Oh Crazy Day!

You know you've had a crazy day when your mom tells you she can't wait to read the post you write about your day.

Monday, a few months back, was just plain insane.

It started out like any other "normal" day. Not too normal, not too exciting. We were just getting stuff done. I went to work, Isaac stayed with his "Duck" (Josh's dad). I was having an Usborne book party that evening at my house. I knew I'd probably be running around like crazy after picking up Isaac after work and going home to prepare, but really, I hadn't a clue.

I got a call about mid-morning from my landlady, letting me know that since I hadn't been home when our handy dandy repair man had arrived with our new refrigerator, that he had placed our new fridge in the dining room and left the old one in place in the kitchen. This lovely man really had good intentions, he doesn't like to handle other people's food. You know, hygiene and germ safety issues. This extra fridge in our home may not have been a big deal if we had a dining room bigger than say, a guest bathroom. But we don't, and I expected a good 10-12 guests that night. I was able to laugh it off at that point. Oh well, Josh could help me with this when we both got home from work around 5.

I got the call from Josh after lunch. He would be late. Of course he would.

On my way home from work, I began to call in my troops. Mom, my sister, my neighbor, another friend... I was confident this was going to happen.

My mental list written on my return home:

-dishes
-trash
-feed Isaac dinner
-switch refrigerators
-clean up any mess left behind
-bring in extra table from outside
-prepare food and drinks and place on said table
-pick up any toys left laying around

I had from 5:10 pm to 7 pm. I believed in myself.

We had taken our "butcher block" table outside for cleaning and airing a few days prior to Monday. The base was sitting by our grill, the top leaning up against the wall. Or it had been before I'd left for work. I realized as soon as I looked around for it that it had a little too near the trash. The trash man, assuming it was just junk, had grabbed it this morning after I'd left. Of course he had.

I came inside to feed Isaac. He was eating a good dinner, no complaints. I happened to be on the phone with his pediatrician, which I never am, and turned to see him red-faced and choking silently. Terrified, I grabbed him and swiped out his throat. The baby Heimlich took care of the breathing hazard while I tried to sound like a non-crazy, competent mother on the phone with our pediatrician. I heard myself saying "he hasn't choked in months, I don't know what happened, he has like 25 teeth! It was just a kidney bean, he's eaten like 1200 of those!" God bless Dr. Hansen, he just acted like he talked on the phone with choking baby's mothers all day. I found myself shaking for at least the next hour.

After the terrifying dinner, I found Isaac playing with his xylophone, pretending it was a vacuum, of course, and half of his diaper contents all over his legs. I had known this would happen. I'd even told him, "please just tell me when you plan on pooping all over yourself tonight so I can get it before the floor does." At least I'd been prepared?

Unbeknownst to me, Josh was digging around in our dumpster looking for the missing table top. After a 12 hour day, he came stomping up the stairs with the rouge piece of metal to help usher out the old refrigerator. Adrienne, Josh and I started a line from the old to the new, passing down food. That was accomplished soon enough, and as I'd already moved magnets, pictures and all other refrigerator coverings, all we had left was to kick the old fridge out the back door. Except now it was 15 minutes before my party was to start and the fridge was too wide to go through the door. Mhmm.

I mentally removed myself from the refrigerator and it's nemesis and focused on the rusty crusty goop that had been hiding under our icebox. I assume it had been building up since about 1973. After much thought and the entrance of about 3 of my guests, I chose to leave this disgusting mess for the next person to get a new fridge in this apartment and clean up the rust stains streaking my kitchen floor.

Miraculously, Josh and my construction-worker sister got the piece-of-junk down the stairs and out the back door.

My party boat had barely been rocked and the rest of the night was spent reading fun childrens books and drinking red wine with several girlfriends. A good close to an interesting day.