One for Democracy, Zero for Motherhood

I had one of those busy sort of days where you feel like you're doing a lot, but accomplishing nothing. By the time I left work, I was late picking up the kids. More rushing around. Then, before going home, I planned to quickly stop at the local school and vote like a good citizen. I stopped at our house to zip in and grab my voter's card and that's where things began to fall apart for me. I couldn't find it. The kids were waiting in the car in the driveway so I felt a certain sense of urgency. And I have this "thing" where it drives me absolutely insane when I can't find something, which unfortunately happens all the time. I become obsessive about finding it, even if I no longer need it, because where could it go? It's not like things just disappear!

At any rate, I thought there was a strong possibility it was in the garage because I thought we had stored a box of "office stuff" in there while clearing the house out to make it look good as it's up for sale. So, I opened the garage door and waved to the kids in the car so they could see where I was. Mistake. Hannah didn't care about seeing me, she only cared about seeing her bike, which she now wanted to ride so she began to cry hysterically because she was trapped in her car seat instead of on her bike.

I gave up on the voter's card and headed to the school with ID in hand, hoping I also had some proof of address in my bag. I did. But it was a photocopy. Which means I obviously had the original in there somewhere, too. But, no. Apparently, I did not. So I spent another 10 minutes going through all of the crap in my bag trying to find a piece of paper that wasn't there. If you're counting, that's twice in like 20 minutes that I hadn't been able to find something. Minor annoyance now turned to major frustration.

I went into the school anyway and discovered that all I needed to vote was my driver's license. Ah, so easy. But I still want to find that #$%! voter's card and the original of that photocopy! See? Obsessive. I'll probably dream about it tonight.

As we were leaving the school, Hannah decided that she didn't want to go home. In front of dozens of good, voting citizens she had a full-out, fall-on-the-floor tantrum. It continued all the way out to the car where nice people smiled at me with that sympathetic I'm-so-glad-that's-not-my-kid smile. I smiled back. By the time we got to the parking lot I was ready to drive away without her. She had to hold my hand to get to our car safely. She didn't want to go to the car. People were watching. I was carrying Jacob and already half-dropping him. Things weren't looking good.

Alas, this post is too long... Part 2 will have to wait.