Fasten your seat belts........

I'm blessed.  I know that.  Beautiful, healthy family. Roof over my head.  I'm employed.  I'm blessed.  I get that. 

Now that I've said that, I'm gonna go on a little rant. 

Who the hell died and made me responsible for the whole damn universe, at least as it pertains to my little corner?  I can barely walk upright half the time! Given that handicap, how is it that I am the only one who knows that the youngest child needs to take a shower after she comes home from a 2 hour soccer practice?  How is it that I am the only one who is capable of picking crap up off the floor/couch/counter/vanity/car seat?? More importantly, why is it that I am the only one who can SEE the layer of crumbs and other detritus that has accumulated on the counter/floor/vanity/car seat??

What set this off, you might ask?  Nothing unusual.  Same pressures that a gazillion other women face.  Trying to work a full time job and be a mom. (Seriously, now is NOT the time for comment about how we wanted equality and the vote. Not if you want to live.)  That, and my 9 year old's birthday party.

I was away most of last week on a business trip.  Had to present at our industry's largest conference.  No pressure there.  Add that to the stress of going nonstop at breakfast, lunch, drinks, and dinner meetings.  In the midst of all that my husband sends a text --"Where are you with Sophie's party?  Have you called so-and-so yet? Who's coming?"  This sent me postal.  Probably shouldn't have, but it did. 

He's the one at home, I'm in Dallas -- maybe he should be the one picking up the damn phone book and calling people! In all fairness he probably would have, but I would have had to have left a spreadsheet with names and phone numbers and I was a little preoccupied with the aforementioned presentation/setting up appointments/closing an issue of the magazine I work for.

From my hotel room, I send a ration of texts to my daughter's friends' mothers.  I make lists of things to do while I'm trapped on a US Airways jet en route to Newark. (Did I mention it's Thursday now and the party is Friday?)  On the way home from the airport I make calls to mothers that I couldn't reach via text, as well as the local dairy and pizzeria to set up the evening's refreshments.  I also call the library to have them set aside a bunch of  princess movies (Princess Diaries 1 & 2, The Prince and Me, The Frog Princess).

I spent Friday sending follow up notes to clients I'd seen at the show, and running around picking up stuff for goodie bags, refreshments, decorations, the ice cream cake.  I also frantically wiped down toilets, vacuumed  and mopped floors (Seriously, did no one notice they were STICKING to the kitchen floor??)

The appointed time came and went.  Eight 9 year old girls are louder than an entire stadium full of vuvuzela braying soccer fans.  They sound like a herd of Clydesdales as they run through the house.  They are messier than a platoon of soldiers. My husband had to forcibly stop me from following them around with a container of Clorox wipes.  He very wisely distracted me with a glass of wine.  Several, actually.  And he very wisely served pizza and ice cream cake, and cleaned up (mostly...at least the really obvious stuff). 

It's 4 days later and we've still not finished digging out of the carnage.  I've been picking the Doritos out of the couches, empty (or not so empty) pouches of Capri Sun out of the toy bins, and returning hair scrunchies/t-shirts/stuffed animals to their rightful owners.  Could I have saved myself some stress by planning ahead better?  Yes, but I challenge you to try to do that when dealing with U-9 travel soccer and it's variable time tables.

OK, rant over.  I've run out of steam.  Bless your heart if you've stuck with it this long.  And bless my horse (you knew it had to come back to the horse, right?) because after the merry go round of the last week, the first moment I was able to draw a deep breath was when I got to the barn, heard her deep rumble of greeting, and leaned my forehead against hers.