Is This What They Call "Stress"?

So, start off with a crappy night's sleep involving child waking several times through the night. Then, following that, the complete absence of a morning nap will help the ball roll a little further. Throw in a healthy upchuck of the house in order to look for your proper ID to take to the Notary, and you've got yourself the start of a good day.

Call the auto body shop to ask them if your car is finally done, and when you're told that it is, indeed done, run outside and madly vacuum out the cracker crumbs from the back seat while your kid sits in her high chair and screams at you from the porch. Don't forget the mouldy sippy cup from under the seat.

Then, you get your kid into the car, and cross your fingers that the three pieces of ID that you DID find are good enough to prove your existence on this earth, and also hope that you will, indeed find your birth certificate sometime in the following few months before it's time to apply for your passport to travel to the states next summer.

Arrive at the notary's office one whole minute late, feeling bad, but realize that really, it isn't that big of a deal. Strap your kid into a stroller so that she can't run crazy in the office, then carry her in her stroller up a steep staircase and into the office. Be amazed at how happy your child is, having been completely derived of sleep, but still stress out as she does her best Houdini impression and tries to break free from the stroller.

Attempt to keep child entertained as you sign five hundred pieces of paper TWICE, because you have power of attorney and need to sign for your husband too, and also deal with your house insurance company via phone in order to up your coverage enough that you can actually be approved for the second mortgage you're trying to get. And approve for the insurance company to take money for the extra coverage out of your account next month for the ENTIRE YEAR because, you know, your insurance comes due in a couple of months, and they can't just let you pay for the couple of months leading up to the renewal date, instead they make you back-pay for the entire past year.

All the while you're handling all this, you're wishing you had worn a different shirt, 'cause you know for sure that your pit stains are growing exponentially with every signature. Then, you leave the office, carry your kid in the stroller down the stairs, put everything into the car, and realize that your kid threw her bottle on the office floor, so you pick your kid up, carry her up the stairs sans stroller, and go in and ask the notary to check under her desk for the bottle while she has two new clients in the office.

Then, bottle in hand, kid in arm, leave the office again, and go down the steps, and run into an old high school crush. Recall how you were JUST TALKING about this particular guy to your husband, telling him how even though you never got with this guy, he was the one guy you crushed on from grade 4 until 12, even though you moved around a lot. Then, also recall how, while talking to your husband about him, that you figured that the guy probably had gotten fat, and was probably an ugly alcoholic, you know, because staying that hot would pretty much be improbable, and a crime.

Then, when he completely recognizes you, and you exchange quick hellos, realize that you were completely wrong, and not only is this guy still hot, but somehow he managed to get HOTTER.

Then, get your kid into the car, strap her in, strap yourself in, and catch a glimpse of not only pit stains spreading down the sides of your shirt, but notice the lines of sweat between where your breasts and pregnant tummy meet. Then, think about how hot you must have looked when you said hello to your old crush.

Then, take the car to the rental shop to return it, get out, get the kid out, wait in line in the office, hand over the keys, and not until after the clerk takes down the KMs, do you realize that you forgot to fill the gas tank. Then, you put your kid back into the car seat for the 100th time, drive up the road to the nearest gas station that has pay at the pump, so that you don't have to take your kid out of the car again, fill up the tank, and thank God that you only emptied the tank once while you had the car for two weeks, 'cause the $52 dollar gas bill is a bit of a stinger.

Then, take the car back to the rental shop, get driven to the auto body place, find out that you indeed have to pay the deductible for the damage to the car that certainly wasn't your fault. Hold back tears as you swipe your credit card, then get back into your old car, which although the front end looks good and new, seems to have endured a couple of new scratches while staying there. Decide to not mention it, 'cause really, what's the point? It would only mean taking the kid out of the car AGAIN, and you drive to the car dealership to make an appointment to get the broken horn fixed on the still warranteed car.

Then you go home.

You look in the mirror and notice that somehow when you put your bronzer on that morning, you managed to basically draw three perfect circles on your face. You look like a clown and you think back to how you ran into your HOT high school crush.

And you put the kid to bed for a nap.

And then you phone the car insurance place to find out why you had to pay the deductible on the car, only to find that there hasn't been a final decision made on the claim, and that there are two reasons why the claim is being held up. One reason is because the adjuster handling your case has flown across the country to bury her MIL, and the other reason is because your BIL didn't seem to think that it was important to call the adjuster back when she left a message at his house to talk about the accident he was in the car for.

Then, you attempt to nap. You have an hour and a half of blissful nap time. Then your child wakes up screaming, and continues to scream until you've placed her in her high chair, given her food and some milk, and set her in front of the TV.

Then you look at your house, which is a total disaster, and you think that it might be a good idea to try to tackle the mess.

But you've also glanced outside, and you notice it looks like it's going to rain. So, you go outside to bring in the area rug you had put out there to dry the other day after deep cleaning it. You huff and puff while you try to lift this thing back over the deck railing and at the same time try to not let it touch the actual deck, 'cause there's splotches of roofing tar here and there. You roll up the carpet as you pull it off the railing, flicking the odd earwig off as you go. Then, you carry the rug, which is much too heavy and awkward for you to carry alone on a good day, and which is certainly too heavy and awkward to be carrying while you're pregnant, and you plop it inside the front door, knowing that you'll still have to move it from that spot and into the room it came from. But not until after you clean said room. And then you think about the fence cap thing you knocked off the railing and you say "forget it."

Then you go to the kitchen and start to get the sink ready for dishes, when you find the pie plate you've had soaking in the sink for two days trying to get the burned blackberries to lift off the bottom. You attempt to scrape the burnt black stuff off, and contemplate throwing the whole thing in the garbage. You don't though. You just put it aside and continue on with the dishes. You don't finish though, 'cause it's time to bathe your kid.

Bed time goes relatively smoothly, except for the fact that you've lost the second bottle of the day. You have JUST filled the bottle with milk, and your hunt around the disaster of a house is turning up nothing.

But then you put your darlin' child to bed, she smiles at you as you say good night, and just for a second, everything is right again.

Until you step back into the rest of the house and look around.

Then, instead of actively working to make said disaster go away, you decide to sit on your ass and talk about your horrible day, only to almost forget to talk about the spiders.

The MOTHER FUC#!NG SPIDERS. They're EVERYWHERE. Last week there was the huge one that my cat had cornered and I trapped under a jar to wait there until the morning when Armondo could be a man and kill it for me.

There were those spiders in the bed.

There was that dead spider that had drowned in the bathtub the night before last. That one was as big as my hand!

And then there's the spider last night. I had just gotten back into bed, I was watching TV, and I was just about to bite into my PB+J sandwich, when this scary looking, but only medium sized spider came shooting down from the ceiling with what looked like every intention of landing on my plate.

I jumped up, and so did he, and as he tried to ascend as quickly as he had descended, I grabbed a hand full of tissue and attempted to grab and squish him, mid air. At which point, he JUMPED from his silky string and flew onto my bed! I caught him though, and squished him and had the heeby jeebies for the rest of the sleep-less night.

And that, my dears, is how to have a stressful day. And to that I say "Aren't husbands supposed to be around to deal with car s#it and spiders? I mean, isn't that what they're FOR?!?"