I learned a new recipe today. It is one I will never try again, and I urge you all never to attempt it yourselves. It is a recipe for a supremely cranky toddler.

First, you start with a 2-almost-3-year old who is at the height of that age’s notorious crotchety phase. Then you add a trip to Target followed by an hour of swim lessons and pool time. After this, you throw in a very disappointing lunch that does not include nuggets and which happens at home instead of at Chick-Fil-A. Then you commit the outrage of trying to get the toddler to take a nap, which she will categorically refuse to do.

Up to this point, you could still salvage your sloppy creation of a day by making wise choices. You will have to look at someone else’s blog to figure out how to do that, because wise choices are not a part of my repertoire.

Your next step is to take the tired, non-napping toddler who has had a lunch of air and pool water on more errands (because you have THINGS TO DO and if you aren’t going to get FIVE MINUTES to yourself, you might as well get SOMETHING useful done.)

So you go  to Staples and Trader Joe’s and you are amazed by how well the toddler has held herself together and you start to think that maybe your day isn’t totally screwed after all.

You get home, with five minutes to unload the car before you have to pick up your other child from school and you discover that… your toddler is asleep. You unload the car, drive to the elementary school, unload the sleeping toddler into a stroller, haul her over a muddy field, get her sister, haul her back over the muddy field,  reload her into the car and drive both your children to the dentist.

You unload your still-sleeping toddler, a child who has never in her life, not even as a newborn, slept through so many transitions, and carry her into the dentist’s office. Where she wakes up right as the hygienist is preparing to clean her teeth.

Need I say more? I mean, falling asleep and waking up at the dentist’s is pretty much a nightmare experience for anyone, even more so for a two-year-old who is at any given moment on the verge of an emotional collapse. And boy-oh-boy is she collapsing. I am actually writing with her on my lap crying because she doesn’t have the accordion her sister made out of a toilet paper roll in her hands.

I guess the best I can hope for now is an early bedtime.