Was kinda one of those days...

Madness. Sheer madness today. And, no, I'm not talking about Hillary Clinton.

Total chaos today. I'm not into astrology but I think the stars are misaligned somehow. Starting from 8 am today it has been a series of mishaps, breakdowns, miscommunications with a little bit of conflict, road rage, rapid-fire SMS messages, pressing editorial deadlines and badly-timed messy diapers thrown in.

Felt like a fish on a hook today, being reeled along as I bounced around wildly, confused yet fighting it all the way.

Won't bore you with the details, but here is but one moment that reflects the essence of the day:

While driving home from work after picking up the kids, and ignoring the phone calls and text messages from frustrated people (as a result of a convergence of technical breakdowns at the apartment building my family runs), my son used his precious little toe to open the car's back window.

I promptly put it up, telling him it was too hot and too stinky to keep it down - we were stuck in traffic on a 35-degree-Celsius-brain-melting-insane-humidity day, and there was no chance I was doing this trip without the aircon.

As we all know, the favourite word a 3-year-old likes to hear is, "No."

The word "No" is like a trigger that makes an otherwise sane child explode into a babbling fit at the total unfairness of the universe in which he rules.

"WINDOW DOWN! WINDOW! DOWN! WINDOW! DOWN! DOWN! DOWN!"

...followed by...

"I LIKE HOT STINK! I LIKE HOT STINK!I LIKE HOT STINK! I LIKE HOT STINK! I LIKE HOT STINK! I LIKE HOT STINK!"

This was the blast from the back seat today for the remainder of our journey.

My cooing talk to try to calm him down kept getting interrupted by my chortles of laughter.

I LIKE HOT STINK!

My new mantra, whenever the day gets me down.