My Day Exploded Around Me and a Ton of People Witnessed It

I woke up yesterday, knowing it was going to be a busy day. I had a lot going on and I knew I needed to be on top of things if it wasn't going to fall completely to pieces around me.

It started when toothsome #4 woke up. It was her birthday and our family tradition is to all immediately go downstairs, sing Happy Birthday and open presents. It makes for a busy morning because Dentist husband still has to leave for work and I have to still get the other kids off to school, but we all love doing it. So, after she opened her presents, (she wanted "pink and purple things"), we immediately went into, "Eat, get dressed, grab your backpack, lets go to the bus stop " mode. So, I didn't get all of the wrapping paper or the boxes from present opening picked up.

When I got home from getting my kids off to school, I immediately headed upstairs to fold the pile of laundry from our California trip. I left toothsomes 3 and 4 downstairs playing while I did this. I kept on getting distracted by phone calls, seeing other things that needed to be done when I went to put clothes away in my kids rooms, etc. So, by the time I got downstairs, I discovered a MESS of amazing proportions downstairs caused by toothsomes 3 and 4. I started to have that panicky feeling but looked at the clock and realized I need to feed toothsome #3 and get him off to Kindergarten. Once I got him off, I had some errands to do and got home later than planned.

I had just walked in the door, when a good friend stopped by to drop off a book she had borrowed. I invited her in, explaining that my house was a mess. As we are walking toward my Great Room, I start really noticing how bad it is. The whole time I was talking to her, I'm thinking in the back of my mind, "Oh dear, this is way worse than I realized." I tried to just act like, "Oh, this is fine" but truth be known, I was thinking, "How did it get this bad in one morning? This is awful."

Anyway, she left and I started to quickly pick things up but made little progress. About a 1/2 hour later my kids came home from school and had another Kindergartner girl with them. If her Mom doesn't make it to the bus stop on time, then she walks home with my kids and her mom gets her from my house. So, they walk in and then the door bell rings. It is this little girl's mom and within minutes after that, eight Cub Scouts and my den leader partner come parading into my house for den meeting. Five minutes later, a lady from church showed up to talk to toothsome #2 about her baptism coming up. At this point, I have 11 people in my house that don't live there, plus me and my four kids. About 1/2 way through the meeting two other Mom's show up to see how den meeting is going, so the number goes up to 13.

With about 10 minutes left in den meeting, my doorbell rings again and is the man who installed my tile back splash, who is coming to seal my grout. Within, five minutes after that, a friend shows up with a birthday gift for toothsome #4.

And, my house is messier than I have seen in months! The whole time, I am smiling, and talking and acting like this is normal in my house but secretly thinking, "I really hope these people don't go home and say, 'Man, Janice really has an a messy house. How do they live like that?'"

The evening doesn't go any smoother, Dentist husband comes home, I took my kids to piano, I grabbed Mexican take out for dinner and collapsed into bed at 10:30 pm. I have a ton of cleaning to do. So, to Alissa, Ruth, Tennille, Kristy, Sandy, Michelle, Kristen, 8 Cub Scouts, Greg my tile man, I apologize for the chaos in my house yesterday. Feel free to stop by today around 5:00 pm and things should be clean again. But, then again, I just remembered, I won't be home because I will picking my daughter from activity days and taking two kids to golf lessons.