I was prepared.
Four lunches were made the night before. Clothes all set. Backpacks ready to go.
ALL I had to do was get myself and four kids dressed and fed and out the door by 8 am.
This morning, this is how it went down....
7:15 - everyone happily eating
7:40 - everyone dressed
7:50 - everyone's teeth brushed
and here is where it starts to go bad.
Approximately 7:58 - two minutes until launch...
I walk into Kailey's room and into a puddle. The rug. Soaked. The hard wood floor. Puddles. The dresser. Soaking wet.
With two minutes until launch, I ask (admittedly, not very nicely) "KAILEY WHAT HAPPENED IN HERE"?
Her response... "oh I was spraying my hair with water and it got a little wet".
I look up and find that my daughter's hair looks like she just stepped out of the bathtub.
"Kailey you don't need that much water... now get a towel and clean this up".
8:02 - four minutes later and now two minutes late.
..... for any of you out there that try to get yourself and four kids out the door in the morning, you understand... Every. Minute. Counts. You run a wee bit late and you miss the bus. and then you have to drive the kids to school. and now you are 10 minutes late. and 10 minutes later the traffic is that much worse. and you end up being 15 or 20 minutes late. All because of one minute....
....back to my story.
8:02 - Kailey decides she doesn't want the pretzels I had packed for snack. She gets out the big bag of pretzels and begins putting her pretzels back in the bag. She then spills the ENTIRE bag of pretzels on the floor.
She cries. Screams really. Knowing that I am likely to be frustrated with her.
Which, of course I am not.
ME? Frustrated? NO!
Grace sees SNACK!!!! and runs over and plops herself in the pile of pretzels and begins shoveling them into her mouth. As she gorges herself on pretzels the weight of her little body crushes a good many into bits.
All on my kitchen floor.
It is now 8:04.
I decide to leave the pile of pretzels until.... I don't know when, 4:00 that afternoon when I return home?
I herd the four kids out the door and into the car. Kailey, with soaking wet hair and a tear stained face, realizes she has forgotten her backpack. And that her flip flops were the wrong choice for shoes.
"KAILEY!!!"
Finally, we arrive at Devin and Grace's daycare. I look at Devin's face, apparently for the first time since breakfast, and see that he has jelly ALL over his face.
Then Grace sneezes a few times and the pretzels from the kitchen floor she had shoveled into her mouth a few minutes earlier had come out of her nose and are now all over her face.
As I pull into the parking lot, a good friend waves from across they way. I wave back. A few minutes later I receive a text from my friend "you didn't look too happy, everything OK". Wow. Was it THAT noticeable? 100 yards away and through a car window she knew it was a bad morning.
She has four kids. She gets it.
After that, all went smoothly. Grace went happily to daycare. Devin too. and somehow I managed NOT to strangle my angel Kailey.
Luckily, Braden and Devin cooperated this morning. Imagine if they didn't.
I arrived at work at 9:03.
Whew.
Of course, I handled these 10 minutes (geez was it only 10 minutes... felt like an hour) with much grace, patience, decorum and kindness. Ahem.
and, of course, this is not a typical morning. Ahem.
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