IT'S BLOW OFF DAY!!!!!!

I hereby officially declare today to be Blow Off Day in the Madden household.

Why is it Blow Off Day, you ask?  Well, let’s see…

Michael and I woke up at 7:57 AM this morning.  Cassie's bus arrives at the bus stop down the street at 8:08 AM.  In eleven minutes, I managed to:

• Get myself up and dressed


• Get Cassie up and dressed


• Get Cassie’s teeth brushed


• Get a waffle, banana and 2 juice boxes into her backpack for an impromptu “walking” breakfast (and yes, the waffle was cooked, not frozen, thanks to Michael)


• Get Cassie’s hair brushed


• Get Cassie’s “Show-and-Share” items into her backpack (without crushing the breakfast already in there)


• Get Cassie out the door and to the bus stop with 2 minutes to spare

I did it.  I got her on the bus, dressed, with her glasses and her backpack and both shoes on the correct feet, all in under 10 minutes.  And personally, I think that’s enough exercise/stress/pulling of miracles out of my ass for one day.

Hence, it is Blow Off Day.

And if I had any doubts that it was Blow Off Day – and I did, I was contemplating in the tub after the rush to the bus stop that maybe, just maybe I could pull off a normal day after all – my darling husband cemented firmly in my mind that Blow Off Day was not an option, it was a fact.  You see, he locked himself out of the house in the process of heading out to work, and I had to get out of the tub, run downstairs wearing a towel and a face full of super-special cleanser that’s supposed to take 10 whole years off my looks but today may at best only cancel out the 10 years I added this morning, and open the door for him so he could come back inside, get his keys, and avoid kissing me because he did not want super special cleanser on his face.

It is soooooooo Blow Off Day.

Blow Off Day has a long and illustrious history.  It first began five years ago, when Cassie was just an infant.  Back in those days, she had colic, which meant she screamed for five hours straight every evening.  The rest of the day she just wailed and beat me with her tiny fists.  After many valiant attempts to be Super-Mom (you know, the woman who’s dressed in designer jogging suits, pushing a baby stroller around the block, and said stroller contains a sleeping, happy baby dressed in clean frilly outfits that aren’t covered in spit up and the mom isn’t covered in breast milk and even more spit up and my god she even brushed her hair and her teeth!), I realized that I needed a break, so I spent a day sitting on the couch doing nothing but nurse my baby and watch Dirty Harry movies (because it was either Dirty Harry or Days of Our Lives and I hate soap operas but I really could have killed something that day so I lived vicariously through Clint Eastwood for few hours and that helped a little).  And that was all I did.  Didn’t do the laundry, didn’t go out for a stroll, didn’t make lunch (I had a bowl of cereal with chocolate milk in it, if I recall correctly).  I didn’t do jack but what I had to do, which included nurse the baby, go to the bathroom, and change diapers.  And if I could have figured out how to get someone else to do all three of those things for me that day, I would have done it gladly.

Blow Off Day means I only do what I want or what I absolutely have to do.  I have to take care of Sam. I have to eat.  I have to use the toilet and breath.  Beyond that, I don’t have to do squat.  So the laundry can go screw itself.  House cleaning can take a flying leap.  Dinner tonight is pizza and I’ll be damned if I’m getting off the couch to bake the frozen thing Michael bought.  Papa John’s delivers!

I plan to spend the day watching Dora the Explorer with Sam and doing some artwork I’ve been itching to do.  Alessia Brio has invited me to submit some stuff for an upcoming illustrated volume of Coming Together, and I think I’m in the mood today to draw something really, really naughty.  And that’s pretty much all I’m in the mood to do today.

Except maybe use the toilet.  But that’s only because I can’t get anyone else to do it for me.  Otherwise, I am not getting off the couch.

Have a happy Blow Off Day, everybody.