Keep Calm and Chaos On

September Writing Challenge - Prompt #32:

Chaos

So far this school year I haven’t been able to get our mornings under control. 

I can’t seem to wake up on time. It’s funny that I went to work at 5 a.m. all summer long with no problem, but I can’t manage to get my tuchus out of bed by 6:30 now that my kids are back in school. 

I have to leave earlier this year to take kids to school because Zoe has dance practice. It’s only 10 minutes difference, but I am always scrambling to get out the door.

Eva is in junior high now and has to be ready at the same time as Zoe, and she is NOT having it. Every morning she has a mega mood swing, and she’s doing the whole anxiety-fueled “my tummy hurts” thing when she goes to bed at night and when she wakes up on school mornings. She can never find her shoes. Someone (never her) is always putting her shoes somewhere, and no, she can’t wear a different pair because (insert absurd reason here).

I am rarely ready for the day when it’s time to leave. I can come back home and finish getting ready before I go to work if I need to, but ideally I will go to work straight from school drop off. 

Almost every day as I pull away from the school, I either need to cry, swear, or eat my emotions. Often all three. 

Every night I make a game plan for the next morning so things will go better, and every morning ends up feeling chaotic.

Wednesday morning, for example, I was cooking runny eggs when I realized I hadn’t seen Eva at all. Daisy went and checked to see if she was up, and she was sound asleep. This was ten minutes before we needed to leave (she had turned her alarm off).

I forced Eva out of bed, and told her to hit the ground running. I told her I would have breakfast ready for her to eat in the car.

I still needed to finish drying and styling my hair. Yup. Ten minutes left.

(Please note that I was asked for McDonald’s no fewer than eight times including while I was cooking).

The eggs stuck to the pan. Somehow in the past six months I’ve lost my ability to cook over easy eggs. I even have a trusty hack that I used for years without fail that no longer works for me! I now have no confidence when cooking eggs. No wonder they want McDonald's! So do I!

I did the best I could to finish getting ready so I could go to the store straight from the school (it was my day off, and I had big plans!) 

I finally got the girls to school, and Eva dropped her water bottle which A) was not closed all the way so half her water spilled out and B) rolled under the van. 

After the girls headed into school, I drove to Smith’s. As I pulled in my parking spot, the sun was in my eyes, and I didn’t see that my spot had a concrete planter in it. I pulled in too far, and CRUNCH! Was I Marco Poloing a friend at the time? Maybe (if I was, it was hands free, I promise). Did I yell shit into the phone? Maybe.

At the store I bought three boxes of a Dip n Dots-style ice cream on markdown. I thought my girls would be so happy! When I got home, I unpacked them all and found that the tops had lifted off some of the containers, and the treats inside had obviously melted and refrozen into giant blobs. Hmmm. Probably why they were so cheap. 

I threw them all away!

I decided to pack my kids’ lunches for the next day to help me feel like some part of my life was under control. I had some Kings Hawaiian rolls that needed to be used up, so I made tiny sandwiches. While the tops were still off, somehow I knocked the cutting board with all seven sandwiches off the counter, and every single piece of bread, cheese, and meat flew out of place and landed on the floor. 

At that point, it was about 10:00 a.m, and I decided the best thing I could do was to sit on the couch and hold still until it was time to meet some friends for lunch. Thank heavens I had the foresight the night before that I would need a lunch date!

Now, after a few days of weekending, I can do it all over again!