Better to teach a man to fish than to watch him steal the little suckers.
Our mornings are hectic.
I expect most homes with school age children in it are hectic - some more than others. Ours is really bad. Mostly because I hate waking up and having to do things quickly. And also because I hate when people try to speak to me in the mornings before my ears are awake and ready to listen to them which doesn't happen until some where around 9:43am. So, basically, if it's before 9:43am and you're holding a conversation with me, know that I'm pretty much putting on an act and stifling my urge to tell you to shut up and leave me alone.
The one exception is my early morning phone calls to my sister on our respective drives to work. That's because she's my sister and can get away with saying things like sounds like someone needs about fourteen more hours of sleep and also I feel that I owe her because I pretty much made her mornings a hellacious experience throughout our childhood, what with the slamming doors and screaming in her face and the 45 minute showers that used up all the hot water.
Needless to say, mornings ain't my thing.
Throw in a bunch of kids that need to be at a specified area at a specified time to the mix and you're pretty much watching a really mean, violent, R-rated version of I love Lucy. Kids running this way and that; blankets being pulled from the comatose child; mismatched socks; lost school books and jackets hoping to be reclaimed.
The one exception is Dotter. Who - although she certainly does not possess a chipper morning personality - prepares the night before. This means her book bag is in its place. Her shoes are next to it. And her lunch is made.
Let's repeat that: her lunch is made.
Which made this morning's tantrum that much more enjoyable. See, Dotter doesn't like things to go off track. She doesn't like quick changes in direction and she certainly doesn't understand why others would want to purposely derail things off course.
In 2.2 seconds we went from gathering our stuff and getting out the door to screaming, tears, all out tantrum: the lunch was missing. Gone. Vanished.
Who the hell takes a kid's lunch? A lunch the kid herself made the night before? And not just steal the lunch bag on the counter with the dry items in it... we're talking the stuff in the fridge, too. All of it. Gone. Every sandwich baggie, granola bar and yogurt cup.
And if you said, "Well, I think Big V needed that lunch because he was running late this morning and obviously didn't have time to pack his own lunch so it just made sense to take Dotter's and not bother to give you a head's up about it and it's only fair that you'd end up being twenty minutes late searching for a missing lunch. scrambling to throw together another one and calming an extremely upset child" then you're right.
I expect most homes with school age children in it are hectic - some more than others. Ours is really bad. Mostly because I hate waking up and having to do things quickly. And also because I hate when people try to speak to me in the mornings before my ears are awake and ready to listen to them which doesn't happen until some where around 9:43am. So, basically, if it's before 9:43am and you're holding a conversation with me, know that I'm pretty much putting on an act and stifling my urge to tell you to shut up and leave me alone.
The one exception is my early morning phone calls to my sister on our respective drives to work. That's because she's my sister and can get away with saying things like sounds like someone needs about fourteen more hours of sleep and also I feel that I owe her because I pretty much made her mornings a hellacious experience throughout our childhood, what with the slamming doors and screaming in her face and the 45 minute showers that used up all the hot water.
Needless to say, mornings ain't my thing.
Throw in a bunch of kids that need to be at a specified area at a specified time to the mix and you're pretty much watching a really mean, violent, R-rated version of I love Lucy. Kids running this way and that; blankets being pulled from the comatose child; mismatched socks; lost school books and jackets hoping to be reclaimed.
The one exception is Dotter. Who - although she certainly does not possess a chipper morning personality - prepares the night before. This means her book bag is in its place. Her shoes are next to it. And her lunch is made.
Let's repeat that: her lunch is made.
Which made this morning's tantrum that much more enjoyable. See, Dotter doesn't like things to go off track. She doesn't like quick changes in direction and she certainly doesn't understand why others would want to purposely derail things off course.
In 2.2 seconds we went from gathering our stuff and getting out the door to screaming, tears, all out tantrum: the lunch was missing. Gone. Vanished.
Who the hell takes a kid's lunch? A lunch the kid herself made the night before? And not just steal the lunch bag on the counter with the dry items in it... we're talking the stuff in the fridge, too. All of it. Gone. Every sandwich baggie, granola bar and yogurt cup.
And if you said, "Well, I think Big V needed that lunch because he was running late this morning and obviously didn't have time to pack his own lunch so it just made sense to take Dotter's and not bother to give you a head's up about it and it's only fair that you'd end up being twenty minutes late searching for a missing lunch. scrambling to throw together another one and calming an extremely upset child" then you're right.
Comments
I am dreading public school with their obscene 7:30 start time. I'm usually stumbling around the kitchen trying to work the coffeemaker with my eyes still closed at that time, let alone dressed appropriately to leave the house.