This is why I'm tired.

The kids have started day camp! Hallelujah!

Monkey is attending this year and he had his first half day today. T said he left her in the first minute and didn't care a hoot when she left. Sounds about right.

Yesterday we had some major water problems involving the water trap in the basement and the gripping fear that it would overflow. It's actually been a growing problem for some time now, resulting in massive piles of laundry all over the house and no clean clothes for anyone.

So, today, while the munchkins were at camp, I did some laundry and washed all the dishes and bottles that have been backing up too.

Going back a little further in history, let me just tell you that on Saturday I went to the best church picnic ever. I don't want to slight the church picnics of my youth, but this one lasted an entire Saturday and there were s'mores. That's hard to beat.

Plus, I was in charge of games and that is just plain unbeatable.

I had a flock of followers asking for water balloons or what the next game would be. I also had Flo's Famous Homemade Ice Cream and it was totally worth the dairy and the calories.

Speaking of which, I have fallen off the wagon big time and I have done nothing remotely healthy in more than two weeks. Except swim. But even that has its downside, since my face is burnt to the point that I can't comfortable wrinkle my nose anymore.

On our last visit to the pool, I finally thought to wear my old lady straw hat. It's adorable and I don't care if nobody else likes it. Unfortunately, the wind kept blowing it off so I spent half the day chasing it around.

Then, and THEN, the kids ran off to the kiddy pool and I went to swim around the deep end and E was just hanging out in the shallow end and he found a HUGE load of FECES in the pool and scooped it out with his HANDS. He then told Ed, the overseer and they made everyone get out of the pool.

Then Ed the overseer crushed my dreams by informing us that the lady who works for the community who had previously informed us that the pool was mainly saltwater was wrong. He re-informed us that there was still a large amount of chemical usage, but that chlorine was not their main sanitizer. Until then.

He did his informing and then had enough chlorine put into the pool to ruin my day.

I went to hang out with the kids at the little, horrible pool while they ran their filters on light speed. I was sitting in the one foot of bathwater sprinkled with grass when some random little boy with a death wish grabbed my hat off my head and tossed it into the pool.

While I chanted "serenity now" R retrieved my hat and told the boy off a little bit. She knew him from school. He went and caused some other trouble and then every adult in the vicinity yelled at him and his mother came running and threatened his very life in front of everyone. I looked on with a approval while the American Mom of the Year in the chair beside mine (I left the pool after the hat incident) looked on with disdain.

When her little delight started arguing with her about something she was told to do, the mother just sat back in her chair and said, "You know what? I gave you all the information. Make your own decision." Because every good mom knows that six year olds make the best choices.

When the big pool was reopened thirty minutes later we opted not to jump back into the feces and chemicals. We went home.

This afternoon T's sister took the two big kids to the pool and I stayed home with Monkey and Tiny while T was in the city and E was at work. They got home in time for a bath, which put the plight of the basement trap back on my mind. I get tired just thinking about the potential mess that could cause.

I laid off running any water and made dinner. And by made, I mean heated frozen chicken. And by dinner, I mean frozen chicken and cucumbers with hummus because that was all I had the energy for.

I sat the kids down to eat and was putting the finishing touches on my own dinner, when R readied her first bite and took over my role.

For the last few years, wherever I am, whoever's house I am living in, when we sit down to dinner I rally up my best Lifetime-movie star voice and ask, "So, how was your day?"

Since only Monkey gets my humor, I have often tailored it here to "So, how was school?" Or "So, how was bothering me all day?"

At home my rude mother usually would tell me to stop being weird or obnoxious. At my brother's house, he is as weird and obxonious as I, so he would answer and do his own annoying question asking. Here, the kids usually laugh or roll their eyes and sometimes they actually talk about their day. Most often they talk about how much they hate eating dinner, but whatever, it's a conversation starter, regardless of what the conversation is about.

Tonight, before I had my change, R sat there, fork midair before her first bite and went, "So, how was camp?" And then when no one answered right away she plunged right ahead in my voice, "J, how was camp? What did you do?"

I have been replaced, but don't tell T. I think I can milk this job for another year or so. After all, R can't quite reach the toaster oven to cook her own frozen chicken yet.