I know I have written about this before but that just makes it even sillier that we pretty much re-lived the craziness.
I am talking about the first day back at school/work after Winter Break. It's amazing that it can look even more chaotic and disorganized than the official first day of school.
Here's how ours looked.
It actually started out with some planning and forethought. Sunday night, anticipating a crazy morning, I had the kids move the cars around in the driveway. We have three cars that we have to stack in a small driveway because 1) we do not use the tiny garage except to store junk and 2)even though we no longer have snow in Chicago, we are not allowed to park on the street from November to April in anticipation of the snow-plow needing to get through.
So Grace and Atticus went out and moved the cars in the order in which they would be driven out.
Jeff would be leaving his car for me because both Atticus and I had doctors' appointments at the same time on Monday.
In the morning I offered to drive Jeff to the train thinking it was the least I could do when he was giving up his car.Unfortunately, when the moment came to drive him (with the usual amount of spare time being 0 minutes), we could not find the key to my car. And the fun began.
We tore through my locker, my purse, my coat pockets and then I roared "Lilly wake your brother up and tell him to find my G*#Damned keys!"In the ensuing madness, I found my car key--Atticus had left it in HIS car. WTF How do you leave one car key in a different car of all places?
I went back in the house to find Atticus (who is home from college on winter break) wandering around in a just-woken-up-daze wearing only his boxers pretending to look for my keys.
"I found them in your car!" I said through gritted teeth "But can you all please just put the damn keys back where they go?!" Jeff stuck his head in the door at this moment to yell, "I'm going to miss my train!"And off we roared.
He made his train but barely. I came back to the house to find the girls trying to sneak out to school without having to listen to me rant again.
Later, when I found my spare key in my purse, I decided that perhaps it wasn't ALL the kids' fault. Jeff told me to resist the temptation to confess but I felt bad that I was really more a part of the problem than I had thought.
And when I went to my doctor's appointment and was told I was there on the wrong day, I had the sneaking suspicion that perhaps I am not just part of the problem but I am the problem.
And I thought that again this morning when Grace called from school to tell me it was cap and gown/grad announcment order day and everyone but her had a filled out form and I realized I not only did not have the form but had mistakenly thrown it away a few weeks ago thinking it was just an order for a class ring.
On the plus side, the kids have dutifully hung up the keys in their appointed space for two whole days now.
So if your first full work/school week of 2013 got off to a rocky start, rest assured, it did too for the Self-Righteous Housewife. And if past is any predictor of future it will next year too.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
