Why Leaving the House is The WORST

Ok. Upon reading the title of this post, you may assume it is because of my recent struggles with anxiety. But it's not. It's because of these 2 little angels: 

Sweet, right? Yep. They generally are. Until we have to leave the house. As if my sanity wasn't fragile enough, I also have to wage fullscale WAR in order to walk out the door. No matter how much strategy I employ, no matter how clever I think I am being in preparing hours in advance, I am always outwitted, outlasted and outplayed. I am the weakest link, there can ONLY BE ONE!!!! and it's not me. 
Let me explain.   Sometimes, we just have to leave the house. Maybe we have an appointment, maybe I'm crazy enough to think an outing would be nice, who knows. In any case, I have to be somewhere at some time. I try and start at least an hour before we have to leave, but this has proven to not be sufficient. I get them changed, which is like trying to wrangle an octopus into a ziplock bag, but twice. I eventually succeed, and then it is my turn to try and make myself presentable for the outside world. 
This is impossible. The oldest is running around and throwing toys and dumping puzzles and pushing his brother and chasing the cat and evil laughing while dumping a glass of milk on the carpet. The youngest is screaming and crying like I have abandoned him in the wilderness despite the fact that he is 2 feet away from me. If I have to go to the closet to get a sweater, he crawls after me with his head up screaming and wailing at the ceiling. The 10 minutes it takes me to get dressed and run a comb through my hair is the loudest and most chaotic 10 minutes that has ever existed in space and time. It never fails either. I can have a ton of well-timed activities planned, I can even resort to putting Thomas the Tank Engine on...it doesn't matter. None of this holds any power compared to the innate instinct to make mommy lose her ever-loving mind. 
This is usually the point where I start to really lose my composure. I shut down into a resigned zombie with no feelings on auto-pilot. I think it's a coping mechanism. "No Finn, don't hit your brother, Q, you are ok sweetheart, Mommy still loves you even though I am not physically touching you" while I smear eyeliner on and pull my greasy hair into a "messy bun" (understatement of the year). 
After this, the hunt for the boots/coats/hats/no-not-the-green-ones-the-blue-ones-mommy-mittens begins. This is where my adrenaline starts to kick in and I wake up out of the zombie-state and start to get into a state of panic. I have usually noticed that if we don't leave the house in exactly 5 minutes, we will once again be late. But of course this one boot cannot be found. How can it not be there?! It's always in the box with all of the stuff. Could it be in the closet? I have checked absolutely everywhere, including the places that is doesn't even make sense to look. Maybe it's behind the toilet in the bathroom?! Any attempt at recruiting help from the toddler is just enlisting him to run around yelling "where's my boot mom?"about 30 times. Eventually, with one minute until we have to leave I unearth the missing boot from underneath the couch in the basement (I have no blooming idea how it could have gotten there) and get it on. 
I put Q in his bucket seat and begin to buckle him in. Maybe I'm actually going to make it this time!! I can't even believe my luck...my hair is in disarray and I have non-matching socks on, but we may have actually done it. Just as I clip the last buckle, I hear the tell-tale rumble and know that it is not to be. Somehow the diaper which is designed for the specific purpose of not allowing everything to explode everywhere has failed, and it requires an entire change of wardrobe for the babe. Any chance we had at being semi-punctual is out the door (unlike us). 
Once we get that settled, we all head into the car, and I strap the toddler in, while he tries to escape so he can drive Francesco Bernoulli. Why my toddler thinks our tiny little Honda Fit is a Formula One Racecar from Cars 2, I have no idea. 
I finally sit in the car and heave a sigh of exhaustion. We haven't even pulled out of the garage and I am ready to go home. 
And this happens every.single.time. 
So THAT, my friends, is why leaving the house is the WORST (and also why I will be late every time we arrange to get together...sorry). 
#momlife