Do you ever have one of those days when everything goes right, your kids do all their schoolwork brilliantly, your toddlers play quietly and clean up after themselves while the washer, dryer, and dishwasher hum efficiently in the background–in essence, your home operates like a well-oiled machine?

I didn’t think so.

On the home front so far today (okay, so it was yesterday ’cause I didn’t finish this until now):

I grade a paper where “wouln’t” is listed as the contraction for “will not.”

An algebra lesson develops into a conversation in which I try to enter the mind of a 16-year-old boy and said 16-year-old boy tries to enter the mind of a 41-year-old woman, all unsuccessfully. My mommy radar goes off, propelling me towards my bedroom, in which (in what can only be described as a fit of insanity) I have allowed the toddler set to hang and watch Clifford, supposedly allowing peace and quiet for the algebra lesson. Engrossed in the antics of The Big Red Dog, no one notices my 21-month old daughter has poured half a bottle of baby oil into the carpet.

After a frantic Google search for “removing baby oil from carpet”–which yields lots of suggestions for using baby oil to remove stains from other things but only two useful suggestions for removing baby oil–I pour copious amounts of baking soda and baby powder on the carpet and scrub it with a brush, then attack it with my handy steam cleaner.

When I emerge from my carpet-cleaning frenzy, I discover that the younger kids have taken advantage of me and are in the middle of the street, and my older son has gone to his room with no expectation of algebra lessons in the near future.

What to do? Cook. So I start slicing and dicing and fill the crock pot with chili, because I have to actually accomplish something today, right?

My 16-year-old son and I do eventually reconnect (actually he and my 7-year-old daughter chopped the onions for the chili, then held wet paper towels on their stinging eyes) with a pop quiz in Russian [Here I was actually quite pleased, because I am never clever enough to come up with things like pop quizzes. I have a Cyrillic font, but I can’t imagine attempting to type with it, so I wrote on the dry erase board; then I wondered if I should take a picture of the quiz as the only way to record it. . . ?] and eventually we get to algebra. I’m thinking Mr. Demme would not have been particularly impressed with my teaching today, but at least we did it.

I guess I’ll stop rambling. I’ll bet you’re feeling really good about your day now. Glad I could help.