When one Facebook update just isn't enough

My day started at 4:00 a.m., when Zoe woke up to pee and refused to go back to bed until about 5, when Charles went down to get his coffee. Zoe climbed back into the bed with me and we fell asleep for about 45 minutes more.

Needless to say, though, that wasn't high-quality sleep, so it's been a long day. I ran, cleaned bathrooms (ugh...), ran by the office for a meeting, and ran some other errands. Then I picked up Zoe from school and we went to the park for a while.

Since the point when I left the house, I've had at least four status updates that I thought about making to Facebook, but I never had the chance to make them. And now, I want to make all of them, but that would be a bit excessive.

So I'm blogging instead.

Here goes:

• Today, I had to run to the bank to deposit checks, buy "neutral" Chuck Taylors for Zoe, and pick up toilet paper. What actually happened, though, was that when I ran to the bank, I hadn't endorsed the checks I was depositing, and I didn't have a pen, so I left with checks in hand; I got Zoe red and black ladybug sneakers instead of the black or beige Charles requested; and I forgot toilet paper. So it goes.

• Today, for Show and Share at school, Zoe brought a plastic Daschund dog dressed up as a hot dog, left over from Halloween. On the way outside with her class (they were seeing if their Show and Share items fit inside the school mailbox), she dropped the dog, and it broke into multiple pieces. Zoe's teacher said they could take it to Mr. Ray, the school handyman, to see if he could fix it. Zoe looked right up at the teacher and said, "Yes, Mr. Ray has to screw the dog to fix it." Huh....

• Zoe had a tremendous fall from a ladder at the park today. She'd climbed it twice before, and was shooing me away from my nervous-mom-stance underneath her. So I stepped about three feet away and was talking to another mom while she climbed. She made it about four rungs up when she slipped and tumbled, and I was not fast enough to catch her. She flew down about 5 feet and thankfully landed on her booty in the soft sand. It was traumatizing for both of us - even thinking about it is making me choke up. But do you know what? As soon as she'd settled down, before she'd even let me wipe the tears away (but after I'd made sure she could walk and wasn't seriously injured), she walked right back up to that ladder and, determined as ever, climbed right up to the top. I was AMAZED by her courage. She is incredibly brave.

• We've had a mole problem in the backyard for months, years even. They dig these little underground trenches that make our grass weirdly soft and lumpy. I can't stand them. And I've encouraged my dog, Quentin, who spends lots of time out there, to dig them up and eat them, but he never has. Today, Charles's dog, Molly, the Dalmatian, stayed out in the yard and when Zoe and I came home from the park, Molly came trotting to the door, mole in mouth. She'd finally found one. There are several large holes in the yard now, but at least we are one mole less thanks to Molly's tenacity. So yay for her, but then...moles are kind of cute when you actually look at them. Darnit!

OK, those were stories. Please know that, had they been actual Facebook statuses, they'd have been shorter and maybe funnier. But still...that all happened today. Really. Today.