All in a day

Man, some days you're better off just staying in bed.

Before 7 am J had already sneezed a mouthful of half-chewed raisin bran all over the back of my neck, and then proceeded to gag and puke the rest of his breakfast on my foot. Makes you all want to rush right out and have kids, doesn't it?

Who am I kidding, most of you already have kids, and are well ahead of me on all of this.

We had major meltdowns over everything from the way his underwear didn't match his pants to snotty noses, to sock seams, which all culminated in "I'm not going to school today, Mommy." Of course, this led to me forcing him, one gentle push at a time to the car, into the car, into the car seat, to the school, out of the car again, and ALL the way down the hall to his class, all the while whispering evil threats of Pokemon revoking, tv and computer game restrictions, straight down to a timeout right there in class, on the floor, while he kicked bruises into my shins. No idea where my son gets his morning mentality!

I can't take mornings like this, and yet I don't know how to prevent them. The snotty cereal on the back of the neck I can deal with, but the attitude and the stubborn streak and the just plain ugly? Not my bag. And I've said it before, but I can sympathize. Just like me, the child isn't wired for mornings. I could wake him up at 6, at 5, at 4 even, and he's still not going to be prepped and ready for a good day.

And I'll hang my head shamefully and admit to coddling him, to giving in to him all too frequently on the little things, but this going to school thing... well, it's a requirement. He has to attend, or get dropped. I guess the good side is that we're (hopefully) getting this out of his system before he starts kindergarten next year. That, and he goes to a great school, and his teachers and admin are very patient and understanding with him.

But still... I can't help but feel like one of our clients--one of the ancient old ladies ambulating with a walker, being dragged across the lobby by a great dane that's hellbent on eating the poodle cowering behind it's owner's ankle-- every time I walk through the door. I know all the other parents are looking at me and him and shaking their heads in disgust... or at least praising all that is holy that it's not THEIR child acting that way.

And then I went to work.


Fast forward to lunch time. I picked J up from school, got caught in the hall having an impromptu parent-teacher conference which ate up half my time, then rushed to the inlaws to drop him off there so I could get back to work, and they friggin weren't home! WTF?! How long have I had this same schedule? These same work days with these same times? So I called hubby, just to get someone else involved in the drama, I suppose.

J and I made the best of it and had a picnic on the front porch while we waited-- more because it was now after 1 p.m. and I hadn't even had any breakfast yet.

I finally got him dropped off, got back to work, and had a 45 minute phone conversation with a crazy lady who insisted that her cats were infested with some sort of parasitic creatures with red beady eyes that were burrowing under her skin and chewing holes in her buttocks and *said in that low, confidential whisper* "inside me, ya know... inside me." Oh God help me!!

Shall I continue?

On the way to pick J up I got a phone call from my sister telling me that the dog had locked her out of the house.

Then I get home, sit down, and the doorbell rings and there stands the pizza guy with a pizza I didn't order.

And now? Now that it's nearly 10 pm. I think my day is finally reaching a moment of normalcy. Hubby is on the couch watching some weird Japanese game show, Jonas is running around blowing a horn and making all sorts of wild noise because he took a nap at Abuela's and isn't the slightest bit tired, and the dog is sitting here, head in my lap, banging her tail loudly against the metal base of the lamp, begging for me to take her out. This is calm in my world.