You'd think I'd be better at this by now...

It hasn't been a very good week and today was just the icing on the cake. Both boys have been really pushing their limits this week. A has been waking up so crabby each morning that the first 2 hours of the day have me ready to beg to be medicated. He is constantly struggling with me over anything and everything. He requests oatmeal, I make it for him and he becomes hysterical because he doesn't want oatmeal. He wants to keep his pajama's on ALL day, doesn't bother him in the least that he is soaked in urine because his diaper leaked during the night. Try changing a diaper while a 33lb. firecracker is exploding underneath you. When he is frustrated with me he takes it out on Jake. Out of nowhere he pounces on Jake and starts grabbing at his face, poor Jake never sees it coming.

Jake has been having his moments as well. We tell him not to touch, move back, don't throw and he comes up and hits us. The funny thing is that he swings real hard and then at the last minute slows his hand down so that he barely makes contact. When Jake really gets mad he starts chucking his toys down the open staircase to the basement. My walls look like hell and it's slowly killing me.

But today, well today is in a league all of its own. The morning started off with a cranky Anderson. By 8 a.m. I knew we needed to get out of the house to try and break the cycle. We were in the car by 9:15 and headed to the outdoor mall. I figured we could play at the kiddie place until Parisian opened because I had a bill snafoo to straighten out. I was so preoccupied this morning with trying to keep the peace that I failed to notice it had been raining all night/early morning. It wasn't until we were in our stroller within feet of the play area did it occur to me that everything was going to be soaken wet.

I made futile attempts to dry off the watermelon climbing toy with the small towel I had in my diaper bag. Against my mom instincts I allowed them to climb up on it and play. I felt like I had no other choice. The stores weren't going to open for another half an hour and I certainly wasn't going to go home without going to Parisian to complete my errand. Of course someone slipped on the wet, vinyl freakin watermelon and smacked their head. As I'm tending to the injured the other blue angel is running wild. I bribe everyone back into the stroller with some popcorn and I hang my head in shame as people stare. I was about to call CPS on myself.

Everyone has settled and is now happily eating their popcorn. The stores still don't open for 15 minutes so I head to Starbucks. The boys and I struggle to get through the tiny shop with our massive tandem stroller, of course no one helps us with the door. Just when I think the worst is over the boys discover (and I regretfully remember) that I put a few m and m's in their popcorn bag. I do this from time to time, they rarely have sweets so I like to surprise them by dropping a couple of m and m's into their popcorn. Wanna guess what happens next?

Boys flip bag over to retrieve the four m and m's that they have at the bottom of their bag and there is now popcorn all over the floor at Starbucks. I want to cry. As I'm picking up the popcorn, the barista asks me if they are twins. I reply "yes" and she says "you're so lucky, I always wanted twins". Oh, the irony. I was happy however to have found someone more clueless than I was feeling at the time.

We leave Starbucks and head for Parisian. As I'm struggling to drag the heavy double stroller over the threshold of the doorway, my hot drink tips over out of the cup holder and spills. Of course it does! I don't even give a sh!t at this point, I'm pushing on. The stroller is dripping with hot carmel cider off the back, leaving a trail behind us and I just don't care. I head to customer service.

When I arrive at customer service I am told that I can't straighten things out with my account because they don't do it there at the store. They use a private company. Of course they do.