Tomorrow it happens. I get up. Shower alone. Put on big girl underpants, real pants that have a button and a fly and a shirt. Makeup even. Perhaps I will floss my teeth in the bathroom instead of behind the wheel.

Glorious. Oh, glorious freedom.

It begins tomorrow my friends, when I leave the house and my husband drops the kids at their respective preschool and day care and I will go to work at my part-time job. My job that is in an office building that contains my own spacious cubicle untouched by my offspring’s dirty paws. The thought of this should thrill me, and it does, more than a little. However, in one short week of working at my sweet, sweet 20-hour a week gig I have made a major discovery.

There is no escaping.

Children, or the thought of them, are forever with you. I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing. Missing them, worrying about them, wanting to hear their little voices and see their mischievous smiles is a good thing. I do know this. But, for some silly reason, I thought getting a part-time job would give me the break my mommy brain needed. It would provide me with the interaction and stimulation of the outside world that I craved almost as bad as the peppermint stick ice cream I gorged myself on during my first pregnancy. (I ate gallons of that creamy, minty goodness).

But, so far I have not had that aha! moment where I just think this is it. I finally figured out how to do it all – balance a family, a career, feel fulfilled, have personal time, go to the bathroom alone, be happier, exercise, eat right, have a stellar wardrobe, ass-kicking resume, cook like a pro, write like a genius, be a great friend, speak in complete sentences that actually make one iota of sense, get enough sleep, be a good mom, a decent wife, stop swearing, drive the speed limit, get a master’s degree in something impressive sounding, find more patience, be less judgemental, reduce my dependence on caffeine, improve my memory, start eating those miracle acai berries, pen my first novel.

Then again, it is only my second week.

I am way behind on assignments but I have a good excuse. And by assignments I mean things I have told you I am going to do. Like interview strangers on the street. Perfect the art of margarita making. Learn to cook and lose weight.

I have not started any of those self-imposed duties because I have been extremely busy losing my shit for the last two, okay three, weeks. Let’s face it, I would have found another reason not to complete the above tasks even if I was not in full on panic mode.

Let me tell you, it’s a new brand of crazy that I was only mildly aware I was capable of achieving. In trying to think of a way to describe my state of mind I Googled “foaming at the mouth crazy, zombie.” Yeah, I think that works.

Here’s the thing. I should have known something was up two weeks ago. The first clue was my life was simple and rather uncomplicated which is completely opposite of how things usually go. After a long process, I was hired for a part-time job that I would mark my return to work after a year-and-a-half hiatus. I had found a day care center for my two boys where I thought they would be safe and happy.

Jack, Frankie and I went on a tour months before said job was even offered and they were immediately engaged. Jack joined in at a table where kids were playing with homemade silly putty (Duh. Who wouldn’t?) and Frankie starting ripping the place up like he was in his own living room. Sold.

But then, several months later when I returned to put a deposit down, my suspicions were raised. The director had open bottles of cleaning solution on the floor in her office. My three year old, Jack, put his fingers in what he probably thought was purple Kool-Aid, and then put them in his mouth. When I told the director she had open bottles of cleaning solution on the floor of her office which, by the way was in a CHILD CARE CENTER, she was nonplussed. Aside from the chemicals, I also found out the center was investigated by two state agencies for an alleged incident where a child was pinched and scratched. It was cleared but still, it was investigated nonetheless.

I filled out some forms and said I would return later that week with physicals and my deposit.

Something didn’t sit right with me. Perhaps it was the chemicals? Or the investigations. I ask a friend to post a message on a mom’s club forum asking if anyone has kids at the school. She immediately comes through with a name and number.

I call and speak to the mom (thank god for moms!) at length about the center. I ask if she knew the center was investigated. She was unaware of the investigation but she informs me of two other instances that are news to me. The first involved two teachers who were fired because one told the other she was an alcoholic and it was not reported by either to the director. Uh huh….and the second? Oh yeah, that was when the assistant director was fired for installing a video camera in one of the classrooms.

Now, let me tell you this is no shady day care center. This place costs about $1,400 a month for 20 hours of care a week. It is accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children or NAEYC. I can’t tell if something is screwy with me and maybe I’m just being hyper critical because I am nervous about putting my kids in day care or if it is truly a strange place.

I go into extreme overdrive reporter mode and begin researching the dickens out of this place. I talk to several other parents, call the state licensing board and bring my husband on another tour.

