Give me a brake.

Last Friday I got a message from Miss P asking if Number 2 could take care of her dogs on the following Monday.

I forgot to get back to her until Sunday, letting her know that he’d be happy to do it.

On Monday I woke up with a really bad case of conjunctivitis.

Combined with a bad case of allergies, I could hardly see.

I had to cancel my swim lessons for the day.

Number 4 was sure to tell me that I didn’t look good.

In fact, she said,

“Mom, what happened to your eye?

You look scary.”

Remember that post I wrote the other day?

The one entitled I feel pretty, oh so pretty?

That didn’t last long.

Anyway, I had some eye drops leftover from the last time one of the kids had pink eye, so I put those in my eyes.

I took some allergy medication, an over the counter, generic, non-drowsy kind.

Number 4 and 5 had dentist appointments at 11:00 that morning.

I dropped Number 1 off at the library and headed to the dentist.

His office is about 25 minutes away, and a couple minutes from my parents’ house, so I was going to drop Number 3, 6, and 7 off with my dad and then get Number 4 and 5 to their appointments.

I was running late, so my dad met us at the office and took 3, 6, and 7 to his house.

When Number 4 and 5 were done, we went to my dad’s.

The kids ate some lunch, and then played hide and seek with Papa.

I watched from the porch.

It was about all I could do.

No matter what an allergy medication claims on the box, I cannot take it without becoming loopy.

My father was concerned that I shouldn’t drive the kids home.

I told him I was okay. We made it home fine.

But naturally, the little ones fell asleep in the car.

For like 10 minutes.

I was so messed up from the allergy medication that I just needed to lie down for a few minutes.

I tried to put 5, 6, and 7 into their beds.

But I knew it was fruitless.

None of them slept.

In fact, Number 7 has entered the I-can-climb-out-of-my-crib phase.

And at 22 months, you can’t really reason with her or threaten her.

Well you can,

but it won’t do anything.

I just wanted to make it to bedtime.

If you read yesterday’s post, you know that I was super pissed at my husband, so I hadn’t talked to him since that morning.

I had no idea when he was getting home from work, and there was no way I was going to call him or ask for any help.

Plus, after unsuccessfully trying to get the little guys to sleep, I dropped my phone in the toilet.

I couldn’t call him even if I wanted to.

So I turned on the tv and tried to get Number 5, 6, and 7 to sit and watch something.

By this point I was practically drooling on myself.

Just in time for Number 2 to walk in with one of his friends.

“Can I go to D’s house?”

I just kind of looked at him.

Like the sister in Sixteen Candles at her wedding.

I eventually made it to bedtime.

Tuesday morning my head was more clear. So were my eyes.

I got an email from someone at the Y asking if I could meet him at 10:30.

I hadn’t really planned on going to there, but I figured I’d try to get there early and squeeze in a workout first.

By the time I got everyone to the babysitting room, I only had about 20 minutes left.

I did a speed lifting workout,

went to the meeting,

and rushed home.

My dad was coming to babysit.

As soon as he got there, I rushed out the door.

My computer has some sort of virus, and I had to bring it to Best Buy.

Then I rushed to Costco.

We needed food,

badly,

and I had a free upgrade for my phone.

I took care of the food and the new phone, picked up Number 1 at the Y, and raced home.

We had 20 minutes to get to the dentist office for round two of appointments for Numbers 1, 2, 3, and me.

We were going to be there for a while.

I plugged in the phone to charge while the dentist took care of me.

When my turn was over, I sat down and tried to figure the new phone out.

We played with the camera.

And then I got a text.

It read,

FYI it’s no tax week so get your shopping done. Just saying.

I lost all my contacts when I dropped my phone in the toilet, and I never backed them up.

I had no idea who the text was from.

But I know one person who says “just saying.”

Miss P.

Oh.

Fuck.

I forgot about Miss P’s dogs.

I never even told Number 2 that he was supposed to take care of them.

And it was now 27 hours after he was supposed to walk them.

I couldn’t call Miss P because I lost all my contacts, and I had no idea what her number was.

I could have gotten it off of Facebook, but there was no internet connection at the dentist’s office.

I started to sweat.

I called my husband.

He was on his way home from work, and closer than I was to Miss P’s house.

Plus, Number 2 was in the chair being worked on so I couldn’t go anywhere.

I spent the next 20 minutes conjuring up every horrible dog-related scenario possible.

I was just hoping the dogs were all still alive.

I called my husband after 20 minutes.

“Are you there yet?”

Not yet.

Again, 5 minutes later.

“Are you there yet?”

Almost.

The next time I called, he didn’t answer.

I called again ten minutes later.

Still no answer.

The dogs had either shit all over Miss P’s house and he was cleaning it up,

or something really bad happened and he didn’t want to tell me.

I rushed home with boys when Number 2 was finally done at the dentist.

My husband wasn’t there.

He came in the door about 5 minutes after we got home.

I just looked at him.

I was scared to ask him what happened.

My eyes were big.

“Miss P. was there,” he said.

“And a neighbor noticed last night that no one came, and she took the dogs out herself.”

Phew.

“We were just talking,” my husband told me.

“Miss P. said, ‘Tell Susie she’s fired…

Just kidding.'”

I’m not sure about that kidding part.

So this morning I googled images for slow down.

I saw this:

And then I saw Slow Down, Live Better, 7 tips by Carl Honore.

I don’t know who Carl Honore is.

But I like tip #7:

Find a Slow Ritual. Find a slow ritual that acts as your personal brake and helps you shift into a lower gear. It might be gardening, reading, yoga, cooking, knitting, painting, whatever.

Yep.

Time to put on the brakes.

Time to sloooow down.

Because next time?

Well,

next time,

I might not be so lucky.

VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!!!