…even in Arlington. I thought about packing my bags and moving to Australia a few times today because it really was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Well, for the most part.

Young Robert decided to serenade Justin and myself at 4:30 this morning. He sounded so pitiful that I didn’t mind getting out of the bed I had been tossing and turning in for five hours. I took diaper duty and Justin made a bottle (Ladies, please get your husbands out of bed when the baby wakes up; there is much less resentment this way. Just give him a choice in jobs – “Honey, do you want to change his diaper or get his bottle?” – instead of asking if he would mind getting up. This is part of my Husband Management Strategies). Shortly thereafter, Justin and Robbie were softly snoring in their respective beds. And I watched the sun come up through closed blinds.

If you read my last post, you’ll know why I couldn’t go back to sleep. I never put out the raging inferno last night. It was still hanging over my head! So, I stupidly checked my email to see if there were any responses from roofers. There was nothing useful and one that was downright insulting. The latter left me tossing and turning again so much that I finally went down to the couch; I was a little worried that Justin might get injured.

Let me tell you that after five hours of very poor sleep, I was not a great mom today. I was probably an OK wife, and, from what I remember, I managed to be civil to the line of roofers and insurance adjusters who paraded through my house (ironically, in the middle of naptime, which meant I didn’t get to rest then either). Later in the afternoon, I managed to get Robbie into a stroller and walked around town for a few errands. In all honesty, they could have been postponed. I just didn’t have any idea how to entertain Robbie all afternoon with very little patience and cats that were already irritated with him from the morning play session.

I was in such excellent form today that I put Robbie down for a second nap at 3:00 and told him he just had to sleep for thirty minutes. Bless his little heart; he slept for almost an hour! Still no rest though; it was time to finish cleaning the downstairs (I know, I know — but it wasn’t as bad as it was last night!) and then get as much of the guest room finished as possible. And did I mention I was still dealing with the mortgage broker? He promises me that closing is tomorrow morning at 8:00. And, miraculously, our interest rate has dropped .125%. I’ve been an anxiety attack waiting to happen about all of this for 26 hours.

At my wits’ end at 5:40, I had no option but to put Robbie in the bathtub and soak my feet while he played. There are no papers to shred, no cats to torment, and nowhere to run. And that is exactly where Justin found me when he walked through the door twenty minutes later. Robbie and I appropriately read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day before bedtime tonight. Here’s hoping that I don’t have to eat lima beans for dinner or lose my marble down the drain. And that tomorrow Robbie will look at me like I’m the best mom in the world and today’s antics didn’t matter at all.

To all of the working moms… Do you feel like you get nothing accomplished on the days that you’re home with your adorable child? When I’m at work, I have the stress to keep the house clean, the dinner cooked, and the laundry managed. But when I’m home all day, I don’t know how to fit it all in. It’s like I’m running around all day putting out small fires, only to find that there’s a raging inferno behind my right shoulder that I should have noticed earlier in the day. Take today for example…

I purposely cleaned up the lower floor of the house Wednesday night so that I would not have to do it today and could instead concentrate on organizing our guest/craft room for the impending arrival of my father-in-law. However, by 9:00 this morning, there were little yogurt fingerprints all over my coffee table, dog hair blowing like a tumbleweed down the hall, toys everywhere (including in the dog’s bed — bad, Barkley!), and torn bits of junk mail (a la Robbie) all over the floor, furniture, and child. Add to this mix a sink piled with dishes, an iron in the dining room, miscellaneous items to go to the basement in the kitchen, laundry on top of the hamper, and clothes laid across the balcony. Oh, and a friend was set to arrive for our weekly walk in 30 seconds.

Never mind that fire… I had more pressing issues! There was a plane ticket to book home to Kentucky in the middle of August and rapidly rising airfare. It had already gone up $20 since the night before. Surely this was more pressing than a dirty house and company on the way. And then the doorbell rang. Time to put the house cleaning and the ticket buying on hold for a few hours!

By the time we got home from our walk, Robbie was ready for a nap and so was I. Unfortunately, Robbie is the only one who got one. I managed to get the downstairs picked up again (and, please note, that I just finished cleaning it for a second time today at 9:30 pm) and buy the plane ticket. Miraculously, prices hadn’t increased during my walk.

At 1:30 it was finally time to tackle the guest room, which is where I put everything I didn’t know where to put when organizing the downstairs closets last week. Including the junk mail, which needed to be shredded. And, of course, Robbie woke up at 1:35. Having never spent much time in the guest room, Robbie was intrigued by all the possible play things — rolling chair, boxes, toys that I had brought in for him — for about five minutes. Then he discovered the shredded paper bits and had a great time. I finally put him in his room to play (and when I went to check on him, he wouldn’t let me in!) and he entertained himself happily for nearly half an hour. That left me enough time to make the room more of a mess than it was when I started and feel as if my entire day had been wasted.

Which brings me to the raging inferno… All of these small fires had been maintained well enough (not perfectly, but don’t judge!). That’s when I got the call from the mortgage guy, who wanted just one more sheet of paper in order to process our closing tomorrow, which, incidentally, is the third closing date they’ve given me. This encompassed nearly three hours of my evening. I still have no solution and my guest room is not ready for my father-in-law, but, rest assured, the downstairs of my house is clean. Until about 9:15 tomorrow morning.