I put my fears to rest, comforted by the fact that in each completely wacky instance, the center either fired bad employees or was found to be completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Feeling pressured because I need to find day care quick, I leave a check on a Friday for $200 along with enrollment forms.

I leave with a huge knot in my stomach. My gut is screaming at me to go back in, get the check and never set foot in the place again. Instead, I worry endlessly for the entire weekend. I torture myself with all kinds of imaginary scenarios. I call requesting my deposit and forms back on Monday. It comes a few days later following a curt voicemail from the director.

I continue to search for day care at a frantic pace because I am starting a new job in less than two weeks. Have I mentioned that already?

I tour another center which is clean, highly organized and structured. Upon entering, Jack tells the director his “eyes are mixed up….brown and green.” The director looks at me with an expression that reads “What the hell is he talking about?” I explain that Jack is trying to say his eyes are hazel. I think it’s a smart comment. Confused, she proceeds with the tour. They don’t get us or why we are here.

It’s also very expensive and the parents are not at all friendly to me or to each other for that matter. Jack joins in on a class during storytime and proceeds to tell the teacher and a group of children that he pees and poops on the potty. I’m proud. Again, no reaction from the teacher.

(We had just started potty training and any parent knows this is HUGE. You make a big deal when your kid pees and poops on the potty. You talk about how big the poop was and whether it looked like a dragon’s tail or came out as something resembling tiny pebbles or say, for instance, a “mouse” as Jack described a recent bowel movement).

Anyway, the playground is small which does not suit Jack’s needs since he needs to run like a wild stallion several times a day or his brain will explode. I have a feeling this place is not going to work out. We keep looking.

Just to be thorough, I also visit the day care Jack attended as an infant when I worked full time. There are no openings now or in the near future.

I start obsessing. Not my regular obsessing, like how I buy designer jeans and then feel guilty because – even though I buy them at T.J. Maxx where they are $80 a pair instead of $150 – I still feel like the most selfish mom in the world because that money could be spent on sooooo many other things besides jeans. I have bought and returned jeans at least five times. That’s normal compared to the obsessing I’m doing over day care.

Finally, after much hand wringing I settle on keeping my three-year-old son, Jack, in preschool two days a week and sending my 14 month old, Frankie, to a home day care center. I think this arrangement will work until I realize Jack’s school is closed for vacations, holidays and the entire month of August.

I decide to look at one last place in the town where I live. I have not heard great things about this center but I haven’t heard bad things either. I visit. I am underwhelmed.

The woman giving me the tour mentions the center is owned by a church. I am not religious and do not attend church but I am not strictly against religion either. Most day care center’s and preschools are in buildings rented from churches or owned by churches. I ask if they teach any religious curriculum. The woman says “no” but tells me that some of the teachers play Christian music during nap. I find this highly unusual and intriguing.

I want to ask about the music selection that will be floating through my children’s heads while they are sleeping. Will it be contemporary Christian or Classic? Because I might be okay with Justin Bieber. I imagine “Baby baby baby ooh, like baby, baby, baby noo. I thought you’d always be mine” playing in the infant room. I know Frankie would be tapping his toes in his sleep. The kid can keep a beat.

But, I manage to contain my curiosity and decide it is better for everyone if I don’t know. I end the tour without question and, after some major finagling settle on the preschool and home day care.

Getting a job lights a fire under your ass like you would not believe. It also brings to light just how little attention I have paid to my own personal health.

Earlier this week, when I realized my unscheduled, flexible lifestyle was going to become seriously overscheduled due to landing a part-time job, I compiled a list of every appointment I needed to get out of the way before I re-enter the working world.

I decided it might be a good time to get my eyes checked. It had been I awhile, I presumed, because I could not remember the last time I had to read those miniature, fuzzy little letters on the last line.

I asked the receptionist if I was due for an exam. The woman on the other end of the phone told me I was last there in 2008. Come again? I should say I do not have real problems with my eyes. Just a mild case of nearsightedness. Either way, I was overdue. I booked an appointment to coincide with a day I would not have my 3 year old son, Jack, with me and I would only have to tow the 1 year old, Frankie.

Off we go. To the optometrist’s office on a rainy, dreary day. Frankie has a cold and he’s not at all in the mood for an office visit but because Mommy is getting a job Mommy needs to see clearly. Besides being mildly sick and majorly annoyed, Frankie is cranked up because his day has consisted of dropping my oldest, Jack off at preschool, sitting in the car at one of those rip-off-lube-change places while “technicians” change the oil in my car, traipsing into Walmart for incredibly important items like dental floss and super absorbent diapers. Then, a short nap at home, and here we are at the eye doc’s. Frankie is pissed. To boot, the eye doctor’s office does not have a handicap-accessible entrance. Therefore, I need to carry Frankie into the office. Now I’m pissed.

