What a Difference a Day Makes

The proverbial you-know-what hit the fan at the Poppins household today. Sadly, the dishwasher was not spared. Check out today's Afternoon (Dish) Traffic Report (brought to you by the hope that tomorrow will be a better day):
1:55pm. I didn't even bother trying to clean it up for 5 minutes before taking the picture. This casualty was way beyond the point where a 5 minute pick-me-up would actually help. The day was a bit out of control on many fronts. I'll spare you all the details but will give you a few of the highlights (or rather, low points as it were):
1. Bert left this morning for a week-long trip (not for fun mind you, although being anywhere for a week by myself sounds like more fun than dealing with what I've got going on right now). It feels like there's no relief in sight.
2. My 18 month-old fell asleep in the car on the way home from work this morning. I let my 4 year-old out of the car and told her to be quiet since the baby was sleeping. Upon reaching our door with my sleeping child in arms, my older daughter let out a loud yell for no apparent reason, and thereby awakened her sister from her 5 minute-long nap.
3. While grocery shopping this afternoon, my fussy 18 month-old (I can't imagine why she'd be fussy at this point) insisted on holding onto the box of pasta. Looking to minimize tantrums, I relented. Besides, I reasoned the box wasn't breakable. Well a few minutes into our shopping excursion I noticed she'd managed to open the box of pasta. Not wanting to be the cause of an aisle cleanup, I took it from her and placed it in the basket at which point she screamed in protest. Lo and behold when she opened her mouth I found about a dozen pieces of dried macaroni shoved into her mouth. One finger sweep and one gag reflex later and her mouth was choking hazard-free. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson from the bead experience.
The girls are now in bed, the dishwasher is running, and I am going to sit and watch The Great Debaters. It's supposed to be a feel-good movie where the underdogs overcome great obstacles and get a chance to shine. Sounds exactly like the kind of inspiration this underdog needs today (it also doesn't hurt that it features Denzel Washington. A little Denzel never fails to make everything seem a bit better).