Mornings around here are pretty hectic, but you may already know that. However, matters are made worse when none of us can seem to get on the same page, which was the case here last Wednesday. I mean, the morning started off well enough — I only slept in 15 minutes too late, rather than the typical 30 minutes, and our ancient three-legged cat took the morning off from pissing on the floor next to the litter box. So that was one less thing to clean up.
But despite my only getting up 15 minutes too late, the kids refused to sleep any less than 45 minutes too late, and when they finally did get up, they weren’t too keen on getting ready for preschool. I had already set out their breakfasts, but naturally Julie didn’t want to have anything to do with cereal or fruit, and demanded that Mary make her a ketchup and mustard sandwich. That’s all well and good, except Julie didn’t actually touch her ketchup and mustard sandwich until it was finally time for us to go. Meanwhile, Drew had been neglecting his cereal so that he could focus on pushing his giant dump truck around in circles. We decided that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to send the kids to preschool on an empty stomach, so I made an extra trip to my car before leaving, so that I could take their milk cups, Julie’s sandwich, and Drew’s cereal.
Finally, fifteen or so minutes later (after the daily battle about whether the kids can take every single toy they own to preschool with them), we were ready to go. Before I backed down the driveway, I handed each kid their food. Drew decided that he didn’t want his cereal, so I took it back. Then Julie declared that she would rather have cereal after all, and asked if she could have Drew’s. I took her sandwich, and was about to throw it into the woods next to our driveway (squirrels like sandwiches, right?), when Drew piped up:
“I WANT SAMMICH!”
“Drew, you don’t even like ketchup and mustard sandwiches.”
Then Julie, trying to be helpful, let me know, “No daddy, he likes them sometimes.”
Sigh.
“Drew, do you actually want this?”
“YES!”
Rather than trust my judgment, I let Drew have the sandwich, and we began trucking our way towards school. About five minutes and two or so miles away from home later, Drew screams from the backseat.
“DADDDDDY! NAAAAAAPKIN!”
Crap. I don’t have any napkins. The kids are in my car for roughly 10 minutes a day, so I don’t keep a stash of baby wipes (and let’s face it, even if they rode in my car all the time, I’m not exactly Mr. Preparedness).
“Drew, just wait until we get to school.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! TAKE DISSSSSS!”
Meanwhile, Julie, with her mouth full of cereal, mumbled “Uh oh.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, reaching back blindly for the sandwich. Drew plopped it in my hand — although instead of the expected feel of dry bread on my fingers, I instead felt the cold squish of ketchup and mustard.
Apparently, Drew wasn’t interested in eating the sandwich — he was more interested in peeling the two slices of bread apart, and experimenting with where he could wipe, smear or otherwise deposit ketchup and mustard in my car. I knew that it was my fault once I looked back and saw the mess. I knew he wasn’t interested in eating the sandwich. But I yelled anyway.
“Drew! Why would you do that??”
Drew sat silently, hoping that I could find a napkin to wipe his hands off. But Julie helpfully mumbled through the cereal in her mouth, “Dabby, *I* dint make mess.”
Defeated, I returned home to find some wipes to clean up the mess, and deferred to another day any hopes of getting the kids to preschool, or myself to work, at a reasonable time.
