when autopilot doesn't work

you start driving to work having forgotten to drop your son at school. I suppose I deserve bonus points at least I didn't forget him at home.

no doubt opposable thumbs will win this one too

someone around here..either the dog or the kid..needs to be fully trained in the art of making Mommy some coffee in the mornings

not a morning person

not that this is new information or anything I am considering the fact that I need a new system for the morning routines. It took me over an hour to make lunches & breakfast for the family, including the dog (he only got breakfast no pb & jelly for Oscar) and then getting myself & C out the door (he is not a morning person either, again not a news flash). I prefer a coffee filled and maybe some catching up on facebook time while watching the news to ease into my day. It would seem I have always been doomed to these tasks as back in the day getting my brother & myself squared away & out the door when my mother went back to work so many years ago. Of course I would lay a lot of it out the night before so it took less thought & effort. We seemed to eat chicken roll or chicken loaf for lunch, a lot & the thought makes me a little queasy what in the heck was it made of? Chicken should not come in loaf form. Anywho I need to take some time at the end of the evenings and organize my assembly line so my mornings can be spent with a little more goof off time.

there are stupid questions

stupid question #737
trying to get myself dressed, kid fed, dressed etc etc a knock on the door & C wants to know if I had the chance to buy some blackberry jam at the grocery store yet?

when reality creeps into your dreams

generally speaking not a fan because it is usually not the fun stuff that pops up in my dreams nope instead it is almost always the things that happen to be weighing on my mind well for instance last night 2 separate but equal problems in my life got wrapped up in a nice little package of angst with a bow on top for me to wake up with on this Monday morning which I happen also not particularly be a fan of

sleeping in or not as the case may be

I have become an early riser not by choice mind you and I am still cranky as hell when getting up in the morning but I am generally speaking up by 6 in the morning each and every day even on the weekends when I can in theory sleep in..except I cannot. The only time when it seems like I could actually sleep in would be those odd Saturday mornings when David has to go to work and so the alarm has got to be set and well let's face it even when he is being quiet David is not so very quiet. So yes those mornings I am up early too although I will admit to going back to bed in the early afternoon when at all possible.
My dear sweet son C is not an early riser and school mornings are a bitch to put it mildly or for that matter any morning he has to get up and we have to be someplace in a timely manner. The exception being when we are headed to CT to see my folks then well then I wonder if he hasn't been in his clothes all night so he can hop up & jump in the car..love his grammy & grandpa he does. Of course weekends or any other day he does not have to be anywhere he is up by 6 reading and raring to play video games or be fed which luckily he is old enough to handle the food thing on his own.

what is our learning curve on this?

so once a week for the past 3 weeks I have been faced with an 8 year old announcing to me as he is getting dressed that he has no clean jeans available.
week 1: I announce to a child in utter shock, horror & bewilderment that perhaps he could wear his church pants. No no that won't do he finds a pair of pants that sort of fit that will work for a day
week 2: the pants that sort of fit last week not so much this week. As luck would have it K-town was experiencing a warm snap so shorts were an acceptable alternative
week 3: this morning same old story except church pants were dirty and it was not shorts weather. They had no school so I threw some jeans in the laundry expecting to have to start my day later than planned but luckily in the interim C found a pair of sweatpants so he wore those to daycare.
we had a little chat in the car on the way in that since mommy was so very busy these days that perhaps he could let me know when he grabbed the last clean pair of jeans so i would not be a surprise as he was going to get ready. And in his infinite wisdom he let me know he knew I was only one person and I could not do it all and that he would be happy to help me out.

well that's problematic

I forgot to set up the coffee pot last night

feel sorry for the teachers this morning

after 2 1/2 days of "snow miracle" I am sure the kiddies will be hard to corral this morning. We had troubles here getting out of bed, eating breakfast you name it it took C twice as long as normal and he is not a morning person to begin with soo I had to drive him into school no way no how were we going to make a 6:50 bus.
I really do think they could have gotten by with just a delayed opening yesterday instead of a complete day off. I also think that Knox county should look into their policies regarding school closures and perhaps consider dividing the schools up into some sort of sub-sections by location for closures etc because the roads out here were fine yesterday and while my son had a great time playing Wii at his grandmother's all day I think school would have been a better option.

