Today was my massive day of fail.

My to do list for the day was to get my car inspected, go to HEB for milk and a few groceries, and get my tires balanced and rotated.

I called our Toyota dealership to see if they do inspections, and specifically asked if we needed an appointment. Our Toyota dealership reeks of fail. Sadly I put in a month of temp work with Gulf States Toyota, as a mystery shopper who called and evaluated their Express Lube program. So I am not making this up - our dealership fails with a capital F on all criteria I used to check for. However, they said no appointment was necessary.

First fail: I suggested Chinese food for lunch. RJ was thrilled. It took me more than 30 minutes to get us out of the house. As I was struggling to put the kids into the car, it occurred to me that I had never done a buffet with both kids, by myself. Maybe I sensed the theme of the day was "fail," because picturing trying to juggle both kids through the buffet line had me quickly backtracking. RJ was not pleased but we settled on Jack In The Box. I even had a coupon for a free sandwich with purchase of a large drink. We went through the drive thru, with T squawking his displeasure, I got everything squared away, and was feeling fairly productive already.

Second fail: I pulled into the dealership at a little before noon. I sat and waited - usually they meet you at the car. Nobody came. I accepted that I was going to have to locate someone, even though I had a sudden feeling of dread about the whole thing. I get out, get the stroller from the trunk. Unload T into the stroller and put the food into the stroller basket. The service manager is outside now, talking to another customer. I am taking my time, I go around and start working on RJ.  As he is getting out of the seat, the service guy comes to talk to me. He says "Well I am 2 people down and it's lunch time... It will be over an hour." The perky lady on the phone did not tell me the whole place shut down for lunch. My dad is a mechanic. They take lunch on shifts. Why? Because other people who work 9 to 5 drop off and pick up cars during lunch... But oh well. He suggests coming back between 3 and 5. Fine. Now we have lunch, so if I take the time to go to HEB, lunch will be cold. Defeated, I decide to take the kids home and feed RJ and then do nap time and try again.

Third fail: I start loading everyone back up. Put my large drink I had just purchased on the trunk of my car. Got RJ buckled in, got T back in his seat and buckled. Popped the trunk. Without taking my large peach iced tea off. Splat.

Fourth fail: RJ flat refused to nap. T napped, nursed, napped again. I got my exercise done, only to be robbed of a shower.

3:00 rolls around and we take 30 minutes to get ready to leave again. I decide to stop and cancel my gym membership on the way - the one I haven't used in 6 months. Which brings me to...

Fifth fail: I go to cancel my gym membership and the sly lady behind the counter talks me into keeping it. They dropped the minimum age for the child care and T can go. I don't know how I feel about it yet, but I'm going to give it a shot. So maybe that fail will work out in my favor.

I did eventually succeed in getting the car inspected and we did make our HEB run. As I was working through the produce section, RJ in the cart and T in the sling on my hip, another mom stopped me and told me "You are awesome!" All I could do was laugh and tell her how not awesome I felt. Then I went on my way and picked out fresh sweet potatoes to start making my first batch of baby food. Maybe I won't fail there ;)

Sometimes as a mom, my whole day feels like I should get a big fat F. Yet I sit here and look at my gorgeous, content baby. I think back to RJ easily remembering his sight words and already helping me read our book for the week. Ya know, maybe I am more awesome in my failure than I thought! Happy, healthy kids are my main goal and so far, so good!