mower belt and funeral home.

Today has been a head-splitting day. About 8,000 mgs of ibuprofen later, and still no relief. I just washed down another couple thousand with a glass of pinot noir, so we'll see how that goes. You may think that being a sahm (stay at home mom) is a blissfully leisure existence which encompasses mornings filled by lounging around in pjs and paddy-cake over coffee, followed by a lazy stroll through perfectly manicured botanical gardens filled with gnomes and magic fairies. Some days end up being postcard perfect in that sense(minus the gnomes and fairies). Most do not. Most begin with that 6am cry which means it is time to hop to it, whether you want to or not, and dressing in a manner that you never would have considered, in that life before baby. This morning was no exception. Our first errand brought us to a creepy small engine repair shop to retrieve a belt for our riding mower. There were about three play pens scattered around amidst the puddles of motor oil, and it was somewhat like one of the orphanage scenes from Annie. Except a lot... greasier. I kept waiting for the kids in the playpens to jump up and begin a rousing chorus of "it's a hard knock life." It may have been some strange orphanage, actually. "repair your mower. get a child. any child." A little girl, I swear, grabbed Henry's face and tried to remove it with her bare hands. The old woman behind the counter, seeing my expression- shocked and horrified, told me to not worry about the girl. She said "she's rotten. a mean, evil child." Sure, no worries. Yikes. I hightailed it out of there, whipping our new mower belt around us for protection. The rest of the day included various other errands, including completing a flower arrangement for a client and getting blocked in to a parking space at a funeral home for 3 1/2 hours. I considered ramming the truck blocking me in, but decided against it, because I just hate getting involved with insurance companies. Once we finally got out of there, Henry wailed the whole way home. He was hot, tired, and sick of being stuck in his car seat. So GO FIGURE- once home, fed, cleaned, and changed, he meandered off with his strange fiddler crab, peg-legged crawl. It was silent for a few moments, so I followed his path. He was in his room, playing with his CAR SEAT!!!!! The kid was trying to get back in his chair. Go figure. Guess he doesn't hate it as much as I thought. All of that screaming and crying was.. for FUN!.. Eeeesh, time to go to bed to begin again... as much as I complain (please forgive me) I love him so, so much, so I guess I love this job. He looks kind of tough in that last photo, like: "touch my octopus and I'll give you a shiner". Maybe that little greasy orphan taught him a thing or two about a thing or two.