A Day Not to Repeat.....Ever!

Usually weekends are days that we look forward to because they are slower-paced, relaxing and fun (or as fun as they can be with two busy little girls). We had two things planned for today: 1) Julia's 3 mo. pictures and 2) Church (where I was signed up to volunteer in Elise's room). Under normal circumstances, this should have been easy to manage and relatively stress-free. Not today. Here's how the day broke down:

1) Julia was up at 5:30 this morning and wasn't keen on going back to sleep. Too bad since Elise slept in until 8:30! A perfect opportunity to catch up on some zzzzz's, but no such luck.

2) Elise woke up this morning with a dry pull-up! Hooray! Except she didn't want to sit on the potty right away and "promised" that she would go right after breakfast. After taking an incredibly long time at the table, we discovered a very wet pull-up. So much for promises.

3) Julia's pictures were scheduled for 11:20 at The Picture People. The closest store is in Bloomingdale, a 30 minute drive from Palatine. Had Julia kept to her normal schedule of waking around 7:30 and napping from 9-11, this might have worked out better, but as it turned out she was in no mood to smile. The shoot was unremarkable and afterward, Julia rewarded herself by getting her grumpies out (in her diaper).

4) Elise was particularly defiant during the photo shoot....wanting to everything but behave. This is becoming increasingly common in our house. It's "my way or the highway." Everyone says twos are terrible, but I think three is going to be much worse.

5) We came back to The Picture People after an hour to review our proofs. As we suspected, we weren't overly excited about the options. And wouldn't you know it, you can't get 2-5x7s on a sheet....their 5x7 sheet is a combo that comes with 8 wallets. No good for us, as we need 8-5x7s for our family. That means we have a ton of wallets that we won't have a use for. And if that isn't bad enough, when the pictures were developed, all of the 5x7s were off center. So they are reprinting them at their expense and let us keep all of the bad sheets (with all of the wallets that we don't need). We ended up spending about twice as much money as we had hoped for pictures that we don't particularly like.

6) On our way home, Elise said "Daddy, Julia looks funny!" We turned around to find Julia completely slumped over in her car seat....no seat belt on! Good big sister, bad parents!

7) Elise didn't get a nap. Enough said there.

8) We were off to church at 4:30. Paul sat in the "live video feed" room with Julia where she was all smiles (go figure). Elise and I went to the Climber Room. This has been an ongoing struggle for us....Elise not wanting to go play in her classroom, so we thought it might help if I were in the room with her to ease her back into the swing of things. Good intentions....bad luck. With not more than 5 minutes left of the service, a little boy sunk his full set of teeth into Elise's chubby arm, sending her screaming bloody-murder and leaving a perfect dental impression and bruise. I'm guessing Elise will not want to return again.

9) You would think we learned our lesson from #6 and yet on our way home from church Elise once again reports to us from the back seat that Julia doesn't have her seat belt on, AGAIN! Oh, the shame! Please pray for Julia's safety....

It's 9:30p and the house is quiet. We're hoping tomorrow is a much better day!