When Harry was little and I'd ask him to tell me about his day he'd answer simply, "My day." At the time I wasn't sure if it was a sign of profound understanding of the human condition or a developmental delay. Now I'm leaning towards the former rather than the later, based on my own day which was, clearly, a day.

Departmental retreat which was just weird, thanks to a mix of two strong personalities being on sabbatical, one member leaving in a weak for prostrate cancer surgery (nothing awkward about *that* you know), and looming budget shortfalls. The whole thing ended on a wicked negative note with my business manager looking like she wanted to rip my head off.

Harry had a horrible drop off which culminated in him sobbing in the back seat while I tried to pry him out of the car. It was truly a lovely parenting moment that looked something like this: "Mama!" sob "I don't want to go to school! I hate school!" Wail! "I want to stay with you! Mama don't leave me here!" Now imagine those words while I'm trying to get him out of the car and into the building since the bell had already rung and he was late and I was late...You get the picture. I'm *certain* that the mother of the year people are going to be *all over me* once word gets around.

Now I've got to get dinner going. Get kids fed. Get kids washed. Pack lunches, put kids to bed...the hits just keep on coming....

Reasons why I think I'm a good mom right now:

1. I waited until 11:30 yesterday morning to really crack the Harry Potter I'd gotten from the library at 10:00.
2. I took the kids upstairs to the kid's section at the library and got their books first- then picked up the aforementioned Harry Potter.
3. We had a picnic yesterday and went to the park (with that same HP in the car while I did a duel swing pushing that I *think* may have qualified as an Olympic event.)
4. Last night Harry switched from his normal "I want to thank God for video games/ Monster Trucks/ Figure 8 Trailer Racing" to "I want to thank God for our nice warm house, our nice neighbors, and all the people who love us" *totally* without prompting.
5. We're leaving for the beach tomorrow for 4 days of camping.

Reasons why I'm a bad mom today.
1. Everyone under the age of 7 has cried nonstop all day due, from my perspective, to the intensive maternal neglect perpetrated by my from 11:30 yesterday (see #1 above) until 2:30 this morning.
2. The kids watched tv this morning instead of getting outside to play in the *gorgeous* weather because I stayed up until 2:30 this morning.
3. I napped on the sofa, sort of, while the kids watched too much TV.
4. At nap time, I left Molly to cry herself to sleep in her bed because she wouldn't stop crying no matter what I did and I just couldn't deal.


I guess so long as the score is 5/4 for Good Mom, I'm still in the clear. Bad mom's only 1 game out though, so I'm going to have to dig deep tomorrow.

By the way, for those playing along at home, my current Candidate-O-Rama total is 25 points right now, thanks to the Obama, Hilary, and Dodd staffers who have been lurking in the neighborhood. I've been struggling with whether or not to include parade interactions, but I think...no. It would just be too easy to rack up the points.