next year I'm renewing early

FRIDAY:

• 12:01 a.m. The telephone shocks me awake. It's my brother, calling to wish me a happy birthday. "I wanted to be first!" he says. I mumble something (Mwahhhh?) and hang up.
• 12:09 I wake up, realize what I did, and call him back. He's used to this sort of thing.
• 12:19 Hang up, pass out again. The sleep of the angels and all that.
• 6:32 A small boy weight leaps on the bed. "It's your birthday!!"
• 8:30 Work. I am surprised with a rose and a very nice cake from some of the staff, and a pumpkin cheesecake (with a Kahlua sauce on top, got a recipe Joke??) from my boss and the supervisors. Sweet heaven, was that good!
• 4:30 I speed out the door, snatch children from the sitter, and drive like a demon forty minutes to B'water. (closest town with a RMV) Once there, I grab kids, toys, and my purse and sprint in the building. Where at least sixty people are. Okay, in for the duration. Car keys to R and two trucks to C, and while they're occupied I do rapid math in my head and figure out there are 38 numbers to be called before mine. Gonna be a while.
• 4:49 The duration turns out to be nineteen minutes long. Some other little boy has stepped on R's foot, taken my car keys, and run off, C in hot pursuit. R is screaming holy hell and just over her yells I can hear C demanding the keys back. I glare in the other childs direction and am shocked to see him hit C. Remembering to snatch up the howling baby, I get to the rowing boys as the other mom does - she mumbles something about how her boy loves keys and I shoot back that my boy loves not to be punched....and R is still screaming. Giving her back the keys has no effect. She is well and truly pissed. I glance up at the neon numbers, which haven't changed. We're out of here.
• Back in the car, tuck kids in seats, find a sippy for one and some gum for the other, and speed home, having a highly unsatisfactory conversation with Bear at the same time. He thinks I should stay in B'water and he'll come get the kids. I nix that, since I can't imagine what I would do with them for half an hour until he arrived. Home again, home again, jiggety jig!
• 5:20 Pull up the same time Bear does. Herd children into house, cast longing look at Chinese food Bear has with him, kiss B and back in the car.
• 5:30 My cell rings. It's B, and he has taken a crumpled bit of paper from babygirl's hot little paw - it's my number! Too far to look back now.
• 5:43 Back at the RMV. The crowd, if anything, has grown. My new number slides out of the machine at the same time the woman behind the counter bellows my old number. Sigh. I take out the only book I had sloshing around in the car and discover it's a cookbook. America's Test Kitchen. I dive in.
• 8:00 pm The ladies at the RMV lock the doors to prevent anyone new from entering. The throng is beginning to thin. The seats next to me are both full. Both of my neighbors are reading over my shoulders and talking about what they're reading. Glad they could make friends.
• 9:04 pm I step up, pay my fee, take the Worst Drivers License Picture In The History Of Ever, and ..............am..............free.
• FREE!!!!
• 9:30 pm The kids are still up (Daddy is easier to con out of a 7:30 bedtime) and we have cake and I scarf down (cold) (soggy) Chinese food. The kids are taken off and I sit, my whole body humming in the quiet kitchen, thinking....Isn't there something else I have to do??

Oh, that's right. I have to find the ten year calendar and write down the month before my drivers license expires. How early can I renew?