Late

Yes, yes I know, I have fallen behind on my blogging duty. What can I say? I've been busy...it's hard to sit down and write about the girls when the girls seem to have more days off from school lately than days in school. You would think with all this time off - spring break, followed by professional days, followed by Easter break - that I would be refreshed and recharged and full of patience and wisdom to pass on to my children. After this mornings off to school debacle, I think I can safely say that apparently I am not. Okay, we did manage to get out the door in decent fashion yesterday after a four day Easter hiatus, but I am pretty sure that is due mainly to the fact that I lured the girls out of bed with waffles. I did attempt a repeat performance this morning, but it would seem waffles are only good once, and then after that you have to dig deeper into your morning bag of tricks. Let me preface this by explaining that last night was game 7 of the Canucks vs. Chicago hockey playoff series, which happened to go into overtime. It was already well past bedtime before we headed into sudden death, and there was just no way either myself or my husband were going to start playing bedtime bingo with Kate, so everyone was up until we'd scored the winning goal and done a family version of screaming and jumping up and down and high fives etc. So by the time we were all in bed, it was late. We all looked hungover this morning, which was odd since no one was drinking. So we got up late. And I hadn't made lunches the night before either - give me a small break, I had the kids at soccer practice until 7:30 and then had to race home in a bizarre cloudburst of blinding rain, followed by the most amazing rainbow, and of course the game was well underway by the time we got home, so no, lunches did not get made. Anyway. So as I slapped together sandwiches, the kids silently worked their way through some cereal and one waffle each that I had toasted for them in the hopes that it might perk them all up a bit. We did manage to make it through the morning routine in about 20 minutes, but then it all fell apart. Kate wanted me to help her brush her hair...and that was all it took. I have a rule about hair. If the girls can't take care of it themselves properly, then they have to wear it short. Because I can't handle the ordeal of trying to brush it for them while they scream and writhe around like I am applying hot coals to their scalps. So as you may have guessed by now, the hair brushing didn't go well, and I chose to walk away and put on my jacket and shoes and leave the house with the other girls. Meanwhile Kate was not getting us anywhere, so I ended up having to go pick her up, carry her to the car with her socks and shoes, stuff her in, shut the door on her screaming face, go back to the house, get her back pack and jacket, return to the car, stuff them in, and blast off. Poor Elizabeth was having a heart attack in the meantime, as she hates to be late. I reached behind me and patted her leg to reassure her that everything would be fine. Then we pulled out of our driveway into a line of traffic and burly woman with a stop sign leaped in front of my car and waved at me to pull over and stop. Oh. My. God. Have I mentioned that our road is being completely dug up, moved, basically annihilated to make room for a highway going in a little further down the hill? So there we sit, waiting while traffic from the opposite direction drives slowly past, Elizabeth is wailing, Kate is shrieking that if we're late it's not her fault, and Emily is begging everyone to just be quiet. The last truck approaches the stocky sign holder, but instead of moving past he STOPS. And leans out his window, and starts having a "conversation" with the sign lady, who smiles and walks away from him. He shouts and waves his arms at her, the kids shrieks build to a furious crescendo, and that's it, I snap. I lay on my horn as hard as I can to get the attention of both the truck driver and the sign lady, and then while continuing to lean on my horn I wave my other arm around and make crazy lady faces at them. My windows are not rolled down so I know they can't actually hear me, therefore I just have to look like I'm saying something....the sign lady waves the truck driver on, gives me the go ahead to move, and the truck driver passed me with his tongue stuck out...which the kids really appreciate, and we tear off up the road to school in stony silence. And it must be a morning after a hockey miracle miracle, because although my watch indicates that we are definitely late, the doors have just opened and the kids are just going inside. I call out "have a good day, have a good day, have a good day" three times in succession and get into my car again without looking back. When I get home, I check the paper to see when round two of the playoffs start...tomorrow night. Hmmmm. Looks like I am going to have to stock up on an exciting assortment of breakfast items, plus maybe make a month's worth of lunches and freeze them just to keep up with mornings around here. Perhaps even more importantly, I will have to come up with some form of bribes for the traffic ladies if this is going to continue, maybe special coffees for letting us jump the line so we make it to school on time? Or maybe I just need to reevaluate the whole concept of "late", at least for the remainder of the hockey season...