DAMMIT, it is hard to keep up with a blog! Seriously, I was hoping I could just write a few posts, get discovered, and then go on Oprah to tell her about my inspirations in life and my favorite kitchen tool (my stainless steel handled rubber spatula, obvs). But due to the high demand of my readers (i.e., a random woman asking me the other day, “Hey, didn’t you have a blog or something?”), I have returned. There is so much to discuss. In the last few months, I have transitioned the kids to a new preschool, gotten a new job that I’m excited about, traveled cross country with both kids by myself, and have peed in a sippy cup on the side of a major road.

I’ll start with that last one first.

So as background: something seriously disturbing happened in my house about six months ago, and I think enough time has finally passed that I can share it in any sort of lighthearted way. I hope you are sitting down, mainly because it’s just weird to read a blog standing up, right? SO one Sunday back in July, a crazy storm came out of nowhere and ruined our plans to go to the pool. It also knocked out our power. OK, it’s happened a couple times since we’ve moved in, no big deal. 12 hours later as my husband is getting ready to fly across the country for work for a week, though, it’s becoming a bigger deal. Well, long story short: we had no power for six days. SIX DAYS. Six days of waiting in long lines at gas stations to buy overpriced bags of ice so my kids had milk for breakfast. Six days of wearing a freaking headlamp while I did dishes and changed my daughter’s diapers. Six days of wondering if preschool was open, or if my big meetings at work were still on, or if my phone was going to run out of batteries, or if some nutjob was going to break in my house in the woods and no one would even know. Totally awful.

So the drive to the kids’ preschool is a long one, and is pretty much a straight shot down a major road. The road has lots of stoplights that were all knocked out during the storm. Our usually 40 minute drive to preschool turned into a TWO HOUR odyssey on the second morning after the power went out. The kids were actually pretty psyched to watch two hours of cartoons in the car. I, on the other hand, was freaking out. Cops were directing traffic at every intersection. People were honking, cursing, driving aggressively, and I had not used a blow dryer in a good 48 hours at this point. Well, about halfway into our journey, I realized I had to pee. Really bad. But I was so close to the kids’ preschool that I wasn’t too concerned. Twenty minutes and about quarter of a mile later, though, I’m wigging out and looking around for a gas station, grocery store, anywhere I can stop. Nothing. I’m literally on a stretch of road by nothing but neighborhoods, jam-packed with traffic, and I realize I am about to pee my pants. At which point, I start crying. So I do the only thing I know to do: I pull over, throw on my hazards, tell my daughter to finish her milk, scramble to the backseat of the car, yell at the kids to KEEP THEIR EYES ON THE TV SCREEN, and I pee in my daughter’s sippy cup.

I’m not sure the point of sharing this with you, except to totally embarrass my mom. And to say that life is completely ridiculous, and for all the hard work I (and every mom I know) put in to planning and preparing and anticipating, you still might end up on the side of a road pissing in your kid’s sippy cup.

But I really hope not. That is my wish for you. Which is totally what I will say, straight-faced, on Oprah when she asks me my one wish for the world: “To never have to pee in your kid’s sippy cup.” And Oprah will give me a knowing nod and lean in for a hug. And she will smell so good. She just has to, right?

I said good day.