It started out innocent enough. My younger cousin and I were on a mission to find a nice pair of clear shoes to wear with our bridesmaid dresses for her wedding. Simple enough, right? I mean, after all, we were only looking for something like this:

We looked at several places online, but nothing was CLEAR…everything had a silver or gold embellishment on it, or the heel was too high, or either they were just too expensive to only wear once. So I decided I’d venture on to Ebay. I figured we’d luck up and find something perfect and reasonably priced since we may not ever wear these shoes again.

Know what you get when you type in “clear shoes” on Ebay?

Something like this…

Or if you’ll be wearing them in Vegas and you feel lucky, might I suggest these?

You can even get them in light-up or with fantastic fishies swimming with every step you take:

I finally tracked down a reasonably priced pair that had a two inch heel, were not platform or stiletto, and didn’t give the appearance that you later would find me performing two for one lap dances at the gentlemen’s club.

But God bless these women who wear these for a living. I hope they’re lucky enough to marry a podiatrist.

My last post about our terrible, horrible no good very bad week was pretty pathetic, right?

I’m happy to report some good did come out of this week at home with E.B. We finally ventured outside Wednesday and washed down all of the outside toys and I said yes to swimming, so E.B. completely wore himself out playing in the water and eating popsicles.

On Thursday my grandmother and I took E.B. on a visit to a nearby town to see my cousin and get ourselves fitted for wedding attire. Angie is getting married next month and I will be a bridesmaid and E.B. will be a ring bearer. E.B. behaved pretty good on this trip and was quite smitten with himself when he tried on the tux coat. I was pretty smitten, too. He looked cute enough to pinch.

I went back into work Friday because my bosses needed me to fill in. It’s not entirely uncommon for someone to stop in the bookstore to sell tickets for benefits or ask for a donation for someone who is sick. Today a mother came in asking for donations for her daughter who had cancer. This child was probably about 6 or 7. The mother looked haggard and completely tired…you could literally see in her eyes the toll this had taken on her. And there I was with a completely healthy, living, breathing child who tries my ever-loving patience, pushes me to the brinks I never knew existed, and defies all predictability.

And deep down, I love it. Despite the fact that some days I feel ill-equipped to raise this little ball of energy and constantly wonder if I’m doing it wrong, I deeply and fiercely love my son and that’s enough to bring me back to some semblance of sanity on a particularly tough day of parenting.

What a blessing to ride on this ebb and flow of motherhood.

I had big plans. A whole week off. E.B. and I were going to paint and color, swim, work in the yard, go to the park. Our whole entire week was going to rival those commercials I’ve been seeing that depict the happy mother and child making Rice Krispies together, all smiles and quality time just oozing from the TV screen.

Instead? It looks as if the entire Island of Sodor has exploded all over the coffee table in the den. Thomas and his friends are everyfreakinwhere. Ditto for the toybox in E.B.’s bedroom. It’s so hot and humid that it’s entirely unenjoyable outside, which is just as well because No Swimming For Us! E.B. has a sinus infection. The only work I’ve done in the yard is taking out the trash (if that even counts).

And? I had to change puke sheets Sunday night from one of E.B.’s coughing fits.

Quite frankly? I’m not seeing a whole lot of hope for salvaging this week, and that makes me sad.