hours of travel on top of the 6 he has already had.

2: 30: lunch. I am not paying attention to Ian who has opened up his PBJ and is painting the table and himself with the peanut butter side because I am trying to get Addie to eat something!

3pm-7pm: Before my apt explodes, I get the kids in the car and we spend the rest of the day at IKEA...just let them run around and ware themselves out. I let them play in the children's showroom section...just barely keeping them together. If you've been to IKEA with kids, you know the sheer physical energy it takes to work the isles. By the end, they were screaming in unison thinking it was funny that they could do it together. Much more fun than screaming by yourself. I even took them out to eat in the restaurant. Why do they put Cranberry sauce on the kids meal plate?!? I will never know.

7:30 pm: HOME! BEDTIME! CRASH!

THE END. We'll start again tomorrow!