Craft Fail

It was all my fault, really.

It started last night.  A good friend is leaving the university to move to Seattle, and we went to his going away party.  We stayed too late, and the kids didn't get to bed until after 10 pm.

Then I made plans with Karen and her kids to go do a craft at a store in town that sells teacher stuff.  It was free, which is exactly the right price.  After the craft, we were going to go to the bookstore to do some other free thing with musical instruments - I don't even remember what it was now, but it doesn't matter.  We didn't make it.  You see, when I was making all these plans I didn't account for the fact that the kids didn't get enough sleep.

First we went out for lunch, and the kids did fine, but the stimulating environment of the teacher supply store, plus the noise of the 18 other people (mostly kids) in the tiny room, plus the teacher giving instructions (for 5 different projects in an hour) and sales pitches for various products (I understand, that's how they justify the "free" crafts - it's an advertisement), plus the music playing (too loudly), plus the fact that Claire wanted to eat the cereal for the "bird feeder" thing (and I had told her no eleventy thousand times), plus the fact that Jack is teething (it must be teeth, because he was inconsolable until about 15 minutes after I gave him the Tylenol once we got home)...  Well, let's just say that we had a level 5 meltdown all over that store.

I decided to bolt, and offered to take Karen's middle son with me, but she kept him and offered to bring MG home when it was over.  I ran out to get MG's booster, and when I came back the teacher just had to give me the take home craft (a seed in a ziplock bag with a paper towel that you moisten and hang in a window to watch it grow - which is probably really cool, but not when you've got two kids who are losing all their tiny marbles) and tell me all about how her three kids were close in age and the youngest had colic and special needs and was on oxygen and I was like, "Seriously, we're having this conversation now?  Can't you see that I'm trying to beat a hasty retreat, here?"  But I stood there and waited for her to put the seed thing together, and then bravely ran away with my two screaming kids.  In hindsight, I'm sure she was trying to reassure me that we've all been there, but I just didn't want to hear it at that moment.

The drive home took days.

Like I said, I gave Jack some Tylenol, and in 15 minutes he was asleep.  Poor little muffin.  Claire refused to take a nap, but right now she's driving Mary Grace nuts instead of me, so I'm just going to sit here and pretend I'm on a beach in the Caribbean, and pray to God that BJ gets home before they have to put me in a straight jacket and take me to the Ha Ha Hotel.

The irony is that this morning I thought I had it all together.  I got up, made pancakes, showered, got everyone dressed...  I let BJ sleep in because I'm an awesome wife.  Everything was going perfectly until about 1 pm.  And then, like an episode of VH1 Behind the Music, it all went horribly wrong.

I want a do-over.