Do real grown ups say 'oops'?

Life with Piper is surprisingly... normal. It's so new, but at the same time it feels like we've been doing this forever. I can't remember ever not having this tiny extension of myself. It will be interesting as she grows into her own little person! She's definitely willful and impatient, traits she got from her mama. But she's also a fantastic sleeper, which is a gift from my side of the gene pool as well.

We probably could have approached maternity/paternity leave with fewer aspirations though. Our project list is a large part of what's caused us stress. Wanting to get a lot done with a new baby is a recipe for chaos. But at the same time, Hubs and I were so rarely home beforehand that this is the most natural time to start crossing things off our to do list.

That being said, in hindsight I can see we should have done a few things differently. Case in point, Wednesday night we set about the project of installing new shelves in the living room. At around 8pm. While preparing for a home appraisal the following morning. Not. Smart.

You're wondering how this stroke of genius played out? Well, we got to bed the following morning around 3am. One shelf installed, a large framed print hung next to it covering the six new holes in the wall that resulted from attempting to install shelf #2. All four members of the household very unhappy. You might even say on the verge of breakdown. (Okay, Piper and I were the only two breaking down, but the men of the house were certainly cranky to say the least!)

While Hubs fought with the shelves I'd gone outside to pull the weeds along the driveway, wanting the overall first impression of our home to be favorable. It was beyond dusk, and the mosquitoes were out in full force. I now have no less than twenty ugly red welts covering my body, but it can't be said that I didn't totally take one for the team. And for the record I also smacked down at least five of those hateful blood suckers, so a modicum of revenge was realized.

Anyway, as if our lack of sound judgment in that situation weren't enough, the next day we discovered that we'd positioned our grill too close to the house, thereby melting some of the siding below our bay windows in the back. Which, for us, begged the question, are we just total idiots? Do other intelligent adults do so many stupid things in the course of a few days? Are we incompetent?

I posed these question to Mookie today in a moment of pure self-flagellation. He assured me that learning a few life lessons the hard way was par for the course. He suggested I count myself lucky that we didn't burn down the house as part of our education.