Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Clone me..............please!

Alternate title to this post:
"Tag team Parenting"

Yesterday, I woke up at 8:10 with Aaron standing next to me saying "Mom, I'm ready for school, can you take me now?"

Panic sets in.

School starts at 8:25.

"Aaron," I ask, "are the other kids awake yet?"
"No, I don't think so. I haven't seen them."

Great.

I now begin the mad dash to wake up the other kids and get them ready for school.
This is not an ordinary day, because;
#1. Brielle has ballet right after school, and needs to have her waist length hair put in a bun.
#2. CJ has a daytime performance for the school play today, and I need to show him how to wear his costume. (The one I was up until 4:45 am making for him. This may have been the reason that I slept through my alarm?)
#3 CJ is also going on a field trip this morning, and he needs to be to school on time.

I dash around madly, trying to get everything ready, forcing Brielle to eat breakfast while I fix her hair, showing CJ the finer points of his costume while carefully folding it and putting it in a bag, and making sure Aaron had all of his homework in his back pack. As I'm walking out the door, I notice the jar of peanut butter on the kitchen counter, and remember that CJ needs a sack lunch for the field trip.
I make the world's fastest peanut butter sandwich.
I get them to school only 10 minutes late. Not bad. One nice thing about getting to school that late is not having to deal with other people in the drop off zone.

I get back home, feed Max breakfast get ready to go out for the day.
I have several errands to run, including buying Brielle a new dress and tights for her first piano recital tonight. I go to K Mart because it's close. They only had two dresses with sleeves in them, so I get the pink one, then remember that she doesn't have any white shoes to match, so I go to the shoe department, and find two cute pairs. I can't decide which ones to get, so I let Max decide. I get a size 3, because she wears a size 3.
I go to the sock area to get her some tights, and they don't have any in her size.
GRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!
I find a cute pair of ruffly anklets that say they fit up to a 3 1/2 shoe size.

On the way out, I walk past the Valentine's day candy marked 50% off :0D

That's all I'm going to say about that. (CJ, I have hidden it where you will never find it!)

We get out of there just in time to go to the school for the daytime performance of CJ's school play, which I will attend instead of the evening performance, because Brielle's piano recital is at approximately the same time of the play.
CJ did a great job. He looked dashingly handsome in his costume. He was the tallest in the play, and as far as I can tell, the only 6th grader with facial hair.
After school, CJ tells me that the evening performance is at 6:00 instead of 7:00.
DH now needs to get off work early to get to the play.
I take CJ to the school by 5:30, and come home right after the ballet carpool brings Brielle home.
The new dress fits, but the shoes are too small. The cute little anklets are also way to small, so we scramble to find a pair of tights, and fix her hair for the recital.
I spend much too much time looking for the camcorder, and we get to the recital just as they are starting.
Brielle performs beautifully.
I lean on the back of my chair, and the back breaks completely out of it.
No, I'm not embarrassed.
As we're leaving the recital, I call DH who has managed to get CJ to his karate class that we thought he would have to miss because it was the same time the play was supposed to be.
He picks up a pizza on his way home, and we finish eating at 9:00 p.m.
Just in time to start the homework.

Tonight we have parent teacher conference along with several other activities that we need to attend at the exact same time.

Come back tomorrow to see how we figure out how to be in three places at once.

Wish us luck.

9 comments:

Marilyn said...

I nominate you queen for a day for getting it all done! Good job mommy....(hope you get some sleep soon)

Jenera said...

oh the adventures of parenting...

dishes and laundry said...

Wow - crazy day! And now you have to fit in going back to K-mart to do returns.

Love the World's Fastest Peanut Butter Sandwich - hehehe.

Melissa said...

Wowsers! Now that is quite the day! I agree with marilyn - you get to be the queen for the day!! Now, go to bed!

Kalynne Pudner said...

Wait...you finished dinner at 9 p.m.? That's usually when we start making it! (If you haven't already seen it, and ever want to make yourself feel better, check out my "GPS for Parents of Very Busy Children.")

The biggest difference between you and me, Jill, is that you pulled it off! Way to go!

If this day were mine, it would have gone like this:

"Aaron, I think y'all are too sick to go to school today, don't you? Go on back to bed. No, don't bother to wake the others."

"Brielle, come here, sweetie. Quick haircut."

"CJ, I'm so sorry, but I'm hopeless when it comes to sewing and crafts. Don't you think one of your dad's old dress shirts would work just as well?"

"Lunch? Oh, yeah, ummm....here's a pack of instant oatmeal. Just use some hot water from the boys' bathroom sink. Here's one for you, too, Max."

"Don't worry about the tights and shoes, sweetheart. Just turn the piano so the audience can't see your legs. Sure you can...it has wheels, doesn't it?"

"It was when???? Gosh, I'm so sorry, buddy. Please tell your teacher never to change a starting time again."

"Oh, baby; I just KNOW you performed brilliantly! And no, I'm sure no one thought anything of your bare feet."

"Conferences? Say, do you suppose they have video hookup at that school?"

"What do you mean, what about dinner? Come on, y'all -- don't you think you can hold out another ten measly hours for breakfast?"

"Whew. Glad this day's over. Tomorrow's agenda says what? I see. Will you hand me that bottle of Prozac, darling?"

Unknown said...

You go girl!! I bet you did it all with oodles of class.

Christina

Grandma Cebe said...

Wow, your day brings back lots of memories. I had many days like that many years ago. Have faith and courage, you will survive. I'm living proof.:)

Randi said...

On days like that I always think, "dangit, I need a wife!" I just want someone else to be equally in charge of everything.

But then I think I'd probably kill her in the power struggle, so maybe that's not such a good idea.

Hope today is better!

Jessica G. said...

Wow! And no where in there do you stop to chug a Diet Pepsi? Amazing! I am gonna be you when I grow up.