Putting Out Fires

Why do annoying little mishaps seem to happen in groups? It can't just be, "Oh look! Addy has figured out how to open her dresser drawers and throw every item of clothing onto the floor while I'm not looking!" 'Cause if it was just that and nothing else AFTER that, then the original incident would be kind of cute, maybe, and certainly only minorly frustrating. But to have it immediately followed by Addy dumping her bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch all over the couch, before I had even gotten around to cleaning up the empty-dresser mess, made both things seem neither cute nor minor. And then, to take Addy off to have a bath in order to remove the coating of sugar and cinnamon from every square inch of her body, and have her pee all over her bedroom rug before I could get a clean diaper on her, then freak out and run in circles wailing about the pee running down her leg... Well, that didn't make it better.
I was getting truly irritable, and the only way I could maintain my Mommy cool was to think in steps, and not think beyond the step I was on. First, wipe pee off child and put on a diaper. Second, clean pee out of rug before it sets in. Third, dress kid and get her set up with a movie so I can proceed to steps four and five, cleaning up cereal on couch and cleaning up clothes off of floor. So I was happy that I came out of all these minor setbacks to my schedule without having a major meltdown. But I was not happy about the way that my morning seemed to have literally disappeared without my doing one single thing on my actual to-do list.