When I arrive, two grumpy eye doctors inform me there is no wheelchair ramp for me to push a stroller up to the door. I then ask “so you never have any patients come in wheelchairs?” To which they respond flatly “no.” It is wrong on so many levels but right now I need to get my stroller and put Frankie in it before we have a meltdown in a room full of delicate eye glass paraphernalia.

I ask one of the doc’s to come hold the door open for me. I go outside, Frankie on my hip, open the trunk, pull out the stroller and carry both Frankie and the stroller up a short flight of stairs. Aside from holding the door and commenting on the weather, there was no other assistance offered and apparently none needed.

The appointment goes fairly smooth until the end when Frankie has had enough. The doc does not get the sense that I need to move things along and takes his time ringing me up for his $35 copay. Frankie is trying to claw my eyes out. I put him down to let him destroy the eye doc’s office and instead, he throws himself down on the floor resulting in a loud “thud.” Still, no concern from docs. I can feel myself getting to the point where I blurt out an obscenity. I need to leave. Multiple receipts signed, none read. I could have bought a new house for all I know.

I gather my crumpled up child and head for the door. The docs do not offer to help me get the stroller to the car. Instead, a woman in the waiting room carries the stroller down the stairs. Docs still do nothing. She tells me outside that her three- year-old granddaughter lives with her so she understands. I thank her profusely and seriously consider reporting the eye doc’s business for being handicap inaccessible.

I am told, and have read, the way to attract readers and gain fame and fortune by blogging, is to post and post often.

Don’t get me wrong, I want this blog to be successful, but some nights, and most days, I am just so friggan tired. I am tired the second I wake up. Tired is my middle name. I am Mothereffing tired.

I know you don’t actually care about how deep my under eye bags are or how much darker my circles appear to be getting everyday, but let me just tell you a little ditty about the last week.

The fam and I took off for a week of relaxation and rest in Florida last Saturday. We flew to see our in laws in the lovely city of Venice where an Italian restaurant could be found on every corner and the beach was a 15-minute walk away. I was convinced the children would be absolutely exhausted from sand, surf and carbohydrates and would sleep like angels. My 5 a.m. routine with the “baby” who is now one, would wash away with the tide. What a sucker.

I woke up just as often in Florida as I do in my home state of Massachusetts. Roughly three times a night. No matter how long or hard or fast my children ran or how much they ate, they fought the urge to sleep all the way through the night. Except for one night. The last one.

The return trip home went marvelously except for the fact that Frankie, the one year old, spent the better part of an hour and a half clawing and scratching my eyes out, climbing up my belly rolls as if they were stairs and pulling my hair just so he could play with the 15-year-old boy sitting directly behind me. The teenager did a fantastic job of entertaining my Frankie but what I actually wanted at that moment instead of an in-flight babysitter was for Frankie to sleep. Finally, he crashed but not until mom had developed a serious kink in her neck and a pounding migraine.

We slept home for one night and then it was off to a dear, sweet friend’s wedding. The kiddos would be at my folks and my hubby & I would be staying overnight at a hotel. Sleep would come to me at last.

A week’s vacation topped off by a night away sans children is nothing to complain about so I shrugged off the fact that five minutes after hubby & I checked into our room we overheard our neighbors in what sounded to be a serious and intimate encounter. We were without children so nothing is going to ruin our mood. We change into our ceremonial attire and hope that the couple next door is not going to horrify us with their presence at the wedding.

We leave while the lovemaking session is still going strong. We have ourselves a hysterical time at the reception dancing and drinking and just generally embarrassing ourselves. We almost forget about the couple in the next room who came to be known simply as “418″ for the evening.

Many, many hours later, and with my migraine in full swing we return to our room. Ahhhh….quiet. And then it resumed. Then the couple on the other side of the wall (the one we laid our heads down next to) began fighting over who bought and drank more Miller Lite. I hear a woman say something about how she’s not a “hobo.”

Then another group of people get off the elevator and start yelling about putting peanut butter in some poor boy’s diaper. But not your run-of-the-mill supermarket kind, the “natural kind.”

I turn to my husband and say “we really can’t win.”