Any Given Mom Day

4:00 p.m. Kids get off school bus.

4:05 p.m. Using drill sergeant tempo, get kids to unpack their backpacks, use the bathroom, eat a snack, put on soccer uniform, grab violin/music and get into minivan, while checking homework, packing diaper bag, then frantically changing baby out of puke smelling shirt into unbelievably annoying outfit with too many snaps before wrestling with infant car seat and hustling out the door.

4:25 p.m. Begin 35 minute drive in bumper-to-bumper traffic for 30 minute music lesson.

5:00 p.m. Breastfeed baby while checking cell phone messages and writing checks to pay music teachers.

5:30 p.m. Hand violin teacher hefty check and explain that it’s for four sessions instead of five sessions because daughter’s class trip conflicts with one lesson.

5:35 p.m. Have contentious discussion with violin teacher after she begrudgingly smirks and says she’ll let it go THIS time, but next time I’ll have to pay for the lesson or find a way to make it up.

5:55 p.m. Rush out of crowded music studio averting the eyes of avid eavesdroppers.

6:00 p.m. Call husband on cell phone to explain that I’m running late, but that I’ll grab bagels for dinner and meet him at the soccer game. Ask him to bring more diapers, more wipes, coats, water bottle, hat for baby, and chair for me.

6:05 p.m. Park car in closest spot to bagel place so I can see my kids as I lock them in the car and rush in to buy “dinner.” (No hotline calls please!)

6:08 p.m. Leave dazed teenage boy at the counter before he is finished with our bagels and run back to minivan because I remember there are only port-a-potties at the game. Must use potty here!

6:09 pm. Find Sweet Angel and Feisty Girl attempting to change the baby’s diaper in the back seat of minivan.

6:10 p.m. Thank cute daughters for their efforts, but implore them to hand baby to me so I can adjust the diaper hanging open on one side, knowing it was my last diaper.

6:11 p.m. Finish changing baby’s diaper on front seat of minivan while two other daughters run into bagel place to use the bathroom. (Again, no hotline calls please!)

6:12 p.m. Run back into bagel place, where when I left I was the only customer, to line of people waiting to pay and the cashier looking perplexed holding a bag of bagels and asking “Who’s are these?”

6:13 p.m. Claim the forsaken bagels, juggle baby on hip and rifle through wallet to pay, pausing only briefly to ponder the total of $2.39. Think: Dazed teenage boy must not have written on bag that bagels had cream cheese on them. Long line of people staring. Two unaccompanied children in bathroom. Soccer game starting in 17 minutes. 15 minute drive away. Coach (a.k.a. Wonderful Husband) expects his players 15 minutes early, especially his own child! I pay the $2.39 knowing I’m ripping off the large bagel chain, rationalizing that they can afford to spare a little cream cheese while I can’t afford to spare another second. Okay! I shoplifted cream cheese. (No hotline calls please!)

6:14 p.m. Knock on bagel bathroom door, pass baby to Sweet Angel on her way out, use the facility with the oh-so-appreciated indoor plumbing, and rush out with three kids, loose wallet and bag of cheap bagels.

6:15 p.m. Pull out of parking lot, baby begins to cry knowing her dinner source is not coming out of the paper bag in the backseat, just as Feisty Girl sees that the dazed teenage boy gave her the wrong bagel. She wanted poppyseed and she got an everything bagel by mistake. Feisty Girl begins to wail. “I don’t like this kind!!!!!! I’m hungry!!!!!”

6:16 p.m. Wonderful Husband calls in the midst of stereo screaming. “Where are you?” I respond “I’m in hell.”

6:17 p.m. Try to appease Feisty Girl by offering her my bagel. “I don’t like plain bagels!!!” Yes, I ordered plain. Too distracted to make a decision. Think: How can she not like a plain bagel? Then have Uh. Oh. Moment: Realize I didn’t tell dazed teenage boy poppyseed, I ran out as he was asking what kind I wanted. Everything? Oops.

6:18 p.m. Baby still crying. Feisty Girl still crying. Rush hour traffic. 12 minutes to soccer game. Resort to tactic I don’t use very often. I raise my voice. (I use this tactic judiciously because I feel too guilty after I’ve yelled, but the nice side effect of not yelling often is that they really listen when I do!) HAVE YOU EVER TRIED AN EVERYTHING BAGEL? YOU MIGHT LIKE IT!”

6:19 p.m. Feisty Girl quiets and reaches into the bagel bag.

6:20 p.m. Feisty Girl is eating her bagel when Sweet Angel asks her “What’s your favorite kind of bagel?” Feisty Girl responds, “Poppyseed.” Sweet Angel then asks, “What’s your second favorite?” “Everything.”

6:25 p.m. Arrive at soccer field.
Kids dash out of the car and run toward the field. I groan when I remember the stroller is at home and begin to lug the infant car seat, diaper bag, and blanket the ¾ of a mile walk to the field.

6:28 p.m. Wonderful Husband sees me lumbering across the field carrying my weight in baby, car seat, diaper bag and blanket and relieves me of the last several yards.

6:30 p.m. Plunk down in chair and look around for the coats, water bottle, diapers, wipes, and hat that hubby was supposed to bring. Ask hubby. He says he left it all in the car. Groan aloud.

6:32 p.m. Ask a woman I recognize from my daughter’s Girl Scout troop if she’ll watch my baby while I walk to our other minivan to get the coats, water bottle, diapers, wipes and hat. As a mother of three herself, she gives me a sympathetic smile and says yes.

6:33 p.m. I walk the ¾ of a mile back to the parking lot wondering what the woman’s name is who is watching my baby. (No hotline calls please.)

6:35 p.m. Begin to watch soccer game, breastfeed baby, time the soccer rotations, and kick the soccer ball with Feisty Girl, simultaneously.