Warning: Contains Barf

I'm wiped out. Today the kiddo and I went to church and treated ourselves to breakfast afterward. That was nice. Upon returning home, however, we discovered that Slider had pooped in his crate. I took the crate outside to be washed, took the dog upstairs to be washed, washed the dog and just when I thought the situation was under control...he barfed on the floor. Okay. Cleaned up the barf, watched him for a while, decided he was fine, let him sit on the kiddo's lap on the couch...and he projectile vomited across the couch and the kiddo's backpack. Things fell into slow motion for me at that point, and I actually tried to catch the barf in my hands to protect the couch. Of course, I failed miserably and just wound up covered in dog vomit.

Oh, and did I mention we were trying to get out the door to get to the kiddo's baseball game on time, and I still hadn't looked up the directions?

The kiddo started crying and wailing about the possibility that the backpack's contents were covered with vomit. I tethered the dog outside in case he had another episode, cleaned up everything as well as I could, then went upstairs to change my clothes...and heard my computer making a funny whirring/whining noise.

That's never good.

I changed my clothes and tried to fix the computer. However, the machine wouldn't display my desktop photo and gave me a plain background. I rebooted and took .25mg of Xanax because I was starting to hyperventilate. Then I called the kiddo's dad and the team mom to tell them we would be late to the game.

The system rebooted, minus the desktop display function, but at least I had icons and otherwise normal function (I hope, I hope), so I looked up the directions to the ballpark. Several times during this process, I had to send the kiddo downstairs so I could take a few deep breaths and tell myself everything would be fine one way or another, and that nothing that was happening was life-threatening. Perspective is a great thing and I hope to get a little bit someday. ;^)

Anyway, I crated the auxiliary dog and took the barf-dog with us to the game, although I knew the park probably didn't allow dogs. His crate was still in need of washing, and I couldn't see leaving him loose at home to trash the house.

Then I got lost on the way to the game. The kiddo was working to keep it together, telling me "It must be so frustrating, huh, Mom?" and trying to be sympathetic. Then when I apologized to him for how crummy everything was going at the moment, he told me he was trying hard not to cry. I was, too.

After several wrong turns, we arrived at the game about 30 minutes late, we found the kiddo's dad, and the kiddo was able to jump right in and start playing. I took the dog to a non-park area to pee, and wrapped his leash around my hand several times to shorten it. I wasn't going to take a chance on his finding the side of someone's lawn chair to pee on.

A bunch of little kids rushed over to pet the dog, then thought it would be fun to bop him on the head, so I relocated to a shady spot (it was hotter than snot today) where we could stand away from everyone else. While we were there, a park worker came over to tell me that dogs aren't allowed in the park. I didn't want to go into detail on why I'd brought the dog along, but I told her it was too hot to leave him in the car and I was keeping him on a short leash so he wouldn't get into trouble. Nevertheless, she asked me to move, so I found a shady spot by the other team's dugout and held the dog on my lap as I sat at a picnic table and watched the game. I just didn't have it in me at the time to argue with a park worker with imaginary authority.

The band of little kids (ages three and four) once again rushed over to bop the dog on the head, so I redirected them to collect rocks so they could build a tower. The dog was excited by this, so he did a flip off my lap and landed flat on his back on the concrete. He's still skinny and has no extra padding, so he made a nice thwack when he hit the ground. I scooped him up and rubbed his back for a while, and he seemed happy to sit still after that, poor baby. The kids gathered around to talk about the dog's boo-boo and show me every boo-boo they had. Then one of them decided to sit on the picnic table, started to topple over, and grabbed my hair to keep from falling off the tabletop. A dad sitting close by grabbed the kid's leg and we both hauled the kid off the table. Another kid thought that all looked like fun and started to climb onto the table, but we put the kibosh on that.

When the game was over (amazingly, I did get to see a lot of the game; the kiddo got a couple of good hits and also made a nifty play at first base), the kiddo's dad and I took the kiddo to lunch. The kiddo's dad had run a 10k earlier in the day, so he eventually left to take a nap, and the kiddo, dog and I went to W*l-M*rt to buy CDs for my computer backup and rug/upholstery cleaner for the house. The kiddo sat in the cart and held the dog on his lap, which got a few looks from some people, but worked out great.

Back home, the virus scan was complete and the system was ready to back up, so I popped a disc in the drive and waited. Thank goodness the thing worked. I feel better now, in case the machine goes belly up. Still no desktop image, though.

(Oh, and on our garage door we did discover an invitation that had been hand-delivered today...for our old neighbor's 65th birthday party. I guess we're good after all!)

The kiddo wanted me to lie on the bed with him and talk, so I did that for a while until the day caught up with us and we fell asleep for a bit. Around the kiddo's normal bedtime, he woke up and told me he was hungry, so I gave him his lunch leftovers and took the dogs outside. There I ran into my still-new neighbor, whose stepdad owns the unit she lives in. He has cancer. I asked how he was doing, and she said it seemed to have spread to his lymph nodes and he'd just had a port put in for chemo. She said she was scared for him, but also scared for her mom. I told her I was thinking about them a lot (I still have a hard time telling someone I'm praying for them) and hoping for the best.

And then I was thankful for my day. Not in a glorious, the-heavens-opened-and-I-was-filled-with-peace way, but in a sometimes-it-takes-a-kick-in-the-butt-to-give-me-a-little-perspective way.

I stroked my son's foot to help him fall asleep, cleaned up yet another (small) barf incident, and played a few rounds of FreeCell.

Life is pretty good.