OK Universe, it's not funny anymore

Ron left on Saturday for a week of research in England, which is great because he so seldom takes any time for himself. Ordinarily things run very smoothly in his absence, or despite his absence, but this week (and it's only Tuesday), that has not been the case.

On Sunday the garage door malfunctioned and wouldn't close. We had to leave it open while we were gone to church and lunch for 4 hours, but thankfully the rest seems to have healed it. Later on, while the kids and I were playing a game, the dog escaped from the fenced backyard and spent an hour or so out in the dark doing who knows what, probably hanging with the wrong crowd and smoking clove cigarettes, before scratching at the front door. Annamarie's cold turned into an awful deep chest cough. I kept her home from school to take her to the doctor, where she was diagnosed with pneumonia. We went off to the pharmacy with two prescriptions for her and one for Thomas' ADHD meds. We only had two of those pills left, and seriously, we'd rather run out of air to breathe. After waiting a hundred years or so at CVS, they informed us that they couldn't fill the ADHD prescription because the doctor hadn't signed it. (Controlled narcotic substance, blah blah blah.) We made the 40-minute round trip back to the pediatrician and yet another visit to CVS.

I kept Annamarie home again today, although her cough is much improved. Anyone who knows me knows how deeply I adore Annamarie, but spending 24 hours a day with her is just exhausting. She talks nonstop and asks the same questions over and over. And over. When she takes a bath, she talks to her imaginary friends Stephanie and Isabel, telling them the same things she's told me all day.

So 4:30 rolled around and I decided to leave a little early to get Thomas at soccer practice because I am always screeching in 5 minutes late. On the way, I tried to call Ron in London from my cell phone but apparently you have to spend 20 minutes with customer service to get your phone set up to make international calls. I was able to do that without driving unsafely because of the accident that had me completely trapped at a standstill for the next 45 minutes. I was within 100 yards of my exit, naturally, but couldn't get there. When I picked Thomas up half an hour late, his ears were "killing him". After a stop at Wendy's, we spent 90 minutes at the Urgent Care Center and another 45 at CVS, where they now recognize me.

We finally got home at 8:45 and in my usual patient and nurturing style, I hollered at Thomas because the constant whining for three hours had drilled all the way through my skull. But they're in bed now, all dosed up, and they're going to school tomorrow unless blood is shooting out of someone's eyes. Crap, I shouldn't have said that.

So now my question is, do you think it's a bad week to try to color my own hair?