Need help. Scared, confused pt 3

[Jefe]

Well, she didn't come in when she dropped the girls, just called for a second afterwards to make sure they got in and to hear my voice I suspect.

Let me follow up with the events that transpired last night. Then I will fill in as much of today as I can.

She has been planning all week to pick up the girls after she got of work yesterday so they could spend the night with her and my MIL. I have been apprehensive about this for 2 reasons. One I was trying to determine of what value this visitation was going to be because her shift was from 3:30 pm until at least 7:30 or whenever her route was done. By the time she picked them up it was going to be bed time and they were going to get up and head straight to church this morning, so why bother? Second, I knew there was a high likelihood that my wife was going to have to cancel the night and that was going to crush my girls leaving me to deal with the broken hearts.
Well, she texted and called around 8 saying that it was not looking good. It was a pleasant conversation and I said no problem I'll let the girls know. I did and as expected they were very upset and disappointed. I let them stay up and snuggle with me past bed time and got them down.
Wife called around 10:45 to chat and let me know that she was just now half way home from work and that she was not going to church in the morning, she wanted to sleep in. Again, it was a pleasant conversation and I was very happy that she took the time to call.

This morning we got ready and went to church as normal.

She texted just after I got to church:
W: How did it go this morning?
M: Fine
She texted a bit about her money concerns while we're waiting for a couple of checks from customers.

Then a little later I get:
W: (D5) is crying for me in her class can you go get her please
M: OK

I left service and grabbed my daughter who was just sad and was missing mommy. I got her a snack then the wife called asking about things and wanted to talk to her. They talked for a few minutes then she hung up.
I was planning on taking D5 back into the service with me but the wife called and said: "Did you get her back to class already?" I said no, "Why not, I told her to go back to class. Would you please get her back to class and call me back when you're done, geeze."
I apologized for not realizing that that was the plan and got my daughter back to class. The subsequent phone call was an angry mess of the W blaming me for not telling her last night that they were upset. I asked why she was so irritated with me and she said because she had to work late last night. "And that makes you mad at me?" yup, was her reply. She went into how it wasn't her fault she was late, and all the problems, how it wont'e be like this every Sat, etc.
I get it. This is the very scenario that Hope described of the lasher. I'm just lost on how I could have handled it better and been her hero for the day. When she hung up on me, I sent the following texts:

M: I'm sorry, I hear you. You've got all your stuff now and it will be better next time. I'm not picking at you.
W: Exactly it was out of my control not on purpose.
M: J*******, I didn't blame you. I know it was out of your control. And that must have been frustrating.
M: I didn't tell you how sad they were when you called the second time last night because I figured you were already having a tough time and I didn't want to sound like I was picking at you. I'm sorry, next time I'll tell you.

She came by after church to send an hour or so with them before she had to go back to work. She had mentioned last night that she would just take them to the park and have a picnic lunch.
When she got there I was making the picnic for them all. I had even stopped by the store and got mommy's favorite cookies. Nothing I did suited her. She wanted to know why I was making a picnic because she had other plans. I said: "You told me this was your plan. Ok no problem we'll skip that are you going to feed them because they're starving?" Then she told them to hurry up and eat now. Then it was never mind just finish making it all and we'll have a picnic. The whole time she's lashing at me.

Detach, detach, detach.

Hope, if you read this. This is exactly as you pointed out and this is where I normally withdraw. And so the cycle starts. I don't want to do that this time.