My Big, Fat, Giant Mistake

As I type this, I am sitting in absolute despair because I have made the biggest mistake of the month. To say that it is the biggest mistake of my life would be melodramatic...and we all know I am so not melodramatic. :) Today, the ladies who clean my house were coming. They do a spectacular job (a much better job than I will ever be able to do on my own...even if my energy wasn't sucked away by the Gleevec)and it leads to the very best three hours of my week. The three hours after we get home and the children are napping and I sit in the total cleanness of my house. When the three hours is up, somebody wakes up, the toys get pulled out, the milk gets spilled, somebody needs a snack...you get the idea. But for those few hours my house is COMPLETELY clean...I think this might be what heaven is like. Back to my big mistake. I usually try to run errands or go to the park or something while they are here because I always feel like we're in the way. Today was no different. I had exactly 257,374 errands to run before my parents come to visit this weekend so I left the house at 9:30am to get them all done. I even managed to squeeze in a short trip to the park where I discovered that the hypoallergenic, children's, SPF 50 sunblock that I carry in my purse gives Phoebe hives on her face and makes her eyes water uncontrollably. After that adventure, I cleaned her face and we headed to Mickey D's for lunch and recuperation before I ran the other half of my errands. This is when I realized my cell phone is dead. Oh well, surely there wouldn't be a call so important I need to really worry about it, right? Now, I'm not sure about the rest of you, but running errands exhausts me! I try not to do them all on the weekend because that's family time and I feel certain that Brad does not want to spend his entire weekend running errands with me or at home with the kids without me even though it would be soooo much easier. I also know that every two weeks, there will be about three hours where I need to be out of my house so it makes sense. It's all the ins and outs and pushing the carts and carrying my way too heavy little girl who doesn't want to sit in yet another cart and constantly telling Eli to stay close and no he could not buy the car/pen/mini-etch-a-sketch at the counter. Anyway, I got home exhausted. The kids were tired, I had 94 bags of groceries to bring in, and Phoebe had leaked through her diaper. When I walked in the door and heard a series of rapid beats, I almost burst into tears. Those beeps meant that I had accidentally set the alarm on the house before I left. Those beeps meant that my precious cleaning ladies had tried to come in and set off the alarm. Those beeps meant that they had left because they do not know the code to turn the alarm off. Those beeps meant my house had not been cleaned!! I immediately called my cleaning ladies who verified the story and I tried to reschedule for later in the week. Sometime before Thursday when my parents arrive, but no dice. They are leaving town on Thursday, as well. I'm in a pickle, to be sure. Not only am I mourning the loss of my perfect three hours, I have to clean my house myself. It's already making me tired and my back hurt. I guess that's why I have a prescription for pain killers. Luckily, the only thing I have to do on Wednesday was go to the grocery store to buy the food for this weekend. Instead, I'll be cleaning my house and maybe I can sneak in a quick trip to United. This is all after I stop feeling sorry for myself and realize that I am just a big, whiny baby who needs to put on her big-girl panties and deal with it!