Terrible. Horrible. No good. VERY Bad.

So I know you're all familiar with that classic children's book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. His day is, indeed, a very bad one, but I am pretty sure I have him beat with my day yesterday, or at least my morning.

Yesterday was benign enough in the beginning. We watched the inauguration in the morning (with Clara incessantly asking, "Where's Obama, Mommy?"), and then I figured I might as well take the kids to story time at the library. Clara pretty much lives to go to nursery on Sundays and to go to story time on Tuesdays.

About 10 minutes into story time, which was (mercifully) sparsely attended, I felt a little rumble from the baby on my lap, after which point I felt an ever-expanding pool of sticky wet warmth spreading up his back. Of course I had no change of clothes, but I figured I might as well change his diaper. I took him and Clara into the bathroom, where Clara started dragging a wooden step stool around the concrete floor, which was very noisy. I convinced her to stop by telling her to wash her hands, and then I stripped Jonathan down, only to discover that there was almost no trace of poop in his diaper and instead his back was just COVERED. And then I discovered something worse: I only had two wipes. I wiped him up as best as I could, and then I strapped him into his front carrier, where I got to absorb some of his wetness. He's good at sharing.

We went back to story time, which by this point had progressed to craft-making. I made the craft while Clara did her best to spread glue over every available surface, then I worked my way upstairs to get a few books I had on hold. Clara chose this moment to escape into the bowels of the library, so I grabbed the books and ran after her. Grabbing her hand, I pulled her out of the library and out to the car. When I let go of her hand to open the car door, she took off. I screamed at her to GET OUT OF THE STREET! THERE ARE CARS THERE! And she, duly terrified, started running back towards me. And then she tripped on the tip of her shoe and fell, face-first, into the wet gravel of the asphalt with a sickening thud. I ran over to assess the damage, and while I was wiping sand out of her mouth and checking for missing teeth, Jonathan started screaming.

I picked Clara up and heard an unfortunate popping sound from my back, but luckily nothing gave way. I plopped her into her car seat, wrestled a screaming Jonathan into his, then came around to Clara with my trusty first aid kit and proceeded to wipe down her face with an antiseptic wipe.

Finally, both of the kids stopped crying (Jonathan was asleep) and I drove home, completely on edge, wondering how that could possibly have been any worse. And then I got out of the car in our garage, went around to Clara's door, and discovered that in the furor I had completely forgotten to buckle Clara into her seat. What kind of a mother am I??

We made our way into the house, where Jeremy was mercifully having his lunch break and made quesadillas for everyone while holding a still sleeping Jonathan. So I guess that was one good thing.

Nothing truly horrible happened for the rest of the day, but suffice it to say that my nerves were completely shot. I'll be recovering from this one for awhile yet. Oh well.