I can never remember what day it is anymore. Apparently, it is September 17th, which means that it takes exactly three weeks after starting school for my kids to start getting sick. Poor Quinn. The only lingering sadness from his premature birth is that whenever he gets a bad cold, he gets asthma too, and so tonight I had to attack him with nasal spray and a nebulizer and you would have thought I was slaughtering him. He squealed and protested and cried fat, snotty tears, wailing, “NOOOOOOOO,” and then when it was all over and his face was just a wet mess of mucus and saltwater, he said, “I want you. I want yooouuu.” 

Sigh. This has been the weirdest day. On my way to work, Luke and I noticed this old man a car ahead of us in the right hand turn lane. He looked like he was either jamming out to his favorite song or was pounding his fists in anger. I told Luke not to stare at him when we passed him because he was really odd. When the light turned I drove straight up the hill and minutes later this crazy loon of a man who used to be in the right lane was honking and honking at me from behind. He pulled up next to my car and motioned for Luke to roll down the window. I thought I must have had a flat or something. When we rolled the window down he screamed, “Are you trying to run me into all the poles?!” The rest of the story is stupid, but ends with me telling him to fuck off. Seriously, it was not even 7:30 AM. 

I left school at four, picked up Quinn at 4:15, pulled into the driveway with a sleeping Q at 4:50 and then had this running dialogue in my head: “Okay, I have ten minutes before I have to get Will from volleyball and Luke from rehearsal. If I wake Quinn up, I will never get him back in the car because he will be crabby and impossible. However, I really, really, really have to pee. Can I hold it until 6? No, nope. Do I leave him alone in the car while I pee? God, no, my mother would die. Lolo would definitely say no.” I lingered over this dilemma, cursing the fact that I drank a bottle of water at the faculty meeting, for about four minutes until my bladder could not wait. It couldn’t. Then I remembered how, in college, there used always be a line of girls at the bar, all waiting to pee,  and one time after I exited the one person bathroom, the whole line of drunk women applauded for me because, they said, I was the fastest pee-er ever. With that in mind, I dashed out of the car, locking it about four thousand times behind me and entered the house. 

I was immediately struck by the strong odor of dog piss, which I could not ignore. Even though Sean had let Greta out at noon, she just did not make it again until five o’clock, and there were three huge puddles on the floor. I soaked up everything with paper towels, ran to check on Quinn, mopped up the floor with undiluted Pinesol (which, if you ask me, smells as bad as geriatric dog piss), ran to check on Quinn again, washed my hands, ran to check on Quinn again, and then flew up the stairs to finally pee, washed hands again, opened a window for the Greta-pine-lemon smell, returned to car where Quinn still slept soundly, and drove to William’s practice just in time. 

William was crabby because I made him the same sandwich two days in a row and now he is “sick of pretzel bread” and said he “hates all sandwiches,” and “sandwiches suck and should never have been invented.” Together, we picked up Luke for rehearsal. Twenty-five minutes to spare before I needed to get back to school to go to the theater parent meeting, so I quickly checked my bank account to see if I had enough cash to buy the boys some dinner. Turns out, I am fifty dollars overdrawn until Friday, so we raced back home and I boiled noodles and heated up yesterday’s Pinterest disaster (Lizzie, if you are reading this, you picked a great week to go on a class trip). 

I threw some noodles in bowls for Will and Q, grabbing a handful of them for my mouth, and told Luke to keep his warm chicken in the oven until he and I returned from the half hour meeting, which turned out to be an hour long meeting. We came home from the meeting (this musical is gonna be cool) and Luke ate his dry chicken and I tried to put pajamas on Quinn who told me that he will not wear any pajamas anymore except for his fireman pajamas and that he hates his monster pajamas and that he will also no longer wear blue jeans or shirts with buttons on them. 

I made a giant vodka with lemons in it, snuggled next to wheezy Quinn, who tossed and turned on the couch until he said, “I want youuuu. I waaaannnt youuu in bed.” So I dumped the vodka and we walked upstairs, which is when Luke and I wrestled Quinn with the nebulizer. He slept long enough for me to record my day here, but now he is crying and wheezing and his fever is spiking. I have a feeling it is going to be a late night. I am crossing my fingers that we do not need an ER breathing treatment (preemie mommas, you know the one) and that a simple steamy shower will do. 

If you are indeed a preemie momma, you know that even if a steamy shower does work, that I will be sleeping with one eye open and that my own breaths will be shallow and silent, just so I don’t miss anything. Turns out, I want him too.