Sometimes, The Posts Just WRITE Themselves

I knew this would be a bad morning when I heard thunder. At 5 a.m., followed by my husband BOUNDING of of bed to greet another day. I rolled over and went back to sleep. When the alarm went off, I rolled over and laid there for a minute, thinking of how rotten rainy Monday mornings are for school drop off. The line moves slow, people forget how to let their kids off correctly, and it's just s-l-o-w.

You can't realistically practice "drop and roll, kids!" in the pouring rain.

Going downstairs in time to say good bye to my husband and daughter - he was driving her to the bus stop to avoid the absolutely TORRENTIAL rain - I made breakfast for the little girls, only to discover we were out of butter for the frozen waffles that my obsessive child insists on every.single.morning. (2 whole wheat waffles with butter and low sugar fruit preserves. Every morning, without fail) I woke up the kids, and went back downstairs to pack lunches. (I usually do that at night, but was too tired last night. Rookie move failure #1). As the news station reported flood conditions, 3 of the 5 remaining kids came downstairs and thankfully, began to eat without incident. I made lunches, cleaned up the kitchen, and then suddenly realized it was 7, we'd need to leave in 15 minutes, and Riley was nowhere to be found.

TEN VERY frustrating minutes later, she was found - hiding under her bed. Tell me that didn't send the morning spiraling into uber frustration.  Hubby called and high school daughter FORGOT her schoolbooks, so he'd be returning home and then driving her to school. I tossed on some clothes, grabbed a sniveling Riley and her breakfast  - from the floor, where she'd tossed it because it was butterless. She's eating it anyway, I grumbled to myself. I JUST mopped the floor on Saturday and damnit, she's making us late.

I opened the van and everyone trooped in, with wet rain coats, book bags and umbrellas. But Gabe was still in the garage, mad because he outgrew his raincoat and he'd have to be wet. And we were missing a car seat - which meant grabbing the extra car keys and climbing into the back seat to unbuckle the safety harness - and the wind blew my jacket up in the back and by the time I'd finished, my bare back was soaked.

But wait. I'm not done. It just got worse. 

Traffic was heavy and slow - but we arrived at school in time and I pulled up to drop everyone off - and Emma jumped out of the van, into the puddle that I'd JUST warned her to avoid - and was immediately soaked to her knees. Great, I though. Now I'll have to bring dry socks and shoes to school - I can't have her sit in wet stuff all day. JUST what I wanted to do. Screw letting her face the natural consequences of getting soaked - with my luck, I'd be spending the last four days before Spring Break with a sick kid. I called my husband to grumble about my morning - to discover that the oldest child, who I'd WOKEN before I left - had gone back to sleep and was I aware of this and maybe I need to spend a little more time making sure he's awake before I leave? And now my husband would be late to work and on and on and on.

No. Not my problem.

Then I heard how my entire life could be transformed if I'd just wake up a little earlier and really, it'd make my life SO much easier if I greeted the day with a smile on my face and just be CHIPPER. Just decide to be that way and it will come to pass. (I may or may not have hung up the phone on him. I will not incriminate myself.) But when I hung up the phone I decided that I'd try to think of good things instead of grumpy, and so I began to plan my breakfast. That's good, right? It was oddly calming and so I planned my lunch - what can I say, I like food - and then moved on to reflecting about rotten jobs I was glad that I didn't have. Who would want to be a garbage collector in such nasty weather? Or a mailman? What about a UPS or FedEx driver? At least you get to stay home for the next six hours and bang around on the computer, I thought to myself. You don't have to be outside, you can do an exercise video that you like, and you can even take a nap if you want. In fact, be glad you aren't doing the job of that traffic officer right there, standing in the middle of the road in the pouring rain with her crazy making whistle.  She's directing traffic to stop. I'm stopping, I'm stopping, WHY is she going crazy, and, are you kidding me, she's jumping out in front of my lane of traffic and moving into the next lane, her whistle is going COMPLETELY insane and HOLY hell - THAT truck just FLEW past her and she missed getting nailed by a driver going 50 in a 25 by about a millimeter -

and, all of a sudden, my bad morning wasn't nearly as bad as I'd thought. And seeing a traffic lady flip off a renegade driver was, not quite, but almost, enough to make me smile.

And by the end of the week, it's supposed to be EIGHTY DEGREES.

Comments

[lucy]

I'd say the fact that you manage a smile on *any* morning is a remarkable achievement!

Great post, Carmen.

[WebSavvyMom]

-->Bless your heart. Since we're in the same town, I feel your pain on waking up to thunder. My 3 year old likes to dilly dally, jump in mud puddles and then prevent me from hooking the car seat because "Mama's butt is getting wet..." in the rain.
I'm anxious for the warm weather coming our way this weekend.
~deb

[Katherine]

Oh my goodness! Hopefully the rest of the week can only go up from there! :)

[Megan]

Your post makes being woken up by the cats multiple times during the night and then waking up with a stuffy nose and sinus headache sound like a vacation in Hawaii by comparison. I kept waiting to read that after all that, school was canceled due to the flood conditions.

And I hope the traffic officer was able to get that person's license plate number. I'm glad you were able to turn it into a positive for you -- seeing that kind of recklessness puts me in a bad mood without fail.

[Nicki]

Here's to hoping Monday is over soon? Bleah. I hate the mornings when everything starts out two steps behind and just goes downhill from there.

[Karen]

It's the first day back after spring break, I have a cold, and I'm dragging, but at least I didn't have the morning you had so I feel ever so slightly better. Here's hoping Tuesday is better for both of us!

[UKCraftySal]

That is truly the morning from hell!

Somehow (I obviously haven't been reading your posts as carefully as I thought!), I really had no idea your mornings were so terribly complex!! I knew you had 6 kids, not all in the same school, and with their individual quirks(!!) but wow! I'm exhausted just thinking about it!!

And you do that every school day, with no time off for good behaviour!

[Marjie]

I will never complain about my mornings with two kids ever again....well at least not this week. Maybe. ;)

[Deborah]

Hooray for all the horrible jobs you don't have to do and looking forward to 60 degree weather!!

[Jodie]

Makes my mornings look simple :) I, too, ran out of butter. I don't know how it happened. I NEVER run out of butter. And I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who must never run out of waffles!

[erin]

I am glad to hear that I am not the only wife to get the speech about if I only got up earlier, my life would flow more smoothly.....If I wasn't up so late doing laundry, cleaning up, finishing up my own work, etc....I enjoy reading about your days! Thanks for the smiles today.

[tracey]

Well, your morning made ME smile, if that's any consolation...

"Just decide to be happy..." HAHAHAHAHAHA!! Oh, he's funny! WHY didn't I THINK OF THAT?!?

[kyooty]

I would have hung up too. :P My Hubbie is the one staying in bed until the very last second and I'm the one saying "just get up and deal" haha and then after I get them all out, I sneak back to bed.

[Pam]

This just made me laugh- not at you, but at some things that sound so familiar! Like Rookie Move failure #1- we've all done things like that that we know will cause more problems the next day, but sometimes we just need sleep! And seeing something that puts things in perspective...God is good, isn't He??