(Still) Not back in the routine.

My first kid to go back to school started almost a month ago. My last kid to start back started over 2 weeks ago.

So why am I still dragging my butt into work at 9 AM every stinking morning? I'm that annoying co-worker who is usually there first. I'm usually there by 7:40. What's with the hour and a halftwenty minutes later I'm averaging these days?

Perhaps more specifically, why does it take me more than 2 hours to get out of my house?

This morning was a perfect example or not...
It all started yesterday...

I was stuck in traffic and got home late. I was tired and did not review her backpack. The Princess got to bed late. The Boo Man could not find his pants.

First we woke up late. Yes, very late almost 7 o'clock kinda late. So I slimmed the routine. The big boys got a quick "Eat Breakfast before you leave" instruction yelled from the bedroom instead of the tender moments in the morning where I sit with them over the hot breakfast of nutritious oatmeal I've slaved over.

Yeah, right -- my hat tip to nutrition is making sure their breakfast cereal doesn't have High Fructose Corn Syrup. But I do usually make eye contact when telling them to eat breakfast. As much eye contact as a teen aged boy is willing to make with his mother first thing in the morning (hint: not actually eye contact, more like eye to the top of their heads contact).

Healthy breakfast before boys get on bus. Check.

Then I turn my attention to the other son. Every mother of boys will understand this next one, and hopefully sympathize with me. My 9 year old is in the "It-doesn't-stink-and-there's-no-visible-dark-dirt-spots-surely-I-can-wear-it-one-more-time" phase of his life. I've tried organizing his clothes. I've put outfits together -- complete with socks and underwear hanging in his closet, I've really tried everything, and yet he comes downstairs morning after morning looking like refugee. The shirt is not just a tad too small -- it fit him when he was 4. The shorts are so dirty I am not sure what their natural color is. This morning his defense when I told him his shirt was dirty

Him: "But I got it out of the laundry, it's gotta be clean."
Me: "Then there's a big stain on the front and you can't wear it."
Him: "But it's brand new, it can't be stained."
Me: "I'm as shocked as you are."

I didn't even fight on the shorts, at least they were clean. I can only imagine what the teachers think of me. They must assume I am blind. (A myth I dispel at Back To School Night.) or negligent. (much more likely.) I always thought I would redeem myself with my daughter. She is so picky about her clothes and always looks so neat. I've recently realized it will probably create more disdain because they will believe I funneled all my time and care to her while the boys were left to raise themselves. --Ah but I digress.

The Boo Man dressed not like a refugee. Check.

Next on the list of to do items: The Princess. She is not a morning person. Hmmmmm, wonder where that comes from? I have to get her out of bed with Daddy, dressed in an outfit she's willing to wear, hair brushed, fed, lunch packed, backpack ready and out the door to school. Each one of those tasks takes approxiamately 20 minutes-- on a cooperative day.

This morning was not a cooperative day. Add to all the normal stuff, one VERY loose tooth that has been threatening to fall out all week and this morning it finally did. Yes, because I had so much time to show the proper amount of entusiasm for a lost tooth. But somewhere in the midst of crazy, we moms always find the time. Work be damned.

When I finally got around to reviewing her folder from school I found "Surprise" a note from the teacher. Apparently yesterday The Princess was moved to red. --SOOOOOOO not what I needed this morning.--- So then we add another 10 minute discussion about misbehaving at school

Finally it's time to eat breakfast and do her hair which I combine in a time saving effort. Then while she finishes I'm making lunch and sending Boo up to brush his teeth and hair.

Ahhhhhh, lunch made, backpack ready, the Princess dressed, hair brushed, teeth brushed, and we're walking out the door.

So I guess after all this I should really ask myself why I am able to get out before noon?
appropriately
1.5
7:00 7:30

The Galaxy is changing

I really don't know how it happened.  I'm not sure if there was a slow march or a sprint but I woke up one day and my house had changed.  There was a time when every where I looked I had matchbox cars, plastic dinosaurs and Bionicles.  One day I woke up came into my living room and surveyed the mess.  It was comprised of Princesses, Barbies and paper dolls.

I spent so long in a blue world when the pink came along I embraced it.  I needed a change of color.  My friends would say I did more than embrace it, they might say I painted my world pink and left no room for the blue anymore.  I don't agree.  We have three sons and two of them are too old for such nonsense anymore, their playthings have given way to iPods and Nintendo DS.  However the younger of the two still keeps and builds Bionicles but only in his room.  It's as if it's a secret.  And  he would definitely die of shame if anyone in the seventh grade found out.

The third son still plays with childhood toys.  And as a result Star Wars invaded our Living Room at Christmas and inhabited that strange planet for months before picking up and moving on to Planet Boo.  Boo, the benevolent dictator of his namesake planet gives semi equal time to Indiana Jones, Spiderman and Jurassic Park but it's clear the Star Wars race is the favored one for now.  His former favored races, including Thomas the Tank Engine and the Wiggles, try to warn Obi Wan that this may be short lived popularity, but he is so arrogant that he will hear nothing of it.

The now out of favor Thomas and Wiggles memorabilia have moved to another location which is downstairs and about 50 feet to the left.  This is Planet Sarah.  This Planet has the lightest pink atmosphere and beautiful demi-gods painted on the walls.  Greg Wiggle is really enjoying getting to know Barbie a little better and Thomas finally is paired up with the Annie train and they are busily producing baby trains all over the train drawer.

As a mother and Queen of Black Galaxy which is all these planets that orbit the star Kitchenopolis, I try to corral the loose populations and send them to their corresponding planets.  It's a full time job almost.  I spend a lot of my time paging the benevolent dictators to retrieve their  stray populations.

Lately I have noticed the strays have changed.  Cinderella and Aurora have replaced Thomas and Greg.  Pink and purple have replaced blue and yellow.  It's a sad commentary because I know one day in the not too distant future Cinderella and Aurora will, too be replaced.  There will come a day when the strays will no longer appear magically in my Living Room and perhaps about the same time two of the Benevolent dictators will no longer be living in this Galaxy full time.

One of the Dictators has already taken to spending more time in his home planet of Dino Dan's World and has to be summoned even to appear in Kitchenopolis for the common meal every night.  We still have our twice weekly meeting of all the dictators to view the latest funnies from the small screen, and we laugh and enjoy those weekly meetings because we do realize they do not happen frequently enough and we try to make more of them.  But in just over three years that Dictator will be off and beginning a new Chapter somewhere which will end with him creating his own galaxy and perhaps his own Dictators and their planets.  The cycle will continue that much we know.