You know the hot date with your husband isn’t getting off on the right foot when you’re doing u-turns and on the phone with 4-1-1 trying to find the restaurant.

annoyed and saying things like “Goddammit, Erin” and I’m desperately trying to make lame jokes in an attempt to relieve the tension. You know, only to further annoy the husband.
We had babysitters. We had showers. (what? Sometimes that’s harder than it seems with two kids) and we had an anniversary gift of cold hard cash to fund our night of kidless debauchery.

But we couldn’t find the fucking restaurant.

Of course it was exactly where we thought it was and we had passed it several times, but when it comes to hidden Italian places in Suburbia that have changed their name and tucked themselves into the only corner of a strip mall not visible to those living in this town for the past 7 years, people are bound to be late.

And after some calamari and wine, I begin to push the kids and the, “I wonder if the baby tried that stair jump thing she does when I’m standing in front of her with her grandma and has cracked her head open, because I forgot to warn grandma that she sometimes jumps from that one, particular stair? thoughts out of my head.

And I relax.

Mostly.

Then came the martini bar, and two grey goose with blue cheese olives, and I’m actually hitting up the owner of the place up for his babysitter info.

I’m so sad.

I can’t get out for one night with my husband and just relax. No. I have to get drunk and pester the barkeep about where he found his really good babysitter that he takes on vacation with him and oh, can I have her number, and you pay her how much? Cool and let’s exchange info and yeah, we’ll have one more drink so you can tell me more about your babysitter!

I suck.

I think when the baby weans (whenever that is) the Kaiser and I should take a short vacation. But that thought already has me feeling guilty.

I. Can’t. Shut. Off. The. Mom.

I’m sitting at the kitchen table on my new laptop, as my children shriek on either side of me. I turn to “shush” them both, and I am mocked. Mocked.

“Shush!” I say, holding a finger to my lips. “Daddy is still sleeping!”

“Shush!” says the baby, holding a finger to her lips and laughing, hysterically.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!” she screams, in the way only baby girls can scream. The way that actually calls dogs from blocks away and shatters what is left of your right eardrum.

“Shush!” she says, once she stops the shriek. Putting a finger to her lip and again, laughing hysterically. Adding to the fun, her brother senses the pattern and joins in.

Great. A new game. Not the way I intended to start the morning.

On top of the entertaining and mind numbing scream and shush game, I’m cleaning up two plates of NOT eaten scrambled eggs. The ones the 3-year-old insisted he must have, over anything else, or he would simply die, right there on my wood floors. The ones I cleaned a pan to make. The ones I had to stir while I balanced a 16-month-old on my hip and quieted the dying 3-year-old on the wood floor with “just another minute…they are almost ready.”

Did I mention my coffee maker is broken? Big old crack in the glass bottom of the pot. So I’m trying to settle for tea. Tea. Motherfreaking tea. Where is Mocha when I need her?

But morning will eventually become afternoon. And there will be a nap, if I have to resort to cold medicine to get there.

Shut up. My kids actually have the sniffles AND I could make a case that they need Benadryl. And Mommy has important news to share later today, so I need the quiet blogging time.

All that bitching I do? Turns out I’ve got backup.

Stay tuned. The Queen fights for good and squashes evil, while she shaves her poon and blows her hubby. I’m a multitasker, what can I say.