from time to time one must lower one's expectations

	How I Thought Today Was Going to Go	How it Went
7 am	Alarm goes off. Get Buster ready to go. Get Chicken ready to go. Dress self in jeans and a sweater - actual clothes! Yes! Winning!	Alarm goes off. Snooze. Snooze. Snooze.
8 am	Clean up Chicken’s breakfast. Load up into car. Go to school.	Get out of bed. Get Chicken ready to go. Get Buster ready to go. Thank God I slept in yoga pants last night.
8:20 am	Be in car on the way to school.	Give Chicken “breakfast” (microwaved cheese quesadilla cut into bite-sized squares) in a plastic cup to eat in the car on the way to school. Buckle children into car. Drive like hell.
9 am	Drop off at school.	Drop off at school (by some miracle are only 5 minutes late)
9:30 am	Run to grocery store to pick up supplies for Buster’s half-birthday party tonight. Buy a coffee.	Run to book store to buy new infant sleep book. Cashier looks at me and says, “having a hard time, hon?” Buy a coffee.
10 am	Put Buster down for a nap.	Am still driving home.
10:30 am	Exercise. Tidy up the house. Have a snack. “Me time”	Arrive at home. Put Buster down for a nap. Take a shower (have not done this since Sunday. Have gone to Spinning class in the interim. Head is starting to itch.) Start to read sleep book, skimming for charts, tables, and numbered instructions. Am, like an idiot, encouraged by book’s boldface promises to have your baby sleeping through the night in a week or less!
11:15 am	Go to Buster’s Gymboree class.	Buster wakes up from nap. Sigh. We’re never going to get to this fucking class.
12 pm	Buster’s class ends. Leave to pick up Chicken from school.	Leave to pick Chicken up from school. On the way, stop at grocery store to pick up supplies for half birthday party tonight.
1 pm	Collect Chicken. Load up into car. Head toward home.	Arrive at Chicken’s school. See another mom with a young baby, ask “how’s he sleeping?” I look into her eyes, and no words need to be spoken for us both to understand that the two of us are the co-captains of the “God… so… tired…” club. But words are spoken anyway. Exclaim loudly that I do NOT advocate cry it out! (That book you just bought is kind of ok with crying it out.)
1:20 pm	Be almost home.	Return to car, load up kids.
1:45 pm	Put Chicken down for nap. Put Buster down for nap.	Almost home. Call mom to complain about how tired I am. Chicken vomits all over himself, the car seat, his monkey backpack, his stuffed rabbit, the back of the passenger seat, the floor beneath him. Then he takes his hand, touches the vomit on his chest, and rubs it into his hair. Say, “OH SHIT!” and hang up on mom. Pull over in drugstore parking lot, cutting off a Sherriff cruiser. Fling open Chicken’s door and unbuckle his vomit-covered car seat strap, getting chunks stuck under finger nails. Sherriff  pulls away, wanting both deniability and an escape from the smell of strawberries and stomach acid. Set Chicken down in passenger seat for a moment so you can wipe the chunks out of the car seat. Thank God for that pack of wipes in the car. Change Chicken into emergency t-shirt. Clip him back into his hastily and not at all well-cleaned seat, as he says, “Mommy, you gotta clean dis. I threw up. You gotta clean it.”
2 pm	Prepare decorations for Buster’s half-birthday party while eating a late lunch, finishing iced coffee from earlier, and generally relaxing. Perhaps I’ll watch something silly on TV!	Arrive home. Put Buster down for nap in about 45 seconds: put him in crib, turn off light, leave, say to self, “if he cries, he cries, I’ve gotta clean vomit right now.” Clean vomit off of Chicken. Put Chicken down for nap. Go back out to car with antibacterial spray, paper towels, and toothbrush and attempt to get all the chunks and bile out of the car seat nooks and crannies. Mentally compose letter of resignation. To whom it may concern, fuck this shit I am an American and I have rights and have you no sense of decency, sir?
3:30 pm	Buster wakes up from nap. Chicken wakes up from nap, eats snack, gets ready to go to Gymboree to get his wiggles out.	Buster wakes up from nap, is supremely pissed. Bounce him while chanting “please shut up, please shut up,” in a very nice-sounding NPR voice. Eat a cookie. Don’t cry.

4:47 pm - Real time update - We have now added one diarrhea bed and one diarrhea bath tub to the score card. Sooooo at this point we're looking at Day: 14; Katie: 1 (that was a good cookie.)

7:50 pm - real time update - Chicken is in bed. The bath tub is bleached. The couch cushion has been disinfected. Oh, did I mention the couch leak? Nbd, it's a leather couch. The dishwasher is running extra hot, as is the washer with all the shitty sheets, towels, clothes and socks. Buster is having a nightcap. Me too. It's now 7:54 and I'm getting in bed. Come oooooon Thursday!