This one is called: My Life is a Comedy of Errors. By, Me.

I know it's not a very Christian thing of me to say, but I dislike Sunday mornings.  My husband works early on Sunday mornings, so he's gone by 6am.  On Sunday mornings, I usually have about 60-90 minutes to get myself and both of our children fed, cleaned, and dressed, and into the car.  Which doesn't sound like a lot, but there's something unspoken about Sunday mornings that make it extra terrible.  The children, it would seem, can smell my fear.

This morning was an extra special Sunday morning to boot.  Not only did we have time change to contend with, but we were supposed to take a family picture for the church directory.  Which is terrifying, because not only do I have to get the kids fed and cleaned and dressed, but we're all supposed to look nice.  They only do these books every 5 or so years, and husband and I were not in the last one, so there was no choice.  We had to do it, and we had to look incredible.

So then it's time to get up.  8am, I decide we should leave between 9 and 9:30, and so we've got plenty of time.   We got enough sleep last night, we laid out the kids clothes and my clothes.  No hitches.  I had the morning mapped out to the minute, and we were absolutely golden.

So then it's time to get up.  Madelyn asks for toasts and some orange juice (her absolute favorite breakfast, the thing she eats 95% of mornings, and let me assure you this kid LOOOVES to eat), I got it ready and made some coffee, got myself dressed and came back to feed the boy.  But when I came back I learned that my daughter did not WANT to eat her toast.  She wanted to watch cartoons, and GIVE ME MORE JUICE NOW, MOMMY!!

Eventually (20 minutes later?) I got her to eat something (I don't need her cranky and hungry this morning), and tried to get her dressed.  First, she falls into a full-blown meltdown because I tried to put her in some bloomers and she did not WANT to wear the pretty panties, Mommy, she wanted the regular ones.  When I finally wrangle her into her dress, I find that the dress is ripped. Wonderful.  So now I get to choose whether I can quick-sew it, or I need to wrangle her back out and find something else that'll work for the picture.  At this point, mind you, it's after 9, I'm not yet wearing makeup, my hair is still half witch-frizzy, the boy is crying because I have stopped feeding him to attend to his sister and he'd like more oatmeal and attention, and neither child is dressed.

I decided to go for new clothes.  It seems the safest.  But dress clothes for girls are complicated because every choice has some consequence regarding shoes and accessories and WHAT THE HECK, WHY CAN I NOT FIND A SINGLE FREAKING PAIR OF HER CHURCH SOCKS?!?!  Instead I found some tights.  They're mangey looking, but they don't have any holes and the color isn't offensive so we go with it.  I put something on my daughter, a skirt, plain white top (because the white top with the black frilly stuff  has a bunch of stains and had to be ripped back off), and a crocheted shawl thingy.  Which she hates, apparently, and ripped at it like the Incredible Hulk screaming I DON'T WANT TO WEAR DIS MOMMY I DON'T WANT IT I DON'T!!  Now I don't like to give in to tantrums but it's 9:20 by now, and I'm desperate.  So I find her something to wear that is, apparently, less offensive to her 3 year old fashion sensibilities, and we're off.  My daughter runs out to the living room ahead of me. Uh oh, Mommy, Kaden made a mess.

::Sigh::  I was not amused, but neither was I surprised.  He'd been screaming non-stop most of the morning as he didn't have my full and undivided attention, and the last couple of minutes he'd gotten, well, quiet.  I come into the living room to find that little man has used his brand new crawling skills to get over to the ottoman where I had placed my morning coffee and has knocked it onto the carpet.  But not JUST onto the carpet, onto his sister's nice, white church shoes.  Which was, of course, fair pay back for the fact that I was not giving him 100% of my attention that morning.

So now I've got 1 and 1/2 kids still un-dressed, and I'm cleaning the carpet and rinsing and drying a church shoe, and both kids are screaming and I look like the freaking plot of a Lifetime movie.  And it's 9:30.  And my husband calls.  Hey babe just wondering if you were heNOW IS NOT A GOOD A TIME FOR ME THANKS. Oh... okay.

I got them dressed.  I hid in my bathroom for about 90 seconds so I could "get ready".  I put some spray gunk on the carpet and left some paper towels on it and hoped that I didn't poisoned the cat.  I cried a little.  The children screamed at me.  But of course, when my daughter noticed I was a little, shall we say, stressed, she sought to console me. Oh Mommy, I'm just so sorry that Kaden is being so naughty.  She screwed up her little blue eyes in concern, sighed, and shook her head, because it's just such a shame that her brother is such a bad little boy.

We made it to church.  We took the picture.  I can't even imagine how terrifying and/or ridiculous we looked in it, but we took. the dang. picture.  And later, when my daughter climbed over the pew so that she could sit with another family, and then started digging through a stranger's purse looking for candy, well, I was pretty easy going about the whole thing.  Because we'd all survived the morning.  We'd made it to church.  Everyone was dressed and fed.  And we took the dang picture.