If you must know, it was the barrel jeans' fault.

 If you must know, it was the barrel jeans' fault. 

And! What the hell is even up with barrel jeans anyway? Like, are they really a trend, or is somebody just messing with us? WHY DO I WANT MY LEGS TO LOOK LIKE BARRELS?

I was scrolling Instagram on the way to my car yesterday after I taught my criticism class and watched a TA teach a section of public speaking, and I saw a super cute influencer I follow talking about Target barrel jeans being restocked and to size down. I clicked through her links to the jeans in question and immediately ordered them for pick up (in green and pink).

I had a TON of stuff to do when I got home, but of course, the FIRST THING I did was try on my jeans, WHICH WERE HUGE.

I feel like every single influencer hocking cheap clothes says to SIZE DOWN, but I never take them seriously because they are so tiny and the clothes are so cheap. Anyway, if you buy these jeans (and I kind of think you should because 20 bucks to try a trend is Not Bad-- I understand Target is not for everyone right now), SIZE DOWN.

So, next, instead of ALL OF THE WORK staring at me and ALL OF THE HOUSEHOLD maintenance tasks, I went to a different Target to return the jeans and buy smaller ones. Only! That Target didn't have smaller green jeans, so I ended up with these as well as the pinks. Then, of course, I had to try them on and think very seriously about all the outfits I could make with them.

And then! Before I knew it! The pick-up, drop-off, snack-prep onslaught slaughtered  me. I snagged Minnie, got her ready for jazz and acro, and loaded up Cooper's dive bag, Dorothy's dance bag (both of which needed to be stocked with some clothes, etc), Dorothy's snack, Coop's bento, Minnie's snack, and a snack for Jack who was slated to be in loco parentis during the dance class change up. Then Minnie and I collected Dorothy and Cooper from their school, battled through traffic to the dance studio, and unloaded Dorothy and Minnie, barely even idling in the parking lot long enough to kick them out of the car. Next up, a slog to campus that was like swimming in very honky, stressful applesauce. It is a 6 mile drive that takes about 25 minutes. When we were almost to the gym where Cooper dives, I got a text that the kid he rides home with on Tuesdays was not going to be at practice, so someone (SOMEONE IS ME) would have to battle BACK to campus and pick Coop up in just 2.5 short hours.

At this point, I should have just flipped a bitch and taken Cooper back to the dance studio with me to wait out acro and tap class and bring everyone home to the taco dinner Ben prepped for us. But! The drive to campus was so arduous that I dropped him off anyway.

I called Jack on my way back to the dance studio to tell him he was off the parenting hook since I would juuuust barely be back to help Minnie switch classes (FORTY FIVE GD MINUTES TO CAMPUS AND BACK FROM DANCE OH THE HUMANITY), and I spent a really pleasant 45 minutes during acro and tap reading Katabasis. But I SHOULD HAVE BROUGHT the Chromebook I use to do my adjunct online teaching-- and would have, had I known there was no carpool.

After class is when I made my next mistake. It was 6:20-ish, and Cooper gets picked up at 7:30. I should have taken the girls through a drive through and gone straight back to campus to wait for him or even snag him a little early before dry land practice. Instead, I took them home for dinner. And realized once I got there that I would only have 20 freaking minutes before I needed to GO BACK TO CAMPUS OMFG.

Sooooooooo there I was at 11:30 STILL WORKING on the couch after doing a TON if cleaning up and putting Minnie to bed late (8:15 instead of 7:45, not bad considering I was still driving across town for like the 6th freaking time when she would usually go to bed, and she was dancing to Opalite with Dorothy while Jack played video games). 

TERRIBLE TUESDAY YOU GUYS. (For me. The kids had fun).

Next week, Jack is going to have to miss crew entirely and drive Coop to practice. If his teammate is not there, I will FOR SURE grab fast food and take the girls to pick him up.

AND ALSO. I am going to do my work first and save the ridiculous side trips for spare time just in case there doesn't end up even being any spare time and I am pretty sure there was a childhood fable or two about this very thing. Gah.

The day started out SO WELL. Ben and I ran together before he left for Peoria. Jack got his official Bradley acceptance packet in the mail. I had time to walk the big kids to the bus (Coop is taller than me) AND look cute before I went to work. AND THEN THE BARREL JEANS HAPPENED. It really is all their fault.