Go big or go home.

I did this. I made The Boy look like he has mange. It's just been that kind of day.

I had such high hopes for today. I had beautiful plans charted for school, for losing weight, for starting over with the new year. Today was the day I would become a Better Person. And I started off all right--I got out of bed early and made a delicious healthy breakfast for my husband (because that's what Better Persons do). We encouraged all of the children out of bed with soft music and cheery Monday voices and waited patiently as one of the girls stood in the middle of the RV staring at the refrigerator without any shoes on. My husband checked our frozen water pipes and the children slowly poured themselves into the van and even more slowly settled into their car seats and seat belts, and we were suddenly ten minutes late for his commute. And that's when everything started to go terribly wrong.

We ended up at a foreign metro station an hour later. Alan carefully explained how to get home (it was really simple--two rights and a left. Or was that two lefts and a right?) and I carefully listened, filing away the directions in the part of my mind that failed orienteering. I carefully, carefully! followed the directions--and found myself in an unfamiliar part of DC. Three hours later, after a quick jaunt into Virginia and across the Potomac (which is choked with ice, by the way) and back, we were home. Only I had lost my lovely attitude and had stopped at a McDonald's (granted, it was around 10:30--I figured the kids had been in the car for three and a half hours and deserved some sustenance before they started dying of famine all around me. On second thought, that might have alleviated some of the fighting in the back seat. McDonald's is of course, the antithesis to the Whole Food Healthy Eating Lifestyle that we had commenced . . . today). Of course, one kid threw up all over the middle seat. She very thoughtfully moved the books at her feet before throwing up--small mercies.

Back home again, we started Science Month, a month-long foray into the joys of science. Carefully, but flexibly planned, I had found websites, planned experiments, and maybe even some mentors for the kids. I was excited--yesterday. By 11:00 this morning, I was just frustrated. Mandatory math and mandatory clean-up caused contention. Nasty looks and dark thoughts abounded through our small space, slightly alleviated by some computer time for science.

Later, I gave my husband a haircut, trying to be careful (really). His hair now recedes about two inches more on the left side than on the right. Brigham then hopped in the chair and I gave him a haircut--I was all but done (with a really excellent haircut) when the no. 3 attachment popped off the clippers and I shaved a nice chunk of hair right at the top of his head. No hiding it, or getting around it--I had to shave his whole head.

You know the saying "Go big or go home?" Today I just wanted to go home--instead I made spectacular mistake after spectacular mistake. Looking at that poor mangy haircut--I was finally ready to laugh. What a great day to pop in the old memory file!