“Not Me Monday” answers the question: “Soooo, really. How was your week?”

There’s your “blog week”–sharing future goals, cute pictures, funny stories. And there’s your week. Your actual, down-to-earth, real-life week.

You know what I mean.

Tuesday was enough drama to fill an entire week! It was supposed to be low-key: A trip to the mall to return clothes I had purchased for Micah to potentially wear to my sister’s wedding. (Of course, I would never wait till the week before the receipt expires to return something. Not me. Just like I would never wait till the gas gauge read “empty” before I filled the tank!)

Since my sister-in-law had offered to come over Tuesday morning, I thought it was a great chance to have help taking my three kids to the mall. She met us at our house and rode up with us.

I decided to take the straight-through-the-northeast route, rather than the interstate. That way we could enjoy every stoplight in the city. (I was just following Google Maps.)

During this journey, our ever-so-reliable Crown Vic began this intermittent clacking sound. As I mentioned, the sound was intermittent. So every time I thought I heard it, I would stop and listen and then it would be gone.

When finally the clacking continued long enough for me to be sure it wasn’t just something in head, my first thought was, “Oh, no! We’re out of gas.” But, as luck would have it, the check-engine light came on, and I noticed the temperature gauge had suddenly shot up to the reddest section of “hot.” That meant it was more serious than running out of gas. Great.

I did need gas, so I stopped. I’d hate to compound the problem.

It was one of those pay-inside-first stations. Normally, I will get back in the car and drive to the next station. Yes, I will pay extra for the privilege of swiping my card at the pump! But today I didn’t have that luxury.

So I popped the hood to let the engine cool down–checked the coolant, looks good–went inside to pay for the gas, came back out and pumped.

I called my husband, and as close as we were to the mall, he said, if the temperature went back down and nothing else happened, to go ahead (we were almost there). The time we spent in the mall would cool the car down completely, and then we could take the interstate back, where the faster speeds could keep the engine cooler. A guy standing by the gas pumps told us if we didn’t run our AC, we would probably be fine.

So back into the car, with my sister-in-law, two toddlers, a baby. And no AC. (As my three-year-old describes it, “We were all screaming!” . . . No, honey, I think that was just the baby.) Thankfully, we were not far from the mall.

We got out of the car and began setting up: the double stroller, the single stroller with Carissa’s car seat popped inside, our bags of returns, the diaper bag. . . and as I’m bending over next to Micah in the stroller, I felt an amazing SPLAT! on my back–almost like being hit by a water balloon. But not.

It was a bird. He had left his mark on my back. In a BIG way. And on the stroller. On Micah. On my car. On our parking spot!

I was so aghast by the mere quantity of stuff that I never got a look at the creature that dropped it!

It was one of those “you just have to laugh!” moments. My sister-in-law and I just looked at each other, speechless. (And for the two of us, this was a rare moment indeed!) We burst out laughing! We really just had to laugh.

What was supposed to be a quick trip up-and-back was turning into an ridiculous ordeal!

My sister-in-law now insisted that I must buy a new shirt, before going anywhere. I agreed, though somewhat reluctantly. Part of me just wanted to go home and hide, before something actually catastrophic happened. . . Until I saw Ann Taylor was having their “40% off the clearance price” sale! And my wonderful sister-in-law bought me three shirts–for my birthday, she told me. Wow, what a “pick-me-up” for this three-pregnancies-in-four-years, I’m-still-wearing-maternity, post-partum mom! Especially after the car-overheating, bird-dropping morning. . .

We made it home. I started making dinner and found out that the “white sweet potatoes” I bought are nothing like orange yams. So I spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out what on earth you do with white sweet potatoes, since after all, that was what I had planned for dinner.

————

Later in the week, I was changing my son’s very nasty diaper. As I was changing him, he went #1 again! (That hasn’t happened during a diaper change since he was a little bitty guy, and he’s two now!)

In itself, that’s not such a big deal, but the crazy thing was that his head was cocked to the side, and as he lay there, he shot himself in the ear! It was puddling in his ear! I was incredulous. How is that even possible?!?!?! As I carried him upstairs to the bath, I found out he wasn’t finished.–Yeah, he finished all over the front of my shirt.

That was another day.

———–

Saturday I made End of the Line Ham Casserole, which is basically ham and scalloped potatoes. We were out of milk.

The car, which overheated earlier in this post, had been in the shop the day I had planned to get groceries. But I keep instant milk on hand. (My daughter says “Dry milk tastes like peanuts.” ?? She will ask for juice, KoolAid, water, anything.–She will even specifically request having nothing to drink, instead of instant milk!–But when we’re out of milk, she still has to drink it. . . That was all free, unrelated–but free.)

So anyway, I “made” a cup of milk for the recipe, stirring it up with a clear plastic spoon, and pouring it into the casserole dish.

[Notice that I never took the spoon out of the measuring cup. Oops.]

I would never bake a casserole with a clear plastic spoon inside. . . Not me.

Did you know that if you bake a plastic spoon at 350-400 (our oven heats inconsistently) for an hour, that it will largely hold its shape? Largely.

I learn something new every day.

I’m not kidding.