"The holidays can't be here already!!"

Yet they are.  Christmas is only a few short days away ... and I am not anywhere near ready!!

Still have packages to wrap, shop for some last minute "must-have" items, pick up things like formula, diapers, as well as new bottles, get some items from the grocery store, and clean the house: it's a disaster area!!

Didn't help that two of my six children showed up unannounced this morning: now I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off!!

Also didn't help that my son, Chance, who is two and has special needs, decided to throw up his breakfast everywhere and that Amira, our four-year-old, tried to put the cat into the dryer and now she is crying because the cat scratched her badly.  Well, I wonder why ...

I just tended to Ami's wounds and tried to comfort her but now she's glowering at the cat, a look of pure hatred clearly evident on her small, apple-cheeked face.  Chance, meanwhile, is howling that his stomach continues to hurt, which can only mean one thing: he may be getting ready to erupt again.

And now Emily and Rolf, who are both in college, have arrived and have plunked their things right into the middle of the livingroom.  Rolf is raiding the refrigerator and Emily is with my husband in the breezeway, where they are having a regular gab festival.

Great!!  Chance just got sick again.  Now I have to give him a bath!!  Excuse me; be back in a little bit ...

I am getting ready to surrender Chance to Emily (let her deal with him!!) while Rolf and I run to the store and get our running around done.  I don't relish the thought of fighting traffic or heavy crowds, yet I have no choice.  There are things to be bought so we can survive the next week.

I just hope what has happened already isn't a sign of things to come!!  This day has started out badly ... very badly!!

And if all that isn't bad enough, we still have to put up the tree and the lights!!!  Arrgghh!!  Calgon, take me away!!