I seldom get to the end of a day feeling fatigue like I do tonight. I felt like I was wearing a 150-lb fat suit that, besides weighing me down, was punching my arm pits every 7 seconds. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that I asked a friend, we’ll call her Flecky FigPenny, to motivate me to exercise during yesterday’s play date at the park. There is a difference between exercise and Chinese torture. She was brutal. If you want to jog, she makes you run sprints. If you are unable to do the commanded pull ups, she’ll make you do the flex-arm-hang. And suddenly you are back in 4th grade again, fighting to stay up over that bar for 60 seconds (try 25…) and hoping that Presidential Award shows up in your mailbox.

With that said, just know that when I sit for longer than 2 minutes, my muscles begin to shut down. So this entry could get ugly.

Today was filled with successes and failures, and was somewhat balanced on both sides. I think some bullets are in order:

Successes:

• Early to preschool drop off. Didn’t have to use my Panic Voice with either of the girls.
• Managed to almost-immediately channel my ire toward the owner of the gold Nissan Armada who parks across 2 spaces every.single.morning. Your car is not as nice as you think it is, lady.
• Walked to the neighborhood pond with Snugglemonkey and played a very twisted and confused game of Hide and Seek. Sometimes she was the hider, sometimes the seeker, sometimes both. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 9. 10.11, 17, 19, 31, Ready or not. I’m coming.
• Read Amelia Bedelia to the sweetest, fluffiest, cutest, brightest-eyed, most squishy group of 4-yr-olds I have ever seen. Amelia Bedelia ROCKS. So does Beloved’s preschool class.
• Played at the park for 30 minutes and then successfully dragged 4 kids downtown to a routine dr. appt. Besides having SnuggleMonkey swing open the door to the Patient Bathroom while I was sitting on the toilet, this experience was uneventful and smooth. It isn’t usually. At the very least, we are almost always there for an hour longer than we should be.
• Went for slurpees at 7-11 to celebrate the day’s successes.

Failures:

• Unfortunately, the Slurpee celebration was one of the day’s failures. Taking 4 kids to the slurpee counter turns into a barrel of crazed monkeys. They sprout arms like a sprouting dandelion in one of those time-lapse nature movies. They start grabbing cups and reaching for levers and unwrapping straws. The Peach Passion fruit blew up in my face and got on everyone. It was like a fruity volcano that made SnuggleMonkey cry. Before 7-11 was over, I had been talked into donuts and chocolate chip cookies. You know…nothing says fresh baked goods like 7-11.
• Oh, and while standing in front of the cashier to pay for the 5 slurpees, 3 donuts, and 3 chocolate chip cookies, my ATM card was “DECLINED.’ Now doesn’t THAT just make a person feel like a leper. You feel like you have to start explaining to the cashier and others in line “I really do have $10.68 in my account. This is the bank’s fault.” And they nod and give you a tight-lipped smile with the sarcastic “sure” look in their eyes. Poor girl with her little passion-fruit-faced street urchins.
• I called the bank. Hello? Why was my card declined? Oh, yes m’aam. We are having a big problem with our system Your card cannot be used as a debit right now but you can run it like credit. Since when? I asked. Since last week, she says. Last week? What? Is this 2011? When will it be fixed? I asked. We don’t know, she answered. Oh, well, this is all so good to hear, 5 minutes too late. Thank you for letting me know. What in the world.
• I did not exercise today and snuck a few bites of the leftover baked yummies from the convenience store.  And still I feel I’ve been beat up by Kung Fu Panda.
• I put two kids in the bath to, you know, promote cleanliness. And I put bubble bath in the bath to sort of tap the whole deal with a fun stick. That went bad fast. Mamasboy is allergic to everything, including most of his thoughts. Apparently he is also highly reactive to bubble bath. This resulted in a nasty allergy attack on his skin, which led to extreme screaming. The kind of screaming that makes you look over your shoulder for a concerned neighbor or a member of the Department of Children and Families. Screaming and itching. LOTS of both. For a long time. And all while Jackson was over from across the street. I stuck my head out to explain we were not just having temper tantrums. But as I was trying to work Mamasboy through this attack, Snugglemonkey escaped from the bath and was running sudsy and buck naked through the house, around and around and around, while Jackson and my oldest played a game together. As Jackson was leaving, I took him by the shoulders and made him look me in the eyes. “Boy, listen to me.” He couldn’t look. “LOOK AT ME!!! We are NOT crazy. Don’t tell your mom about all of this. BOY! Do you hear me?!” By then he was crying and trying to pull away.

No, he wasn’t. And no, I wasn’t. Tell me you didn’t believe any of that.  I did try to say “Hey, we aren’t crazy!” as he walked out,  but the door had slammed already. Oh well.

In all of it, though…the good, the bad, the ugly, the nudity…it was a day of those everyday pinpricks into glory. And it was completely worth that big, heavy fat suit called fatigue.