Next year, I’m making them walk to school

tlips

This was my morning:

7:00: Try to wake up girls, but they are out cold.
7:02: Make coffee, unload dishwasher, put clothes in the dryer.
7:15: Try to wake up girls, they beg to sleep a little longer.  I let them.  The last week of school is basically just a hazing ritual to see who among the parents is dedicated enough to get straight which day is Hawaiian Day, which one is Olympic Day, when to send the kid in their class t-shirt and with a sack lunch for a field trip, and when to send them in their pajamas.  I don’t really care if we are late.  I’m a little cranky and tired myself.
7:30: I’ve had one cup of coffee and answered some work email.  The girls are snoring, both of them.
7:40: Drag them out of bed and start handing them clean clothes to get dressed in. 
7:45-7:50:  There is a lot of whining and flopping around.  A Lot.
7:55: Realize we need to leave in five minutes.  Get another cup of coffee.  Spend the next twenty minutes getting hair done, shoes on, sunscreen applied (I do know it’s Olympic Day, which means outside all day for them) teeth brushed, lunches into backpacks.
8:15: At school, the bell is ringing, yet we are at home, asking Nate if Sophie can borrow his Vote For Pedro baseball cap because I kept forgetting to put sunscreen on her scalp since she got her braids, and she’s got a pretty awful sunburn.  See braids, below:

crazy hair day

Somebody saw Karate Kid II and fell in love with Jaden Smith’s hair and Needed To Have It. 

Still 8:15: Time to leave, I want to stop and take a photo of Sophie in the Pedro hat, but instead grab bread and peanut butter and make foldovers for the girls to eat in the car.  I hand the girls their sandwiches, and we walk out the door.  I’m wearing ugg boots, pink pajama pants with wedding cakes all over them, a Rock Your Firefox purple tshirt, and a ponytail that goes straight up so that my bangs, which are nearly grown out, can reach it and wont’ be in my eyes.

We get in the car and the girls ask to listen to Hank III.  This song:

They sing along, mouths full of peanut butter, and I remember that I never did find the 2012 sticker for my license plate that came in the mail a few weeks ago and my tags are expired.  And, I pass a police officer.  Perfect!  I have no wallet, my young kids are listening to music that carries a parental advisory, and I am in my pajamas with my hair sticking straight up.  And sunglasses.

I use up all my good karma and don’t get pulled over.  I pull up to the curb, where the girls kiss me goodbye and jump out of the van and run to their classrooms with the other late kids.  I feel a little better that we’re not the only late family, but I am most definitely the only parent in my pajamas.

I go home and start looking, again, for the 2012 tag.  When it came in the mail, I stuck it in my checkbook, because it was rainy out and the car was dirty and I didn’t want to put it on when it wouldn’t stick.  But, of course it isn’t there anymore.  And I know because I’ve taken the checkbook apart six or seven times and looked and looked.  There’s a very dim memory of taking the sticker out again, and placing it *somewhere* so that I can grab it later, but just as my hand is putting the sticker somewhere, the memory gets fuzzy.

I do remember, though, that I was sitting at my desk paying bills when I moved the sticker.  So I sit.  Nothing.  I start looking around me, slowly.  To my left is a bookshelf.  I sit up a little taller in my chair and see a tiny fleck of green on the shelf just above my line of vision.  I stand up, and there is my tag, thankfully, which means I can take the girls to school in pajamas all the way till the bitter end.  Go, me!   

3 thoughts on “Next year, I’m making them walk to school

  1. Rachel

    That sounds like most mornings my mom dropped me off at school :).
    You never saw a mom happier than about their kid getting a drivers license.
    Yay for finding the tag!

    Reply

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