Last night I set one of the two alarm clocks in the boys' bedroom for 7:00 AM. This would be for the middle child. The youngest is already headed for the bus at 7 AM and thus would not need a 7 AM alarm. Said youngest has been a nomad sleeper again lately anyway, only spending maybe two nights since school has started in his actual bunk. How he squashes himself into an armchair all night is beyond me, but whatever floats his boat.
At any rate, I pop the youngest onto the bus despite the fog (no delay again, everything on time, thank you, Jesus) and begin the next stage of the one morning a week that the middle child has to be presentable (read: not in pajamas) and on time. In a different town. On a foggy morning. All of you just realized, "she will need to leave early today. Good thing she set that alarm, since by now we all know the middle child has one speed. Slow."
As they say in "The Princess Bride", "you'd like to think that, wouldn't you?!"
Hair In His Face doesn't emerge from the bedroom for decidedly past 7 AM. I notice that he has, in fact, packed up most of his supplies for the day the night before, good job, but hasn't begun breakfast or the making of his lunch yet. He's finally moving, which is a good sign, but it's at Turtle Speed One.
We have to go, we have to go, we have to go. I text one of my besties about his pokiness and she teases back, "but he still has half an hour, mom." Thank goodness for friends who talk me down.
I ask him what the heck happened to his alarm. When it goes off, he needs to get up. He blinks at me, then informs me that he turned it off last night when he went to bed. He thought his brother had turned it on and he wasn't having anything to do with that. Meanwhile, his brother, as I've said, hasn't been sleeping in that room NOR would a 7 AM alarm have done him a lick of good because he's already out the door by then!
"Oh. Whatever," says the child with the death wish.
"Must restrain Fist of Death," as they say in "Dilbert."
We finally gather everything he needs for his day after more chivvying. This includes his shoelaces, separate from his shoes. Over the weekend he participated in a stargazing event in which he rambled through some poison ivy. After researching how to get the oils off shoes, I cleaned them and hoped for the best. I washed his shoelaces with Dawn and hung them to dry, then tossed them to him yesterday along with his shoes, thinking that they would be taken care of.
"Fool of a Took," as they say in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
He sheepishly grabs his shoes and laces and everything else and trundles out into the car in his slippers. Does he even have his water bottle? At this point, do I even care?
We head out into the fog, a handful of minutes later than my personal "we should be on the road at the latest by X" preference. We make it almost to an adorable village between where we live and where we're going, when I see not only some sort of road closure sign but the addition of emergency vehicles, lights flashing, backing up. I fortunately have enough time and distance to make a right turn and detour around the "fun and games" as they say in "Father Goose."
As I approach the left turn we need to make, a garbage truck beats me to the street, which we then will have to follow. Are you even kidding me?! All the while I'm teasing Hair In His Face about timing and being almost 17 is old enough to know how to lace shoes (because twice he said, "Oh no" and began laughing) and about the very beauty of alarm clocks is that your mother doesn't have to roust you out of bed and so forth.
I (safely) maneuver around the garbage truck and a semi that is parked along the side of the road and am a little farther north when yet another construction vehicle pulls out in front of me. This one has a sign stenciled on the back, "DO NOT PUSH." Muttering snide comments about pushing, we keep going. A mourning dove lands on the road in front of us. "Bird, I would rethink that decision!" This sends Hair In His Face into more laughter.
We are about a traffic light away from our destination while I'm musing out loud if it's possible to strangle someone with their own hair and leave them in a field somewhere while he is laughing about wanting to give me a Monster Truck just so I can drive over all the people who refuse to use their turn signals or toss their cigarette butts out their window and we're cracking up about insurance guys looking in dismay at a field of cars that were all destroyed by my Monster Truck while I remind him it's a good thing we have family friends who love him and stick up for him which is why he's still alive...
He arrived at 9 AM on the dot and his teacher has since sent me photos of him working, so I'll just chalk this up as another successful school run. Now I just need to decide if I want to claim him at the end of the day...
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