1 family trip to the bank with toddler in tow. Purpose: sign 18 thousand mortgage documents and have them notarized. Make sure to include one parent who is of the “keep the child contained so that she doesn’t hurt anyone or annoy people” camp and equal parts of one parent who is of the “who gives a shit, let the child run because the running and messing with things is preferable to the screeching horror that is a child being held against her will in a person’s lap” camp. This will allow for an interesting ride home.

2  trips to consignment stores with toys. Make sure to remove toddler from toys by dragging. Bribes do not work past noon.

1 celebratory lunch in Mexican restaurant with hollow booths. Hollow booths are important because how else can toddler make enough noise to alert the entire dining room that her parents are stupid and took her to lunch after naptime?

Bake under covers of king sized bed (finally!) for 2.5 hours.

Icing:

1 excited toddler, bribed with promises of ‘playing and climbing’ into getting in the car AGAIN. Transport toddler to superbigmart furniture store at 7:30 p.m. Do not think about how there is no way toddler will make it to bed at a reasonable hour. Just get in the car and go!

1 broken DVD

1 very pregnant woman who cannot turn in the seat to fix dvd 200 times on the way to the store

1 extremely poor lapse in judgment involving chronology of trip to furniture store. (note in margin: perhaps the kid’s furniture with slides would be better as the sprinkles, and not a card played too early in the evening)

1 screeching child who will only leave the ‘playground’ if she is allowed to crawl on hands and knees.

1 confusing store laid out in concentric circles. Be sure to wander around and around for hours, at times chasing a child who must climb on top of every.single.bed. on her way through the store.

Mix well, set aside.

Then add:

One half hour wait at an extremely busy restaurant with a ROUND fish tank in the lobby.

One toddler plus 3 new friends who love chasing each other around said fish tank.

Sit down exactly one hour past bedtime. Reflect on how you used to scorn parents who scheduled their whole lives around their childrens’ sleep schedule. Promise yourself you will never ever judge anyone again for anything ever.

Try to eat. Proclaim you will come back here again and again because this restaurant has two important things: food you can actually eat without getting sick, and a noise level almost high enough to drown out the Child’s screeching.

Mix well. Pour over Layer one. Duck and cover.

Optional: make sure you drink unsweetened but caffeinated tea at dinner, so that you are sure to be awake when Toddler begins sniffling and snorting in the middle of the night, having caught germs from her father. At this point it is acceptable to plan ‘accidents’ involving bulldozers, nail guns, arsenic, and heavy life insurance. Things will look different in the morning.