I must be doing this wrong

Last week, even more than usual, was hectic at work. I was at my desk before 6 a.m. on Monday finishing a brief.

On Tuesday, I got up early and got myself ready, got the kids fed, dressed, shod, powdered and lipsticked (or something like that -- it was stupid early), dropped them off at the appropriate centers of early childhood education, broke a few laws of both physics and the state in order to get to work in time for a meeting, performed the requisite gymnastics at said meeting, went directly to another meeting and remained entangled there until nearly 2 pm without a break for any of life's necessities, including but not limited to answering my incessantly buzzing phone.

When the meeting finally ended and I was able to attend to the Cursed Device, it informed me that my daughter's preschool had been desperately trying to get a hold of me because she was running a fever and needed to be picked up. By the time I called Atomic, he had already taken the bus halfway across town, picked her up, and tucked her into bed for a much needed nap.

I then made the innocent mistake of walking away from my desk for just a minute to attend to another one of the aforementioned necessities. When I returned, there was a message from my son's daycare saying that he, too, needed to be picked up due to fever and vomiting, thankyouverymuch. As I grabbed for the phone it rang -- dear, reliable Atomic again. He was on his way to pick up Dylan on foot while his guitar student (an old friend and father of two) hung out on our couch watching "Wonder Pets" with Gabby.

Half an hour later I screeched into the garage, grabbed the bottles of Pedialyte and jars of applesauce I'd purchased on the way home, and flew up the stairs.

"Hi, Mommy!" shouted my apparently unperturbed, fever-free darling. "We're playing dress-up. Dylan is Cinderella, I'm Rudolph, and you can be the Big Bad Wolf, okay?"

"App-pull!" added my content, non-barfing boy. "Bubb-bull!"

For the rest of the afternoon I multitasked, which was made easier by the fact that the role of the Big Bad Wolf was appropriate both for Gabby's dress-up game and the rapid-fire emails I was exchanging with opposing counsel. Although I can't recall specifically, I'm pretty sure I stopped short of threatening to huff and puff and blow his case down.

I saved that for the following day.

The rest of the week was a blur, punctuated by recurrent stomach ailments, looming (and, fortunately, postponed) deadlines, general whining (my own, mostly), moments of delight, that bzzbzzbzz noise my phone makes which I swear gets more insistent sounding when someone is really trying hard to reach me, and oh yeah, Atomic's birthday.

Mama said there'd be days like this . . . no, actually, she didn't.