Oy, What a Day!

Today is Good Friday. Well, not anymore, it isn't...It is now almost 2:30 a.m. and I am finally getting an opportunity to sit down and relax a bit.

Today started out as a great day. I got to sleep in some. I had breakfast with my kiddos.

Sidebar: A car with a VERY loud bass just drove by my house. Wouldn't really be a problem except for, well go back and re-read my opener.

As I was saying today started off well. Until (OMG! another loud-bassed car just drove by!) we discovered that we couldn't find the Easter egg shaped cookie cutter. You know--the one we borrowed from my mom last weekend so that we could actually have egg-shaped cookies instead of the sort-of-oval/sort-of-circular-shaped cookies we usually get as a result of using a bisquit cutter since I can never find an actual egg-shaped cookie cutter in the frickin' store. (Loud bass #3 just passed!) So Caleb and I went on a little pre-Easter egg hunt, if you will. We searched high and low--but mostly low, as the the perpetrator who made the cutter go MIA is approximately 3 feet tall. We checked every toy basket, play purse and doll house, all to no avail.

So, I sucked it up and went to the store. You see, earlier this week I made sure I had all the famous "Westrich Easter Egg Cookie" ingredients on hand so that I could avoid a trip to the store today. That Murphey's Law will get you every time, won't it?

I had a couple other items to pick up anyway, so no biggie right? WRONG!

Before we could make it out the door, we realized that Riley has been particularly cranky as of late. Could it be an ear infection? (Please, Lord let it be an ear infection. Please let it be something that a doctor can give us a prescription to clear up and make our daughter act like a normal human being again!) So I called the doctor's office. I really didn't want to take the time out of a busy day to go up to South County, but I also did not want all of my extended family to have to suffer through Easter with my child acting this way. And I also preferred to pay the $20 copay to be told "She's fine" rather than the $75 emergency room copay to be told the same thing tomorrow or Sunday.

So I load up the kids. There's just enough time to get to the store to pick up the few things we need and then get to the doctor's office on time.

While we waited, I got schooled by my 4 year old. He kept moving this little chair in front of the door that leads to the exam rooms. I kept telling him to move it so he didn't get hit when they opened the door. Here's a little transcipt for your reading enjoyment:

Mommy: Connor, please move your chair out of the way. (for the 3rd time)

Connor: Mom, what's that door say?

Mommy: It says "Keep chairs out of the way." (It actually says "Authorized Personnel Only", in case you were dying to know.)

Connor: (without missing a single beat) It doesn't say that, Mommy.

The 2 other moms in the waiting room: (laughing uncontrollably)

Mommy: It was worth a try...

So, we finally get called back to the doctor, which apparently is the signal for my children to initiate meltdown phase. If one wasn't crying, the other one was complaining. It really was a lovely doctor's visit. My favorite part was when my son hit my daughter and had to be put in time out. Or maybe it was when he louldy announced that "the doctor is taking too long" before she came into the exam room.

Oh, and P.S.--Riley doesn't have an ear infection or strep throat. Turns out, she's just having a bad week.

So, we leave the doctor's office and then we stop for lunch. At this point, I feel a migraine coming on, so I take some of my "knock the migraine on its rear-end" medicine, which took a very loooong time to kick in. We ate in the car on the way home because I didn't want to get the kids in and out of the car again (did I mention that it's cold and rainy?).

By the time we got home, I had a massive migraine, my neck was stiff and I was feeling sick to my stomache. All three main symptoms of meningitis (trust me, I got on web m.d. and did some research). I decided that I would take a nap and hope it all went away. I made sure to hug and kiss both kids before they went down for their naps (some cases of meningitis only take a few hours to be fatal, and yes, I am a hypochondriac).

Long story short, I awoke from my nap feeling much better. I apparently did not have meningitis.

Once I woke up, it was time to finally make the Easter egg cookies. Although, they ended up being more than just egg-shaped. I had to buy an 18-piece cookie cutter set in order to get one egg-shaped cookie cutter. So we have eggs, bunnies, ducks, tulips, etc. I made the cookies with a great deal of "help" from my little people. Once I ran them out of my kitchen, I finished up the cookies. Two times though Madagascar 2, all 47-dozen are finished baking (and I only almost burned one sheet!). So I set about cleaning up after the mess. I was just getting started with the dishes when my husband found the original cookie cutter in the only place we hadn't looked--under the kids' table in the corner. Oh well, now I have my very own Easter egg cookie cutter (and 17 other ones to boot).

During all of this, Caleb's been helping me out with the laundry so that we can get packed and come home to a clean house Sunday evening. After dinner, I was busy in our room putting clothes away and setting aside the stuff I wanted to pack. I had both kids' Easter outfits hanging on a drawer knob on the dresser. Right under the spot where Caleb had left his coffee mug. That still had some coffee left in it. Yep. An additional load of laundry that consisted of exactly 2 things: Riley's Easter dress and Connor's Easter shirt. I was so happy!

So now it's almost 3 a.m. The laundry is now all caught up. I even got quite a bit of ironing in while waiting for the Easter clothes to finish. Everything is packed except our toiletries that we'll be needing in the morning. I can tell that it's going to be a blessed Easter. Probably the best one yet. Maybe, just maybe, for the 3rd year in a row we will need to wear our winter coats to go egg hunting. Maybe I'll even forget to bring coats in our haste to get out of the house tomorrow (today).

Yes, it will truly be a blessed Easter. But we will have our cookies!