Cool down, cow poke.

 Like Dorothy in the above picture, I have had the kind of day that just makes me want to snarl.

Ben and I had a stupid fight this morning where we were both passionately entrenched in our positions AND totally sure that the other person was a stupid baby over-reactor.

Then I had to run errands with both Dorothy and Cooper because Cooper didn't have school today (conferences) and take Beatrix to get a bath.  Then we had to go to a million-hour opera (it was 45 minutes) at the kids' school because Harry was one of 15 kids on the stage (and then there were more kids on a riser and then the rest-- like Jack-- sat in the audience, some in costume (like Jack), and he guilted me into going even though I knew I would have to kid-wrangle the WHOLE TIME.  Then we went to the library and had to leave abruptly after Dorothy PUNCHED A KID IN THE FACE.  To be fair, the hovering share-police moms at the train table made me want to punch someone, too, but we can't hit our friends. (But he's not my friend, she told me, which I KNOW).  In short, the library freaking sucks and why don't my kids want to play with their trains at home?  Why is it just the cold and flu season commie library trains that look cool?  Also, NEVER LET YOUR KIDS BRING THEIR OWN TOYS TO THE LIBRARY because other kids will want to play with them-- or in Dorothy's case will look too closely at them (seriously-- the kid she socked was looking at Stuffy Tuffy like he might want to take them (Stuffy has a fluid gender identity)).

To cheer myself up, looked at these pics of us celebrating a Cubs win on Saturday:

 (the first thing the boys did was email their Brewer-loving friends to gloat)

 5-year-old hockey is the CUTEST HOCKEY.

 Dorothy is cool with our return to hockey as long as she can accessorize with woodland creatures-- wait til you see her Halloween costume.

 HE WAS SO SWEATY when he came off the ice.  My kids NEVER get sweaty at sportsball (ha!  they get their try-hard genes from me, obvi), but they sweat buckets at hockey.

 Cooper also had a pool party for one of his friends yesterday.  He got out of the water approximately 64 times to tell me that he was hungry and then ate 5 pieces of pizza.  Ok then.

 Dressed for the opera.  Dorothy kept asking why Jack was wearing his toy.  HA HA HA (but she didn't notice that Harry was, too??)

 Cooper schlepped all of Dorothy's shit across the street and then she walked in the door of the school office where I was signing us in for the show and insisted he hold her coat (I don't have anymore hands, he said.  Just put it on the carseat she said, draping it over all the other stuff she already made him carry) so she could scamper onto a chair and look at the dirt hole where our house would somewhere be on the framed photo of the school when it was first built.

 You can see Harry because he's the only kid in a coon skin cap.  The best part of the whole show was when the elixir saleslady said to the love-sick male lead, "Cool down, cow poke."  I immediately started saying that to Cooper and Dorothy, much to their chagrin.

 A minute after I took this pic they both fell out of their chairs and started crying.  Best audience EVAR.