Last Edit, August 10, 1995
Monday mornings are always fun. Somehow, my children have never mastered the art of preparing for Mondays the night before. Even when I remind them that such activity is needed. Probably because I never do either.
In the last ten years I don't seem to have made much progress.
Picture day, when it falls on a Monday, is always the most entertaining morning, although this year, I think they topped themselves.
After assuring me the night before that Monday was not picture day, I woke to the blare of my country music station, stumbled down for coffee and discovered from the flyer I had been presented with but had not yet fully read that today was, indeed, October 4th and it was indeed picture day for my 12 year old seventh grader.
My coffee turned cold in my mouth as I realized I had not cut his thick and unruly hair, I had not found his dress shirt and I had a car pool en route in less than 60 minutes.
I raced up the stairs, shouting (I do try not to scream too early in the morning), dressed in my nightgown and barefoot, I dodge leggos and toy cars and other debris, bang on the seventeen year old's door in passing and roust my other baby out of bed.
The Moose, who at twelve promises to be a very big child when fully grown, staggers around, and finally staggers downstairs, looking like I feel, mumbling about how he can't have been wrong. He is dressed in a shirt he has dribbled food on and his underpants. The shirt is long enough for modesty so I ignore it. We are trying to teach him to wear clothes. What can I say? I am, after all, still in my nightgown.
Now, I was supposed to take them for haircuts yesterday but I spent four hours on an emergency run to boy scout camp when the older one's ride backed out. And it was hot. And I took them to the latest cheap show at the movies after being nagged for three days. And I did my grocery shopping at 8PM instead of midnight, so I managed to forget to get their hair cut. And he did swear that I had another day or two.
I have clippers. Two sets because they have my father's hair, very thick and somewhat self determined. One clipper motor burned out but I have not yet managed to throw it away. It takes a minute for me to determine which one still works. He, meanwhile, has been sent to the bathroom to wet his hair.
I find him staggering around in the hallway with a few drops of water on his head. I drown him in the sink (he is too weak to protest much) and drape a towel over his face (ditto) and manage to maneuver him onto a bar stool. The cord for the clippers barely reaches but he is too big for me to drag the stool around with him on it so I manage anyway.
I am not bad as a haircut specialist. Except for the instant a few years ago when I lost my senses and gave the younger one a crew cut without using a cutting guide. His hair was one eighth of an inch long in this one long swath when I realized what I had done. He cried, I cried, his brother freaked out and I panicked and called my Dad, 3,000 miles away. He just laughed. He told me the kid would live and to tell him it was a Marine haircut.
I completed the cut (he looked bald but was recovering his composure on learning it was just like the Marines did it). My older one, bless his heart, decided he would have his hair cut like that too. I was happy to oblige. They were into camo at the time anyway.
They did not need haircuts again for a year.
I have since progressed to be fairly reliable, although to this day they always check to see that I am using the cutting guide.
It takes ten minutes for me to perform a fast trim and I launch him, dripping loose hair, in the direction of the bathroom. Bare in mind I have not showered yet, the older one is stumbling around somewhere and the clock reads six thirty.
My older child is nursing bug bites. Fire ants and hornets were attending boy scout camp with him and evidently liked what they tasted. He has a face like a bag of marbles and a left hand too swollen to move. I want him in school anyway so we talk about this. He assures me he is going to school.
Fine.
I negotiate my shower before his, so I stand a chance at getting to work.
The young one toddles down in a towel and informs me he has no shirt. I make a mad dash through the house, I know he has a dress shirt somewhere. I grab his brother's (it might fit) and then, eureka! I manage to find his.
No good.
³I'll look like a geek,² I am informed by a child not yet in his clean underwear. In two minutes I upend his dresser and I find a shirt that's acceptable to him, caution him about drooling on it, and flee to my shower, shouting at the older one that he can get in soon.
I make it through my shower. This is a cause for celebration because these boys usually manage to scald me, freeze me, or bang on the door and interrupt me. Mother's are not supposed to enjoy a shower. Or bath. Or nap.
It was too good to be true.
The children are lost about breakfast, in spite of the rich variety of bread and muffins and cereal that lay in piles about the kitchen. I never manage to put anything away. They each have their own pile. It causes less arguments.
I send the older one to make an eggnog. He's skilled at this. I yell down to the younger one not to spill it on his shirt. I know I'll find eggshells on the counter and at least one sticky spill later tonight but I ignore that thought.
I get dressed. It's the dress I wore to the movies, and I am in old shoes, and I have no makeup, but I need to see about launching the younger one outside to be picked up. I also don't hear the shower.
My little one needs a comb. I gel and comb his hair which supposedly he just shampooed, and brush the loose hair off his clean shirt. I still don't hear the shower.
My little one needs his keys, they are under a towel in his room and I remember spotting them earlier when I was barefoot. He finds his backpack, which I have tripped over three times this weekend because he left it balanced on the stairway.
He then informs me that he can't find his shoes.
It is launch time, the older one is finally in the tub, and I begin a mad race around the house from floor to floor and room to room frantically looking for a pair of high-tops. I have remembered to write a check for the pictures, just barely, and stuffed it into the backpack.
I find a pair of shoes and grab a juice drink box and a pack of pretzels for the Moose who is sitting in his stockings in the driveway. I am informed that these are the wrong shoes. I ordered him to get them on anyway, I need my makeup and I tear off after a quick kiss.
I am a good mother, I think. I can't seriously put on makeup when my child doesn't have the right shoes, can I? Obviously not.
I race up stairs (this is a 3-level house, who needs the Nordic Track?) and I remember. This week-end, in the spare bedroom, I found a dirty sock hanging on the weight machine, a bunched up pair of jeans on the Leggos and a dirty shirt hung over the bench. The shoes must be nearby.
They are. In a closet in the weight-toy room. A room that is 30 feet wide and littered with Leggos. I hate Leggos.
I step over cars and airplanes and plates and retrieve the shoe. And, what luck, I find the other one with it. I race back down and grab a granola bar and a bottle of water to complete his ³lunch². The water is in a plastic-loop six-pack and it takes more strength than I thought I had to free one, but I am a mother on a mission and I manage.
Back to the driveway I untie the unruly shoes and pass them off to the child who seems as if he might be grateful. I pack his backpack. I kiss him again, for good measure and tell him that this time I am really going to put on my makeup. His shirt is still clean.
It is now seven-ten. Departure time. My older child, a senior in high school, is sitting at his modem and computer, shirtless, barefoot and obviously not ready.
I scream. It's time. I have been patient enough and besides, I misplaced my coffee.
He assures me he didn't know he was going to school. I assure him he is. He argues that he needs the doctor. I remind him that the doctor isn't in yet and he can see him after school. He grumbles. I find my eye shadow.
By seven fifteen, he is cursing and hunting for a comb. I tell him one haircut is my limit for the day and the comb is downstairs. I have my purse in the car. I have my car keys and my glasses. I have lipstick on. I am late.
He can't find his shoes.
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