This morning was one of those mornings.

You know you’ve had them.

Here’s a quick recap:

7:15 — I wake up and groan. I was hoping that it was about 5:30 a.m. still. I’m too tired to think about getting up yet, but I know we need to get going. I’ll just close my eyes for 5 more minutes

7:30 — Maybe 10 more minutes won’t kill us.

8:00 — Shit. We really need to get up now. I stumble toward E’s room because I need to get her going. In the next hour, she needs to eat, get dressed, brush her teeth, let me brush her rat’s nest of a hairdo, and practice her tough piano song for the week one more time. A side note here: On Friday, we didn’t have to be anywhere in the morning, so she could have slept in for the first time in over a week. So, of course she was awake by 7:30. Of course.

8:01 — E’s not budging. “Mommy, leave me alone. I’m tired.” Maybe we can spare 5 more minutes. I do love to snuggle up with her in her bed in the morning. It’s my best worst moment of every day — I hate waking her up, but I love the rare chance to hold her like a baby again.

8:20 — Dammit. Now we’re really in trouble. “E, we’re late! Let’s go! You go practice piano while I cook your Elmo sticks.”

8:30 — E. sits down to start eating (“You have 10 minutes.”) I wolf down a bowl of cereal and have just taken my first sip of coffee when I feel that unmistakeable feeling in my gut — I’m finally going to be able to go to the bathroom. I’d been shooting blanks for about four days and my stomach was not in good shape. I can’t tell you how many vegetables and fruits I’d stuffed into it over the previous 48 hours, but nothing was coming out of there. I know it’s TMI but we’ve all been there. I quickly run to the bathroom.

8:40 — I’m still in there. Watching the minutes race by. I yell from the bathroom to DadJovi to tell him to get E to finish eating and then go brush her teeth.

8:45 — I finally tear myself away from the toilet (where I’d like to spend the next 45 minutes) and quickly get E. dressed.

8:55 — I get E’s piano books, my purse, and the birthday present for E’s buddy to the front door.

8:56 — Oh shit. I’ve got to head back to the bathroom.

8:58 — When it’s clear this isn’t going to be a quick trip, E. brings her comb and hair detangler into the bathroom. Since I knew she was going to be in there anyway (apparently we’re still not at the point where I’m allowed to go to the bathroom alone. No matter how often I tell her to leave, she keeps coming back in. I really need to get that lock fixed), I figured I might as well multitask. Yes, I did my daughter’s hair as I sat on the toilet. I just call it good time management.

9:05 — I quickly throw clothes on, wash my face, pull my hair into a ponytail and do my best to not look as scary as I feel.

9:10 — I calculate that I have enough time to make a cup of coffee to go since I never got to drink the cup I’d already made. I put a travel cup under the Keurig, and as it fills, I dump a pack of Stevia into the cup. I then accidentally drop the whole packet in. I try to quickly grab it out, and in the process, I burn my fingers and stupidly pull the the travel cup from under the still brewing Keurig — spilling coffee all over the kitchen counter. Awesome.

9:17 — We’re finally in the car, with 13 minutes to get across town for her piano lesson.

9:22 — I suddenly realize that I’ve not only forgotten the invitation with the party’s address at home (it’s a place I’ve never been), I also forgot my phone. And there’s no time to turn back.

9:32 — We make it to piano, only 2 minutes late. I consider asking E’s piano teacher if I can use her phone to call DadJovi but then I remember the time she scolded me for asking if E. could use her bathroom. True story. She is not interested in chit-chatting and she sure as hell doesn’t want anyone leaving the 10 feet around her piano.

9:34 — I debate leaving piano lessons to go to a convenience store and use a payphone and phone book, if either of those two things still exist. Instead, I sit there drinking coffee and weighing which would be worse — it making my stomach issues worse or the crushing headache that’s sure to follow if I skip caffeine. I gamble that my stomach will survive.

9:40 — The piano teacher’s next student arrives early and parks in front of her house.

9:42 — After debating how creepy it makes me look, I walk up to the student’s window (he’s an adult) and knock on his window. I ask if he has a phone I can borrow. Not only does he have a phone, but he has a Droid and tells me to feel free to use the Internet and maps to find out where we’re going. Score!

10 — Lessons are over and E performs much better than we feared she would based on how little she practiced all week. She gets stickers on all her pieces and is flying high on her teacher’s praise.

10:07 — We arrive at Airheads for E’s friend’s birthday party.

OK, I’m done with my blow-by-blow. I know this morning could have been a million times worse, but until I was able to borrow that very nice man’s phone, I feared it was going to get worse and worse. If I would have had to run home for the stupid invitation and my phone, we would have missed most of the party. Hooray for kind people!

And E. would have missed jumping her booty off.

E. and her buddies had a blast chasing each other all across the trampolines. And one of the other moms and I watched a woman getting her ass kicked in a fitness class. Seriously, she was doing the hardest looking lunges I’ve ever seen. So, of course, we pretended to be tough and agreed to come back together to take one of the classes. I like to think that I’m going to do it. That almost counts as exercise, right?

At least one person in our family worked her tail off. E. was the biggest sweat head ever after coming off the trampolines.

She wolfed down a slice of pizza (and she normally hates pizza. Well, of course, unless it’s at a birthday party and I’ve just warned the host that she probably won’t eat it. She makes a liar out of me every single time) and a ginormous cupcake.

After the party, the day was actually great. We came home and admired all the hard work DadJovi had done in the back yard in our absence.

Then, somehow, I convinced her to take a quick bath to wash off the sweat, grime and other peoples’ BO from the trampolines.

Then, DadJovi then tried to bribe her to go to his favorite record store for National Record Store Day by promising a trip to the bowling alley. I was already picturing two to three glorious hours of alone time. Just me and a toilet, alone at last.

Suddenly everything was coming up Jackie.

But E. was too wiped out to go. No amount of bribing was working. I think she was (rightfully) scared at the prospect of battling all those hipsters at National Record Day.

Instead, she and I climbed into bed and watched “Snow White.” Which, to be honest, was pretty great, too.

Why, yes, those are two braids in E’s hair. How nice of you to notice. Braids are suddenly all the rage in her preschool, and this is about the extent of my abilities. Clearly Aunt Katy is going to have to come over ASAP for Braiding Bootcamp.

We also decided to go crazy and invite our friends over for dinner. It had been too long since we’d had the neighborhood gang over, so we fired up the grill (even in the sudden thunderstorm) and had a great night. The kids ran themselves wild around the house and yard and the grownups played with our friends’ new Margaritaville margarita maker (which is awesome).

After we’d had our fill, we even came up with a new use for it — we crushed just ice (no booze) and gave it to the kids to have a snowball fight in the yard. You haven’t seen happy kids until you’ve seen barefoot Florida kids in shorts running around the yard throwing snowballs at each other (well, mostly at DadJovi).

So, the day may have had a rough start but we made it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with my bathroom.