Pretty Lucky!

It's almost 2 PM on Friday afternoon. The Beans are finally napping, the dishes in the dishwasher are clean and there is a six-pack of Dos Equis chillin' in the fridge. And I can't get over how lucky I am.

Putting it mildly, this week totally sucked. The Beans were grumpy from their shots, Mimzi was in the ICU for three days and Biscuit was on extended leave at his dad's because they came down with some form of nasty crud during his week there. Because Mimzi was cooling her jets in intensive care and because the Beans were already out of sorts, when Biscuit's dad called and said they'd been throwing up and coughing I had to make the sad decision to leave Biscuit in exile a little longer. The last thing we needed around here was the flu. I don't care if it wasn't officially the flu. If you're sick, you can't visit anyone in the hospital and the phone conversations I had with Mimzi were rather murky and confusing. Mimzi is not good on the phone since she likes to use pronouns without antecedents and hop around from one subject to another. Sometimes it's kind of fun. I like to see how well I can keep up, or how many other things I can think about while still following her circuitous path through her stories. And it's kind of efficient, too, because she can tell me three things at once. But through the black veil of painkillers, anti-anxietics (is that a word?) and anti-coagulants, ole Mimzi was making even less sense than usual. Not seeing for myself that she was going to be okay was just not an option.

I have to admit, I was pretty overwhelmed last week. Especially Friday. I spent a big chunk of the day visiting doctor's offices and labs with Mimzi, Beans in tow. They were very good (the Beans, not the doctors) but that was due largely to the fact that their mommy (me) exerted a ton of energy keeping them entertained in their stroller for a couple of hours. They had Dollies, Cheerios, cups, bowls, books, fruit snacks, my keys, my purse (ack!) and new faces every so often to stave off a meltdown. By the time we got home we'd been to the hospital, the grocery store, Mimzi's house and the DMV (don't even get me STARTED on the DMV experience). The Beans were pissed off and hungry and tired and I can't blame them one bit. We returned home to eat and I realized when we walked inside that the house was in absolute chaos.

They had lunch in their high chairs and topped off their tummies with a cup of milk each. I put Parki in bed first and zipped her all up before returning for Pipsi. Pippers was a little fussier and wriggled around in my arms when I picked her up, twisting around until her tummy was over my arm, when suddenly she burped-slash-barfed, splashing milk and turkey sandwich on the floor.

And that's when I realized how lucky I was. Yeah, my mom's carotid artery was full to the point of imminent stroke. Yes, I'd just spent a crappy, rainy morning running errands with two cranky toddlers. Yep, I'd just spent waaaay too much in late penalties at the DMV and my house was in utterly disgusting disarray with Craps everywhere. But Pipsi barfed in the one spot in all the kitchen that was the easiest to clean and not a bit of it hit any clothing on either one of us. Off Pipsi went for Happy Nappy. I returned to the kitchen, cleaned up the barf and thought to myself that things weren't great, but all things considered, they could be much worse.

I could have to work at the DMV.