Manic Monday

I like Monday mornings.  I like getting back at it and seem to be very motivated for "house chore" stuff on Mondays.  This can wane significantly by afternoon, but the morning is my "get er done" time.

USUALLY, we get up and do the breakfast/pack lunches/do duck duties thing.  Check/Check/Check this morning.  USUALLY I have to do a little prodding to get certain children up and running.  Check.  USUALLY Simon will be done early and ask to play ipad.  Check.  USUALLY we begin to get ready to get on the bus at 8:05, pray together, and then I send them off.  Check.  Only this morning something different happened with this last step.  See, the ducks were a little pokey this morning.  They weren't defiant or forgetful or angry or ornery. . . they were just a little pokey and dawdling and playful and picking at each other.  "Ducks, keep moving.  If you miss the bus I will be angry."  We prayed and I sent them out only to hear shouting-- "Wait Wait Wait!!!"  I followed them outside and saw Garrison running down the road as the bus pulled away from the bus stop.  Simon was hoofing it in the neighbors lawn (he rarely takes the road--faster to go cross country and he often takes the path less traveled by).  Noel was at the bottom of our driveway trying to run in her snow boots.  They kept trying to go on as the bus left the neighborhood.  Every one of them was crying.  Me?  I was laughing.

I know I had told them that I would be angry. . . but I didn't feel it.  I had felt it in the house when I had said it.  I hadn't lied because it was true at that moment.  But in this moment, I was laughing.  It just looked all so funny.  Three kids trying to run and have their backpacks all skewed. . . three kids all on a different paths. . . three kids seeing the bus pull away.  I felt like I was watching a t.v. show.

I assured them that it would be o.k. and I would take them to school.  They came inside.  I asked them to take off their stuff-we'd be leaving in about 25 minutes.  I got Penny settled and was talking to myself out loud to try and determine my new course of the day.  My exercise/shower/Monday morning clean up were out the window.  When I returned I found all three of them standing on the mat in the entryway.  "What's up?"  "We are waiting to go."  I think they would have stood there for 25 minutes.  I laughed.  We talked about what had happened.  They asked if I was angry and we talked about that.  They asked if they would have to do some extra jobs to pay for my time.  They are correct.

We made it on time for school.  Penny and I made it to Target--we were out anyway.  Target doesn't carry kids rain boots in the spring.  This perplexes me.  I'm not feeling as motivated.  Who knows what else will be different today?