Helpful How-To: How to Lose your mind in less than one week.

Step 1: Have a sick toddler wondering around your home.  For.days.

Step 2: Have a shaggy dog also wondering said home.

Step 3: Make sure said toddler's internal alarm goes off at 2 am, when of course, instead of hitting the snooze button like any well-trained toddler would, he stands - crying (screaming at times) - in his crib and throwing his paci on the floor.

Step 4: Make sure said dog follows you from your bed to said toddler's room, so that upon entry said toddler screams "DOH-woof, woof, woof!!" and demands to touch said dog.

Step 5: It helps if you also are stressing out about not having seen your lonely father-in-law who is recovering from surgery due to all the dang germs.

Step 6: It also helps if you throw in a few snow storms.

Step 7: The icing on the cake is when you promise yourself stress relief by running a few miles only to have it snow.  Again.

Step 8: Drive through said snow storm to your best friend's house to use her treadmill for much needed stress relief.

Step 9: Sweat her new ikea pillows that you were soooo gonna get when you were gonna go to Ikea this past weekend.  You know, before the snow hit and ruined all your plans.

Step 10:  Go home and listen to the sound of birds flying at pigs all.night.long.

Step 11: Lather, rinse, repeat.