I had a totally crappy morning today. The First Lady screamed for an hour and a half, after hours of being unable to fall asleep on her own or stay asleep once I put her down. Captain Jelly Belly was uber-cranky and while the baby was screaming, took the opportunity to throw stuff around, climb up the stairs that he’s supposed to be staying off of, and cry when I wouldn’t let him watch TV.

After lunch the First Lady had a huge poop in her crib that covered everything, and was happy again. After I gave her a bath, put all the poopy stuff in the laundry, and settled the Captain down for a nap, I finally had a chance to call my friend Andrea, who was supposed to come over this morning but I never got around to calling her, as if she wanted to be here for all the screaming anyway.

So I was explaining why I didn’t call her, and she said, “I don’t know how you do it — you make it look so easy!” And I laughed, because clearly she missed the part of the morning where I considered slipping both kids some Nyquil so I could get a half hour of peace to sob on the couch while eating ice cream and watching The Price Is Right. But it also amazed me because I think *she* makes it look so easy — she has two kids the same ages as mine, but her older son is quite a bit more, shall we say, *active* than my son, and I could never cope with the constant need for supervision, time outs, and mess-cleanup.

So I guess when it’s your own situation, you find a way to deal, and someone else’s different situation always seems harder because you have nothing in your bag of tricks for that one. Huh.

I feel alive with life wisdom! Someday I’ll tell my kids this anecdote many, many times over and drive them bonkers.

Have you seen Singles?