Mama never told me there'd be days like these...

The novelty of the "big school" has worn off and S has officially hit his dip. I had to drag him almost the entire 1 1/2 km today; he cried every step of the way. When I dropped him off he had a complete meltdown and could not be comforted-- I left him literally kicking and screaming at the door to his class.

Spent the whole morning with M running around to exchange our lease car. Which means braving traffic on roads that can be confusing even with a GPS. M took advantage of the down time to field e-mails with his evil blackberry. It's not like I had anything to say, but I hated the fact that I probably couldn't have worked it in edgewise even if I did.

I just spent the past couple of hours "helping" S with his homework. Which basically meant sitting there, willing myself not to explode or split out of my skin and saying every 5 minutes or so very calmly: "Come on, honey, crying isn't going to help. Please concentrate so that you can get this done and go play".

It was so difficult because I felt so sorry for him, but on the other hand it's hard to remain patient and encouraging when someone keeps daydreaming and then having to rewrite each word multiple times because of careless mistakes.

S is wiped out at the end of the day and I question the wisdom of assigning so much homework to kids who are so small. My new role as a cheerleader is certainly testing my sanity-- I think that today I would have rather have had my eyelashes plucked out one by one...

We've had three different children pop by in the last hour. Two of them had a comment about how much doghair there is on our floors. Since when to 8 year old boys worry about cleanliness???!!! Who are these aliens, and why do they insist on inspecting my house? (I'm just glad they didn't notice the fruit fly infestation I've got going here...)

And as icing on the cake Barnacle Boy is back again. S and B are thrilled but I had to suppress the urge to deck him when I opened the door.

I've taken temporary refuge with a cocktail downstairs but must now surface in order to cook dinner for an acquaintance who's supposed to show up any minute. And I'm feeling anything but friendly....