Today, I am full of fail. But I can’t blame anyone but myself. I must exude fail today, like a musk, and everything that encounters my failstench has to make with the bashing. Or something.
The morning routine does not go well. Both girls fight getting out of bed like ferocious nocturnal things. I had to drag kids fighting and crying down the stairs to breakfast, coerce and threaten them into dressing, including forcing a skirt on my younger child’s body, who is enraged that the skirt is not a sun dress. It’s 35 degrees out. Tights and long sleeves today. She hits me. I scream at her. Because I don’t hit. I compromise on a wardrobe piece, and we move on to the next challenge: shoe choice. *sigh*
It takes the older child 10 minutes to slip on jeans and shirt. And 5 more to get socks and shoes on.
Meanwhile, I am taking the dog out, feeding her, getting my computer ready to go, making lunches, cleaning up breakfast, making sure the house looks nice in case they bring people to look at the house today, getting jackets and shoes, packing the car with our stuff, grabbing something for myself to eat on the way out.
The girls are ordered out the door. They slowly do so.
The fight continues in the front yard, where I have to comb my older child’s hair, as the only comb is in the car. She whines and fights and cries that she is cold. SHE had refused to put on her coat, and she was dealing with the consequences. Or rather, I was. I finally finish, get both kids in the car, get older kid to school. I find out when we get there, 20 minutes later, that the younger child was not buckled in the entire trip. She decides to tell me once we’re there. I thank all that is holy that I was driving in the right lane when that guy slammed on his brakes in front of me. Because if I had been in the left lane, I would have a very hurt preschooler. I berate myself internally to the point of tears while waiting for my children to get out of the car.
The older child is the opposite of speed to do anything this morning. It seriously takes her 5 minutes to get out of the car. I get to cry quietly to myself for 5 minutes without anyone seeing me, so go me.
We’re 4 minutes late for school.
I snuggle clingy older child, get her to join circle time, and dash out, carrying reticent younger child. Bring younger child to school. I place her in the classroom, pry off her fingers, turn to dash, and she jumps at me like a cougar, clutching at my sweater and hair as though I were a limb and she were a … drowning cougar. Teacher behind her grabs her and then, inexplicably, lets her go, to almost send me flying, and resulting in my child bashing her head on the door frame. I request a cold compress for the goose egg popping up on her forehead, and I sit in the hall at school, applying cold to the swelling. I try again to separate from her, but there is no one to help me transition her, and she is beside herself with sadness. “But if you leave, I’ll be all alone” she says.
I take her home.
Happy husband jumps online from his new job 800 miles away to tell me he’s happy, with exclamation points!
I want to break something with a hammer.