How to be me today: Step-by-step instructions

1. Wake up feeling horribly, terribly sick. Choose to spend the day in bed moaning about how sick you are.
2. Be driven from your cozy bed by a giddy Hannah jumping on your phlegm-filled chest, begging to open her birthday presents (we're celebrating today as Josh will be gone next week on her actual birthday).
3. Try to keep head up and resist desire to drown yourself in bowl of pancake batter. Cook half the batter and be chastised by the children for forgetting to add the chocolate chips.
4. Sigh, and dump half a bag of chocolate chips on their plates instead.
5. Forget to coordinate how to get children to school (since Josh has an early morning doctor's appointment that runs extra long and you do not have another car).
6. Have children enter frenzied mental state over being late to school and decide to just push Hannah in the stroller, and have them ride scooters to school. An hour late.
7. Witness Chase fall down - not once - but twice, leaving him with a scraped face and scratched up knees. Dry his tears and beg him to stay at school and tough it out.
8. Arrive in the office and have uptight school secretary criticize you for your lateness.
9. Get mad and point out that this is the FIRST TIME EVER that your children have been late to school. So BACK OFF, lady.
10. Don't feel one bit bad when she looks at you with hate-filled daggers.
11. Come home to find husband ready to be driven to work.
12. Take husband to work.
13. Have husband realize once you've arrived at his office that he has forgotten his ID badge.
14. Go home and hunt for ID badge.
15. Take husband his ID badge.
16. Rush back home to pick up cupcakes for preschool class.
17. Take Hannah to preschool and try not to show extreme glee at having 1.75 hours to yourself.
18. Go to pharmacy to fill husband's prescriptions. Wait 45 minutes.
19. Get out to car and realize one of the prescriptions is not in the bag.
20. Go back in pharmacy. Wait in line again to be told that they have to call the doctor and get the correct dosage. Be glad you waited 45 minutes for these prescriptions - since you'll be heading back again anyway.
21. Go home and have about 400 pages to fax to realtor.
22. Throw in the first of 20 loads of laundry.
23. Pick up Hannah from school.
24. Find her in tears because she got paint on her new birthday dress.
25. Try not to throw yourself in front of a moving bus.
26. Take Hannah to get her ears pierced for her birthday, thus ending her two-years of constant begging.
27. Have Hannah burst into tears with the first ear and refuse to finish.
28. Show Hannah how pretty she looks and convince her to finish other ear. Pay for the privilege of making your child cry.
29. Run to car in the rain.
30. Drive home.
31. Plunk her down in front of the television.
32. Have exactly eight minutes to yourself before heading out to pick up the boys from school.
33. Make to-do list that includes: Finish laundry, clean house, make birthday cake, pull out suitcases for husband who leaves tomorrow, call floor contractor, and find something to eat for special birthday dinner.
34. Decide to do none of the above.
35. Take four Motrin.
36. Pray you can make it through until bedtime.
37. Blog.