Monday morning, I was in the kitchen preparing breakfast. And by preparing, I mean throwing boxes of cereal onto the table and searching for clean silverware. I found two spoons.

Oh well, one child will love the challenge of using a fork.

At that moment, my three youngest kiddos trudged into the room. They wearily claimed seats and made no attempt to enjoy the beautiful meal displayed in colorful cardboard that I had lovingly laid before them.

“What’s wrong?” I asked cheerfully.

I got a mix of one syllable mumbles including words like Monday, tests and tired.

I am a bit like Tony Robbins on steroids when it comes to Mondays. To me, a Monday is a fresh start oozing with promise. Limitless possibilities. A new day where anything can happen.

I shared all of this with with my children, in a very loud, you’re in my house so you’ll listen to my pep rally, kind of voice.

The lack of applause was spirit dampening, but I wouldn’t let it bring me off my week starting high.

The kids were delivered to school and I sat at my desk, ready for Monday to unfold its potential. The phone rang. It was my tax preparer’s office. Odd, since we had already signed our paperwork and it was being filed.

I grinned. Obviously they had caught a mistake and were calling to tell me about a large refund now owed to me.

“Hello!” I chirped into the phone.

“Mrs. Diaz, we have discovered that someone has stolen your husband’s social security number and has filed a tax return with it.”

Grin to grimace in less than 3 seconds.

Fifteen minutes of instruction later, I hung up the phone. This news “oozed with the promise” of long wait times on hold and conversations with non-Monday loving IRS workers.

I left the house to pick-up my six year old. She hopped into the car and I distractedly listened to her chatter about the morning. I happened to glance in the rear view mirror and observed her scratching her head, in earnest. My heart sank.

Oh Monday, you wouldn’t…..

It would.

When you are a mom to four kiddos you will, at some point, make the discovery of lice in your child’s hair. We had been through the drill five years earlier with another child whose long, curly, thick hair forced me to decide between my sanity or her shaved head. Her curls remained.

My walk up the steps to retrieve the nit removal kit lacked the enthused spring that had started the day. I sprayed her hair and covered it with a clear shower cap. She danced around the room proclaiming “I am a mini-cafeteria worker. Look at me.”

I set-up my lice removal station with the essentials. Direct sunlight, nit comb, basin of water, paper towels, ipad and two Tylenol. I downed the pills and told my lunch lady to come sit.

An hour and a half later, I had completed one half of her head. The dilemma was that I had to leave in ten minutes, with all the kids, to get my teen to his dentist appointment. If I attempted to rinse and dry her hair, I would have to go through her whole head again when we returned.

I sprinted to the kitchen, dug through a box of winter hats, deftly tied up the finished side of her head, quarantined it to one side, and shoved the entire dripping, and decidedly fragrant, mess under the cap. My daughter looked baffled but has learned not to question my moments of mama mania.

I herded everyone into the van, which instantly filled with the intense aroma of wet hair being baked under a snow cap in April temperatures.

“Now,” I said pointedly to everyone. “We do not need to say anything about lice in the waiting room. Some mamas may not appreciate that information.”

My teen looked perplexed as to why I felt the need to articulate these instructions.

“Who would say anything about that?” he asked.

He paused, and in unison, everyone turned to look at the five year old seated in the far back. He returned the stares with an innocent grin and wiggled his eye brows.

We entered the waiting room. The six year old rocked her knitted hair covering like it was New York Fashion Week and we all plastered on an expression of normalcy. Everyone, that is, except the ten year old. The ten year old didn’t look good.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered.

She shook her head. Her cheeks were flushed. I felt her forehead. She was extremely warm.

REALLY MONDAY!!

I shuttled each one back into the van. The hat wearing one, the Groucho Marx one, the sick one and the surly one who said, “This is your fault mom. You shouldn’t have made her take the state standardized tests today. If you had only opted out…..” The mom one silenced him with a flare of her nostrils.

And so Monday marched on with hours more of hair combing, child comforting, and mounds of linens to wash and dry.

As I collapsed into bed, irritated by Monday’s betrayal, I was reminded of a verse:

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33

The world will throw a lot at you. Try to bury your joy beneath its trouble. Strip the hope right out of your week.

But take heart! Because we have a Savior who has overcome it all. The lice. The sickness. The IRS. Even the Mondays!

I closed my eyes and smiled. Because tomorrow….tomorrow is Tuesday.

And let me tell you what I love about a Tuesday……