A life lesson

 This post is for those of you amongst my Tribe who tend to procrastinate and then get fired up (almost as if someone had lit a fire under one's nevermind) and tackle a bunch of stuff at once, because you are My People and you'll get this.

Last year, I never hung our heavy drapes in the Old Lady Room. I left up the sheer cream and wine colored curtains because I wanted more light in a room that has a wine colored carpet and greenblack walls and no overhead light. What the builders were thinking when they left no light fixture is beyond me. We've since found wine colored lamp shades for two of the table lamps in addition to the halogen lamp stationed in the corner. It's still darker that we'd like most of the time, hence the light-penetrating curtains.

However, this week it got down into the 30s at night and I definitely noticed a chill on the back of my neck and shoulders whilst I was sitting on the couch which abuts the big windows. I figured I should probably rehang the cream colored, insulated drapes. Sometime. Soonish. Probably.

For some reason, I decided that time would be this morning.

Before I had taken my allergy meds.

Before I vacummed up what used to be spider webs and moths and stinkbugs.

Before I remembered that drapes require curtain hooks, I was already behind the couch, but before that I had said, "move, Couch."

Couch merely snickered at me and said, "yo, move this."

So I attempted a shove. Not a big one, just a "get outta my way so I can hang the dang curtains" shove. 

Couch wasn't having it.

I realized, in fact, the slider thingies were not permanently under Couch, something I should have checked first. 

"Fine. I will get behind you and do this anyway."

Lest you think the other members of my household are awful people who could have lent a hand, they were already working on the sink in the loo which has been dripping and dripping faster and is now drippingdrippingdripping alarmingly fast. We've kept a mixing bowl underneath and have been using the water to keep the water bowls full for the dogs and have been watering plants with it but I know we are losing some down the drain. I didn't want to deter that progress.

So there's me, squashed in the less than a foot of space behind Couch and the window wall. I'd had the foresight to dump all the drapes onto Couch, but they were still all folded into each other from two springs ago when I put them away. I'm twisting to reach and detangle the drapes when I realized, "oh *insert pirate-y talk here*, these need the dang hooks!"

I holler to Damon, who is in the room we call the Library as he has the day off school, and he appears in only his underpants, device in hand, as I try to twist further to gesture to what I need and where they are across the room from me. As he retrieves the plastic cup containing all the hooks (yes, we run a classy establishment around here, I know), they dump out and he's trying to simultaneously stuff them back into the cup whilst watching his video. 

Eventually, he hands me the cup (and had fetched me the vacuum, as well) and I start threading those into the drapes, all the while cursing living in a climate where anyone even needs to have summer and winter curtains and the fact that I was smashing the Count Chocula that I'd had after my Cheerios and that I probably should have pooped first.

I'm reminded of something my Mary Alice had shown me years ago; a sign that started off in huge letters cautioning PLAN AHEAd with a tiny, smashed letter d because they ran out of room. Somedays that is my life.

But the drapes are up! Just in time for it to be in the 70s again most of this week. If anyone needs me I'll be washing the sheers.

The part where I bang my head against the wall

There are lots of jokes out there about the world having two kinds of people- the morning people and everyone else. 

We are not a family of early birds around here. Let me just tell you that in case it has somehow escaped your notice from any other blog post about mornings or bus schedules or breakfast or in case this is your first time on the blog. Hello! Welcome to our niche of crazy!

For example, Carrie sets two alarms, one for 6:15 and one for 6:30 and then on a good day she gets out of bed at 6:45 to catch her 7:10 school bus. 

Got all that? 

She can pull this off because she wears the same hoodie and jeans/shorts pretty much daily, changing out her T shirt, socks, and skivvies. She owns several combs- uses none of them- maybe brushes her teeth after breakfast if she has time, does no makeup, very little jewelry. This is my no-fuss girl, and I thank God for that. 

Now, we have multiple bathrooms, so it shouldn't be an issue of not being able to get into one in the morning. However, this morning she was in the tiny loo downstairs because it's closest to the garage door we leave from to get to the bus. She'd meant to just dash in and out, so she didn't shut the door the whole way.

Damon comes staggering downstairs, leaps out at Dada and I with a cheerful, "BOO!" and proceeds to head to the the same tiny loo where he usually does his morning routine. He starts to push open the door (remember that THIS kid has been up all of 3 minutes) and she bashes it shut the whole way, hitting him in the head.

After kisses and gentle admonitions to always, always knock just in case, I manage to get Carrie out the door so he can get in there. (He's fine, she only clipped him.)

After her bus comes and goes and I'm back inside, I realize that I still haven't even seen Liam, whose alarm went off almost 15 minutes ago. Damon is wandering around, accumulating his breakfast, and Dada heads up to check on Liam's progress. 

I throw our sheets into the washer and come back down to Honey Nut Cheerios ("Bee O's" in our house, because of the honeybee on the box of the genuine ones) all over the floor by Liam's seat. Apparently gross motor skills are not happening on this Tuesday morning. 

I swear he sleepwalks through breakfast today, putzing and interfering with the thank you card full and fully-dressed Damon is working on for his teacher, being scolded redirected several times. 

The phone rings. 

Let me just stop right there, because if you're new around here you probably don't know that I despise the telephone. My sweet, sweet innocent husband gently reminds me that when the phone rings it's because someone wants to talk to me, and that I should not snarl as I pick it up.

I let the machine get it and hear, "hey Mom, it's me, and I..."

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

"Hello?"

"Hey Mom, it's me. In my backpack [which she hasn't taken for the last two weeks because she has only been carrying her binder] is a weather and science hard back book that I need for seventh period. Could you please bring it to school?"

*Here's where you insert every mental argument and counter argument about teaching responsibility (not taking it- it was her book, her responsibility), teachable moments (showing grace by taking it in; she's just a kid, and it IS the third-to-last day of school), waffle between those and other scenarios instantaneously in your head. I did.*

"Are you supposed to turn them in today?"

"Haha, well, actually, that was yesterday, but I forgot, and then I forgot again today..."

Nail in your coffin, my girl, nail in your coffin...

"I'll think about it. Have a good day. I love you! Bye!"

"Okay, bye." [Because Heaven help her if she uses any type of affection over the phone in the Office, bless her heart.]

Eventually, the spilled Bee O's get swept up, (thank you, Dada, who has already left for work by this point), with Liam topping off the dustpan before emptying it for our birds and squirrels out front. I physically take his pajamas from him so that he has no choice but to get dressed in the school clothes I had to pick out for him last night because he was busy with karate and last minute Boy Scout requirements that are due Thursday. He's dressed and sent to brush his teeth. He takes his backpack with him.

What the ?

Damon is done with his card at this point and is chattering about glow in the dark bracelets that he's holding and something about the basement and something about school and "because Liam did."

What's that?

Liam has escaped into the bathroom with his backpack, at this point articulating the argument by using our own words of wisdom back at us thus, "I'm supposed to be clear and copious!"

When the door opens, I am right there like a vulture, going through the backpack.

"WHY is there a cape in here!?"

"I only wanted it for recess!"

Yeah, that banging you hear? It's just me beating my head against the bathroom wall. Carry on, citizens.