Here are some of the things that happened today that might strain your ability to suspend disbelief.

After being home with two other sick kids all day, one needs to go with her mom to the urgent care. While she is gone, her well sibling stays with me during the dinner and bedtime hours.

Among other interesting moments, I have a giant spider coming down from the curtains while I stand at the sink filling up a cup of water for my son so that he will take his medication so that he will stop being grumpy and lashing out at our visitor, the not sick child. As I look for a cup to catch it in, our visitor comes running in to tell me that 911 is on the phone.

“What do you mean? My phone is right here.”

“They’re on my phone,” the kindergartner replies. Of course, the second week into it and I’ve already forgotten I live in the year 2020.

So he runs to get his phone while the spider takes advantage of the moment to make a safe landing on the floor. Before I can gently scoop it up, it scurries under the stove. As it does so, I crouch onto the floor and call into the dark crevice. I ask it to remember me and kill all the stink bugs as a thank you.

I question my use of the word “kill” as a phone lands next to my face. We are live.

I assure 911 that the call was a mis-dial and that it won’t happen again. I follow her instructions to “educate the little one on how to not dial 911,” but I can’t figure out how he did it and ask him to instead educate me.

I continue to stay here while the remaining two adults leave for church youth activities, and I work with four kids ages 8 and under. Three of them take a bath together. In order to preserve privacy, the kindergartners wear their swimsuits.

The arrangement goes pretty well, except that the toddler refuses to get out at the appointed time. I take him to his room and attempt to diaper and dress him. No go, so I leave him for a moment to go help the older two out. Of course he cries so hard that he works himself up into a coughing fit.

In the midst of this cacophony, he comes running to me with his diaper as he has had a change of heart. But before I can strap that white flag of surrender on him, he coughs so hard that he throws up all over his clean little body.

In his horror at seeing this sudden expulsion of pizza-flavored mucus,  he grabs at the slimy chunks on his legs and begins to throw them down the hall so that tendrils of vomit go flying as the two cleanly dressed kids come running back to find out what all the fuss is about. I manage to scare them away long enough to re-bathe the toddler and clean up the carpet.

That’s when one of the older kids comes running into the bathroom and says it’s time to go poop. I go back to my bedroom and think it smells like maybe somebody already did go poop. I pick up their swim bottoms, face down on my carpet, and find that my nose still knows.

The beauty and wonder of this evening is that I handled it fine. I could breathe. I came up with clever ideas to persuade children to do things they did not want to do. I let go of the things that didn’t matter. 

And as I’m congratulating myself, with the knowledge that today is day 11 in my cycle, I wonder if that pinchy feeling in my lower left pelvic region is my springboard into the luteal phase. I wonder how I would have done with the exact same circumstances if they were to happen 4 to 12 days from now. Murder, mayhem, perhaps?

Oh, and I actually got annoyed that the school was promoting fruits and vegetables for this “Heart Healthy Challenge” because I haven’t gone shopping and all we have is junk to eat.

Quote of the day, “What kind of a school makes kids hate the last food on earth that they will eat?!”

My daughter goes back to singing her favorite song, and now I can just relax because she just chanted, “I will plan to be a bum.” The pressure is off.