Dear 2009,

You are not wowing me. At all.

This morning, Hayden decided to squeeze a Toaster Strudel into his hair about 5 minutes before we had to leave for preschool. After I got him in the shower and de-jellied, we headed out to the car. Claire decided to run in the snow, fell face down (graceful, she is not), and soaked her jeans. I ran her back inside, changed her pants ("They don't match!!"..."Too bad!"), and got the kids back in the car. We were 45 minutes late (and oddly, Claire was the first one in her class to get there, so perhaps 2009 is also sucking for lots of my fellow parents?).

That's not a wildly atypical morning for us, but then this afternoon, on the way out the door to pick Claire up from preschool, Riley had an incident. I'm about to share too much, so if you have a weak stomach or just ate, skip ahead to the next paragraph. My dogs eat poop. Love it. It's a delicacy. It's pretty much a winter thing, and we call them "poopsicles." Clever, huh? These poopsicles don't agree with Riley. Thus "the incident." Words were spoken that I will blame on Justin's influence if the children repeat. I got the necessary cleaning products from under the sink and while I was cleaning I heard a strange noise behind me. I turned around. Nothing but Hayden looking sweet and innocent (that should have been a clue). I heard the noise again and turn around. Hayden again. Hmmm. Turned around again quickly....Hayden was hiding a bottle of Pledge behind his back. Apparently he'd been spraying the back of my jacket with it. "Mommy, I cleaning your coat!" he told me quite proudly. Once again, we were late to the preschool, only this time for pickup.

Claire's teachers are familiar with the antics that seem to be isolated to my family (we were late her first day because she locked herself in the bathroom and the second day because she got one of Hayden's trains stuck in her hair), and they got a good laugh out of my day before telling me that Claire has been complaining about her ear all morning. So I'm off to the doctor's office with all three little munchkins this afternoon and with the way my day is going, we'll all catch some sort of flesh-eating bacteria.

2009, let's be friends.