What A Freaking Day

Thing One and Thing Two both had away travel soccer games today.  (Way, WAY away.)  Then Thing One had soccer practice back at one of their more local practice facilities this evening, and don't ask me why they would have practice and a game on the same day--I have no idea.  Apparently to make the parents insane.

Add to this the following two critical pieces of information:

1) Himself is in Texas this weekend (= not available for chauffeuring purposes), and
2) It was 45 degrees and raining sideways all day

and you have the recipe for one very crazy Mama.  

Got up this morning, packed up lunches and snacks, umbrellas, uniforms, practice gear, gloves, sports goggles, dry towels, changes of clothes for all kids, bags for wet laundry, toys, games and books (plus a meal for the dog) and loaded the car with all of the above plus kids and dog.  Dropped the dog off at the sitter's and fired up the phone GPS for the first game location, which is about an hour from home.  En route, while on a major, unfamiliar highway in traffic in the pouring rain, I got a phone error message I've never seen before (invalid SIM card???) and the GPS crashed!  Lovely.  Had to reboot the phone and reenter the destination while en route.  Finally got to game site, set Petunia and Thing Two up in the back of the car with games to keep them dry and entertained, and stood out in the rain for an hour to watch Thing One's game, feeding the two younger ones lunch during halftime.

Game over, Thing One changed clothes in the back of the car and then ate his lunch on the way to Thing Two's game, another 45 minutes of unfamiliar roads (thank you, MapQuest) away.  By this time, the rain had become a downpour: who makes eight year-olds play in that kind of weather??  The fields for both games were turf, so game on except for snow and lightning, I guess.  Stood out in the rain for another hour watching a bunch of shivering second graders who really did NOT want to be playing.  Can't say that I blamed them.

Then back in the car, Thing Two sitting on towels because it was too wet out for him to even try to change out of his sodden gear.  (Note that Petunia had been in the car for about six straight hours by this point, between driving time and game time.)  Fire up the GPS yet again, this time for the practice facility: another hour on the road.  Quick change of clothes for Thing One and off to practice, while the rest of us finally got Thing Two out of his wet clothes and then grabbed a quick hamburger for dinner (and takeout for Thing One.)  Last stop: dog sitter's to grab the mutt, then home for showers.  Total time from walking out the door to walking in the door--8 and a half hours!!  And oh...the LAUNDRY.  :(

On the bright side, everything went according to plan, the kids really did behave remarkably well, and I managed to get everyone to where they needed to be when they needed to be there with all the right equipment and full bellies.  The planning and multitasking skills of a general, I'm telling you!