The morning so far...

Seriously? I am on the verge of a nervous break-down and I blame my one-year-old. My kids have all done some naughty things at this age...but she has really out-done herself these last few hours.

I got up this morning already knowing it would be a slightly stressful/busy day. We are having people over for dinner tonight - my house is a mess, I am totally unprepared, and I have to teach piano lessons this afternoon so that'll be a big chunk of the day.

I got up, got myself sort-of dressed, got all the girls ready, and we headed out to take Emmie and her friend to preschool.

When we got home, I was getting a drink of water and Hayden was rummaging around in my purse. Before I knew it, she'd found a makeup compact and thrown it at the wall. It shattered, so I was cleaning up bits of plastic and makeup from the wall and floor.

I went upstairs for a much-needed shower, and Hayden tagged along as she usually does. I heard her pounding around in my bathtub, which isn't that unusual. She often plays with a squirt bottle in there and pretends she's "cleaning". When I got out of the shower, it was to find her and the bathtub covered in hot pink nail polish. She'd pounded it on the side of the tub until it cracked. So, first I scrubbed her with nail polish remover and then gave her a mini-bath, then shoved her angrily out my door while I dealt with scrubbing the tub.

Needless to say I was panicked at this point - just hoping to get dressed and get some makeup on before having to go back to the preschool to pick up the kids. I knew dry hair would be pushing it.

So I put a show on for the two kids, and shut myself in my room to see what I could accomplish in about 15 minutes.

When I was ready I rushed downstairs to load the girls in the car and go get Emmie and her friend at preschool. What I found was Hayden, in her second outfit of the day, soaked from head-to-toe, along with a flooded kitchen. I forgot to lock the water dispenser on our fridge and she apparently just held it down for....most of the time I was upstairs. So I ran her upstairs to at least get her out of her soaked clothes and into outfit number THREE, and dashed out the door, leaving the kitchen a complete nightmare.

When I got home from picking up the kids, I also found the she had undecorated the bottom half of our Christmas tree and shattered three ornaments. That is also waiting to be dealt with.

Right now she is trapped in her highchair, and I have decided she will be there or in her crib for the rest of the day. It's for her own protection, because I'm about two seconds away from losing it.

The best part is that I'm sitting here blogging instead of dealing with the multiple disasters. It's better than crying, right? Although I'm still not ruling that out...