Do you remember the scene in Dude Where’s My Car (What? I’m the only person who has seen that movie?) when they are trying to order fast food and the lady working the drive-thru keeps saying “and then?” to get Ashton Kutcher to order more food?

That is how my day from h-e-double hockey sticks felt.

One thing would happen, and then another, and then another, and I just wanted to scream “NO AND THEN!”

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First thing this morning I’m nursing Penny in our bed. Immediately after nursing she starts gagging and throws up ALL OVER ME.  Not just baby spit up, actual “uh-oh, the baby might have the flu” vomit. Twice.

Also, our dishwasher was broken. Thankfully Eddie was able to fix it last night, but there is a sink & counter (& okay, stove too) full of 4+ day old dirty dishes to be washed, plus the rest of the house to be cleaned and homeschooling to be done before the showing of our house that is scheduled for the afternoon. I have to cancel Bible Study, preschool, a dentist appointment, and the kids church club tonight.

My older two kids are also sick, but only with bad chest colds. They aren’t throwing up (yet).

Eddie agrees to come home a little early so that he can be there to help with the kids and the dog while we have to be out of the house in the afternoon. Yay!

Also, the baby has a fever. I don’t know how bad the fever is because all of our thermometer batteries are worn out. Yes, all of them. Never in my life has a thermometer battery worn out on me, but today they all decided to quit at the same time. It’s like there was a solar flare or something.  All I know is that she felt really warn & then I gave her Tylenol and now she feels less warm.

Fast forward a few hours. I miraculously have been able to get the house straightened and the dishes done and about 1/2 of Nick’s schoolwork finished. Penny has only thrown up one more time. We have 10 minutes before the Realtor is scheduled to show up with our potential buyers.

My son announces that he has pooped in his pants.

Super awesome. I stick him on the potty, change his clothes, light candles, and spray Febreze everywhere. Unfortunately, it still smells like poop.

Eddie gets home with seconds to spare and we get the kids and  the dog in the minivan and drive around aimlessly. There aren’t many destination options for a family full of sick children and their dog.

We decide that we should probably feed our kids at some point, so we go through the McDonald’s drive thu and decide to take our dinner to the park near our house. We also stop at Target for a new thermometer. The park is empty when we get there, so we don’t feel too guilty about our kids spreading their germs around.

Abby takes 2 bites of a chicken nugget and announces that she “has to poo poo.”  No problem, this park has bathrooms.

This park’s bathrooms are locked. We can’t go home because people are there and everybody knows that you only have about 30 seconds to play with when a preschooler tells you she has to use the potty.

I take my daughter behind an outbuilding and let her poop in the grass. (I’m not proud of it, but it happened, ok?)

We go back to eating our food.

Eddie thinks he might be sick. He doesn’t like Abby’s grass option, so he leaves in search of indoor plumbing. He takes the van. I am trapped with three sick kids and a dog.

In the meantime, a group of six or seven older kids, ranging in ages from about 8-12, has gathered at the playground. They are using very, um, colorful language.

On the way back from letting my daughter poop in the grass I put on my best teacher voice to confront them.

“Do you think it’s a good idea to let the little ones hear you talking like that?”

“No, ma’am, I’m sorry. I won’t do it anymore.”

“That’s what I thought.”

I might let my kids poop on public property, but the b-word is where I draw the line, evidently.

Where were we? Oh yeah, I’m trapped on the playground.

The foul-mouthed kids leave, but three different kids come over to the playground with their dad. If the shaved head, confederate flag tattoo, and various other less appropriate markings were any indication, their dad is a white supremacist. He is also chain-smoking ON the playground. Like, he is walking on the playground equipment smoking cigarettes.

I say nothing to him about this because, while I have proved myself more than capable of standing up to 8-year-old bullies, this dude is scary and I have no escape route.

His six-year-old daughter has taken a liking to my girls and keeps trying to touch my sick baby’s face and get me to give her our phone number. I change the subject and make dumb excuses like, “My hands are full of baby right now so I can’t use a pen.”

Eventually, Eddie returns and we can go home.

Nick’s school work gets finished.

The phone rings.

We have another showing tomorrow. It’s the same Realtor. I guess she likes the smell of poop.

Here we go again.

**P.S. After I wrote this I was thrown up on one more time.

***P.P.S. Make that two more times.

****P.P.P. S. make that three more times.

*****P.P.P.P.S We got this feedback from the realtor the next morning “My clients felt there was a smell to the house. They weren’t sure if it was pets or messy diapers.”  Told you.

Today I am over at Wendy Nielsen.com in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month telling the story about the lump I found at age 25:

I do know how it feels though, to discover the lump.  

I found mine a few years ago in a most unglamorous way; one day I was scratching my left armpit. It makes me giggle a little, but that really is how I found it. It felt like a tiny, hard little pebble at the top of my breast. I kept picturing the scene in Finding Nemo when they clog the filter with aquarium gravel.