The Ugly Truth

I am generally a laid back, easy going person. When things go wrong, I roll with the punches and keep a positive outlook. Except for days like today. Some days my blood pressure does go through the roof. Keep in mind I am new to this "stay at home" mom thing. I am also learning that you should never expect your second child to be just like your first. So... sit back, relax and listen to all the things that happened to me before noon today. If you are a stay at home mom, I KNOW you have had days like this. If not, you are either lying or perfect.

Part I:

I woke up to some real estate drama with an important client (remember I work from home). I dealt with all of it as quickly as possible because I had promised to take the girls to storytime at 11:00 (a weekly ritual). I had just enough time to jump in the shower to very quickly wash my hair that was too grody to be seen in public. I realized we had about ten minutes until we absolutely had to be on our way to the bookstore. After searching through piles of both clean and dirty laundry (yes, piles), I could not find any clean underwear and decided to just skip it all together. (In the interest of time). I also knew that I did not have time to brush my teeth, so I popped in a stick of gum. By this time, I was completely frazzled....I had managed to stress out family members and real estate clients and I barely looked presentable for public. (I hate going out looking like a hot mess). In the car, Piper handed me a Chicken McNugget. I have no idea where it came from because my backseat looks like a landfill (with all of the girls' toys that they just had to take in the car on various trips). That McNugget felt like it had been petrified. We arrived at the bookstore as the story lady was reading the last book.

Part II:

This is where the story really goes downhill. Does this look like the face of an angel?

Hmmmmm, I thought so. Looks can be deceiving. Remember the nursery rhyme..."there was a little girl with a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid." I think that nursery rhyme was written for my Piper.

Piper is making it her absolute goal in life to have us banned from every public place possible. Earlier this week, she accomplished this goal after running around and screaming at the top of her lungs through the fabric aisles at JoAnns. Quiet little sewing ladies don't usually appreciate this level of noise. But, I digress. Back to today. Avery was sitting and calmly listening to the story while Piper was running at full speed away while pulling piles of books off the shelves. She loves to leave a path of destruction wherever she goes. So here I am running around like an idiot after my toddler while everyone else's kids sit nicely. I bring Piper back to the story area and she immediately pushes a baby down with all her might. After dealing with that, she then proceeds to hug the baby as tightly as possible while saying over and over, "Hi. Hi. Hi." Luckily, the mom was another story time regular and didn't mind. Fast forward to the craft. Piper goes to the tub of crayons that the story lady put out and takes two handfuls and tosses them on the stage where they read. Then walks over the crayons, as they roll, which leads to her falling. After picking up her mess, I chase her around some more while Avery makes a lovely craft. For those of you who don't know, Avery was the type of toddler who loved sitting with a pile of books and behaving herself in most situations. She would never run around like a wild banshee. But then there's Piper. Piper Grace to be exact. Her middle name is becoming quite ironic. I think it should be Piper Destructo. Part of our storytime ritual is going to the cafe and ordering milk and a treat. Well OF COURSE my debit card was declined....the guy said that the credit card machine hadn't been working all day. I had to write a check. No problem, except remember I have Piper Destructo with me. She ran over to the tea display and threw, YES THREW, about eight tins of tea before I could get to her while writing my check. I reshelved the tea. While I was reshelving, she ran off again and started pushing a chair across the cafe. OMG I can't take it anymore! We leave. Piper drops her milk in the parking lot. Then she laid on the pavement and wailed. I rescued the milk. Ten minutes later, she dumped the entire milk in her carseat.

Need I go on? On the way home, here was the conversation in our car:

Avery: "Mom, next Halloween, I think you should be a shoe."

Me: "A shoe?! Shoes get walked on all day." (story of my life)

Avery: "Well you can't be a princess."

Me: "Why not?"

Avery: "Because you cut your hair to look like Mover Scott."

Do you readers know who "Mover Scott" is? He is one of the spastic Imagination Movers on Disney. Great. I now look like Mover Scott.

Boy, I love days like this. Piper is 20 months old. What will the "terrible twos" look like? I am terrified.