Has anyone else realized how terribly this website exposes the lie of my assertions that I’m not sporting nice shoes and a manicure? Look! Picures of my shoes! And my hair! Twice, even! I would show you my unmanicured fingernails but I have some horrible dry skin thing going on that no one needs to see. Or hear about! Sorry.

Clearly, my life is just one big spa day. Here are yesterday’s highlights:

Charlie and I went to SuperTarget because we were out of all the essentials like milk and frozen spring rolls and zit cream and we ran into my sister-in-law’s friend M (who I only ever see at SuperTarget and the country club, which also confirms that my life is one of neverending glamour). I told her that my sister-in-law is expecting baby #4 and we chatted about M’s three girls, and it was on the TIP OF MY TONGUE to ask if she and her husband were thinking of another baby. But then Charlie said he had to go potty, so I said goodbye and went on my way.

And then, in the bathroom, I remembered that M and her husband are getting a divorce. Whoo, glad I didn’t ask about another baby! Of course, that got me fretting about not having said how sorry I was to hear they were divorcing, which reminded me that I only knew about the divorce through the grapevine and not firsthand so it was probably a good thing I didn’t say anything and . . .

And then Charlie said proudly, ‘I pooped! In the potty! Wipe my bottom.’

After SuperTarget (where I bought NOTHING that wasn’t on my carefully preplanned list) Charlie and I headed home. The garage door on my side is all whacked out from the cold weather and has to be opened and closed manually, which is a bitch in the snow and requires locking the door from the garage into the house because the door can’t be closed the entire way from the outside. I slogged through the melting piles of ice in my driveway while Charlie yelled, ‘It’s COLD! Hurry up!’ which was nice in an annoying kind of way and lugged all the groceries in while Charlie stood at the door yelling, ‘It’s COLD! Hurry up!’ which was still annoying but no longer nice and put them all away. Of course that was when I realized that I had forgotten to get apple juice, dates, hummous, and trash bags because even though we needed them, they WEREN’T ON THE LIST. Dammit.

Charlie wanted to watch Charlie and Lola, which gave me time to read my e-mail make the beds, so I turned the TV on for him and said, ‘When this is over, we will need to leave to get Henry.’ We pulled out of the garage with EXACTLY enough time to get to Henry’s school, and then I noticed that Wade had taken the trash out, as today is trash day, except instead of taking the TRASH to the curb, he had taken the RECYCLING, which the trash guys will NOT pick up. This isn’t the first time this has happened; usually we say, ‘Whew, good thing we have two trash cans!’ Today, though, BOTH trash cans were full. Overflowing. Barely containing the detrius of our life. And if we missed this week’s trash pick up, it was going to get ugly.

But! No time to switch the cans! Time to go get the boy!

I pulled up outside Henry’s school with three minutes to spare, and thought oh good, I can call and get a hair appointment (yes, I’m cutting it; don’t act so surprised) only to discover that the battery on my cell phone was dead. Thank god Henry’s teacher didn’t need to find me. Of course (OF COURSE!) when I went up to the door to get Henry, his teacher said, ‘Henry had a really hard morning. I almost called you to come get him.’ I almost said, ‘But you couldn’t, see, because MY CELL PHONE WASN’T WORKING.’ But I didn’t say that; I said, ‘Really, any time you think he’s struggling too much, just call me. I ALWAYS have my cell phone.’ Whew–that was close.

The boys argued all the way home about where they would eat lunch and what they would watch on TV (Higglytown Heros! No, the Heffalump Movie! No, Robots!) and I said, ‘We’re going to eat at the TABLE and NOT watch TV,’ over and over and OVER. At home, I sent the boys in the house, dragged the recycling back to the side of the house and dragged BOTH trash cans to the curb (they have wheels, but still). By the time I came in, I was covered in mud and snow and the boys were fighting. It was just like a Johnson&Johnson commercial. Really.

The rest of the day was filled with loving, cooperative play is a blur of flying blocks and timeouts, capped by repeated bedtime demands of ‘WHERE IS DADDY? WHY ISN’T DADDY HERE? I WANT DADDY TO READ TO ME!’ Daddy worked late, by which I mean that Daddy went out to dinner with the out-of-town consultants while I duct taped the boys into their beds and started drinking cooking sherry. And yes, I got some small joy out of the news that the tilapia at dinner was overcooked. My Cheerios, on the other hand, were delicious.

When I tucked Henry in (after some protracted debate about who Mommy would snuggle with first–both boys were yelling, ‘NO, I don’t want to be first! Go in his room first!’ which made me feel loved) he started to cry because he has decided he’s afraid of the dark and needs ALL the lights in his room on when he goes to bed. I am fairly sure this translates to ‘I want to stay up and play in my room after bedtime,’ and so I told him gently and kindly that while he could NOT have the lights on he COULD have a second nightlight. Which made him cry harder as this is a deviation from The Routine. Meanwhile, I can hear Charlie jumping on his bed and thunking into the walls. And then Wade came home. The end. (No, not really, there was more crying and insisting that Daddy’s closet is haunted and Mommy needs to come lay down with me and blah blah blah but you get the picture).

Yes, this is the life everyone is dying to have. Right? Riiiight.