my finger has a heartbeat.

you know how on that big episode of "this is us" and the house is on fire and they have to figure out how to get all the kids out of the house and they use bed sheets to slide off the roof and everyone is screaming and crying and it's a giant smoky inferno? that's kinda how i have felt all through january. 

i am the busiest i have ever been. 

this is a random day from a few weeks ago:

get up at 4:40am and attend my bootcamp gym. i show up and it's a partner workout, which i'm not thrilled about unless i actually really know the partner and their abilities. i didn't and bless my partner's heart she was not up to pulling her weight. so i ended up doing most of her part too and it was over 100 burpees along with a bunch of push ups and other stuff in 30 minutes. that is my least favorite kind of workout and it was truly terrible. 

i went home and scrambled to shower, feed the kids, get the girls on the bus at 7:17 and the boys to the dentist by 8:30. before we left, i was digging around in my makeup drawer, looking for my mini scissors and my finger was sliced open by a rogue unsheathed razor. i thought it was no big deal but then i ended up getting blood on everyone's clothing and my finger's heartbeat eclipsed my own heartbeat and driving was difficult because of the size of the paper towel ball i had entombing my finger in in order to try and stanch the blood. 

for my obituary:

we made it to my very patient and longsuffering dentist and reagan went back to his very best appointment ever and herschel played in the waiting room and this none too bright little girl kept calling herschel, "hey, little girl". i felt bad that her mom had such a dumb little girl. but neither reagan nor herschel had cavities so that's a win.

as we were leaving the dentist, i got a frantic series of voicemails from reagan's teacher wondering where he was as we had missed the bus to the special olympics bowling meet. i did my best "let's make this happen" mom driving and we flew over to the next town to the bowling alley in just the nick of time.

reagan was greeted by his classmates like norm on cheers. he's lucky to have such a great teacher and class.

if you ask reagan, the highlight of his day was eating pizza and riding the bus with his friends.

i allowed herschel to burn off some energy in the empty games room. 

he had a blast until he figured out how to jump the barrier to the prize counter and went straight for the open bins of candy with fists a-flying. i then had jump aforementioned barrier to retrieve him and knock all the candy out of his hands and run out of the bowling alley like a crazy person. hersch was screaming, as i also would do if someone was trying to pull me away from large bins of candy and i had no sense of propriety and manners. i had to force him out the door and into his car seat with all my diminished 100+ burpee strength. i slammed the door, cried, "children!" in an exasperated tone and then let out a giant belch, because i suffer so much from indigestion. immediately, a woman walked past my car and observed the whole aftermath. she high-fived me and laughed. 

it was time to drive back across town to the elementary schoolto pick up a new car line pass. i also had an order of groceries to get from walmart.

after said groceries were procured, we met up with another friend at the park and it was fine but it was also kinda not fine. her son is very aggressive toward hersch and i feel like i'm always stepping in and i wish she would say, "hey, stop being so aggressive toward hersch." however, she seems very proud that her son can do judo moves that his dad taught him on his playmates. i don't mind kids rough housing with each other, in fact i find it healthy and great, but i'm not keen on one kid being allowed to dominate because he's never told no by his parents. it's a precarious parental position to navigate but i am clearly an expert in all things parenting and social awareness. so i allowed that to last as long as i could handle because i do like them but we bowed out gracefully after an hour and a half.

then it was lunchtime and i was exhausted and starving and drained.

after lunch and no nap for herschel, we did as many home chores as possible and then it was time to get the big kids from school and after school activities and sat in traffic forever.

while the big kids did homework, herschel and athena blythe fought over our special family dessert plate and shattered it. and now our family will never be the same.

for dinner, i was experimenting with the instant pot, trying a new sweet and sour chicken recipe. i was slap happy at this point and my sliced open finger was still throbbing and i could not make sense of the directions but somehow i pulled a meal together and we ate at 7. i despise eating dinner so late, but i was counting on figuring out the instant pot a lot faster than i did. i was thinking it would be a little more jane jetson and less, "press saute, now stir until bubbly. then pressurize. then release pressure and hope you did it all correctly so you don't die of salmonella". i realize how spoiled i sound, but i can make sweet and sour sauce in my sleep and slap chicken in cornstarch and fry it up lickety split. however, i am determined to use the instant pot with ease. 

reagan saw me trying to document my instant pot maiden voyage and decided he also wanted to be in the picture. but just his hand.

we ate dinner and packed lunches and cleaned the kitchen and i gave the kids baths and i tried to read books but my capacity to read had left me so i made them read to me and then i put everyone to bed and collapsed. then thomas got home. 

mulitply that by every other day in january but add in various illnesses and doctor's appointments and drama classes and math tutoring and SEVERAL SNOW DAYS and lots of grocery store visits and herschel sceaming and running away from me at the library and that was january. but it was good. just ridiculously physically draining.