My day started with Amy refusing to bathe or take her nap. Knowing she would be trouble, I loaded her in the car and went to pick Noah up from school. Despite my notes with times that would enable this carefully orchestrated afternoon to flow, Noah had gone to the playground instead of the office at his designated pick-up time. Running 10 minutes late, we headed to check Sarah out of school. Sarah was waiting patiently in the office (thank you Sarah). Doug decided I was sounding a bit, umm, strung out, so he picked up Tommy and took him to the dentist (thank you Doug). We arrived at the dentist and Sarah griped at me because we were 10 minutes early. Three children went back for cleaning and x-rays. Two children came out. The hygienest explained that out of all those teeth we had only one cavity (sorry Noah). Sarah tried to coax Tommy out. Noah tried to coax Tommy out. The hygienest let Tommy take an extra trinket and Tommy finally came out. On the way to the car the sibling squabbling began. I foolishly stopped at a party store to try one last time to talk Amy into wearing a costume. Not only did she scream “no” to every costume I held up, she thought running in the store would be fun. At that point Sarah cornered her, I scooped her up and we all went to the car, Amy screaming in anger the entire way. Now I’m trying to decide between running errands while Doug stays home with the children or collapsing on the couch for an hour.