Dear Mr Pillsbury

or can I call you doughboy?
I have a problem, I can not find your microwave biscuits in any of my local grocers any longer, did you stop making them? I am a Northerner(read as never learned how to make biscuits from scratch) so your biscuits are a hit in my household. The regular frozen biscuits are great & do taste better but they involve cooking. Have you ever tried managing that at 6 in the morning while trying to get yourself ready for work and your 8 year old to the bus by 6.50? 30 seconds vs. 16 minutes? Microwaving does not involve opening eyes to get the correct temperature on the oven set, forgetting to remove the cookie sheet from the oven when it is already hot, waiting for preheat to finish, remembering to put the biscuits in the oven to cook, doing simple math so you can tell when the biscuits will be finished, I am not a morning person these are not simple tasks while sleepwalking!

happy monday!

fall break is over & back to reality thank you very much. C did not want to go to bed last night I know he was still up when I went to bed around 10, no idea when he finally went to sleep. I briefly toyed with the idea of letting him sleep in & then driving him to school but hell no if you stay up that late suffer little boy. I have avoided the drive into the Intermediate school thus far-3 schools feed into essentially 1 entrance so I vowed early he would be taking the bus every day for the next several years. Somehow he managed to get ready in time and we headed down to the bus stop. Idle chit chat with some of the other parents, just waiting for the bus, and waiting, and waiting. Once the bus was 15 minutes late we headed back to the house for the car & I drove C in, so we totally could have slept in a little longer..who knew? The drop off was no big deal the other 2 schools do start at different times and it was still very early so the car lines were not crazy yet. Although I will say it doesn't seem to be handled with the precision you see at the Primary School so we'll continue to avoid it as much as possible.

first day of school

his first at the Intermediate School no less! I reminded him about 10 dozen times to stay on the bus when they got to the Primary School and as I have not gotten a frantic phone call I am assuming he remembered-he does have friends on the bus so it really wasn't a huge concern. C complained of a sore throat off & on yesterday and had an ever so slight fever but a shot of tylenol & early bed time he was right as rain this morning. D reminded me the boy had the same sort of minor illness after the day camp sleepover last year so just need to file that info away for next year and tylenol him before the sleepover perhaps. Surprisingly he got right up this morning still stumbling a bit but he stumbled into the kitchen fully dressed and raring to go. I even made sausage & eggs for my baby-biscuits too although they were the microwave kind. His fancy new wrestling backpack has not arrived yet so I loaned him mine for the time being and his Yankees lunchbox was bursting at the seams with food for a growing boy. The bus did come at the correct time, there was some concern because I could not get the information to come up on the school website yesterday or this morning but 6.49 and it was there. One of the girls going into 4th grade informed C his teacher was hard & mean so I can't wait to hear his take on things. I am however sure it will be fine he is mostly a really good kid & a good student.
and I didn't even cry we all know what an absolute sentimental sap I am about this stuff so I was proud of myself-welled up a little but no real tears this year!

wrestling

the boys had a great time at rasslin' and with some help from a friend the spare ticket went to the son of another friend who was very excited & very happy to go along! I was glad not to go but oh the irony-I watched about an hour at home trying to catch a glimpse of the boys on the telly-I did not gave up & went to bed. The boys rolled in around midnight and let me tell you it was fun trying to get everyone up and out the door in the morning. I bribed C with a McDonald's breakfast even getting him a coke to drink, I warned him that it was not really happening and don't ever expect it well ever again. If he would only drink coffee it would have made life easier especially with our fabulous new coffee maker.

wild kingdom on the back porch

my hometown has grown by leaps and bounds for over a decade now with buildings and homes popping up all over the place. This means displaced wildlife, now growing up our neighborhood always had deer, raccoons, skunk but the wild turkeys moved in at some point over 10 years ago. There is a good sized gaggle? flock? pride? whatever it is you call a family of turkeys about 10-15 rather large sized birds live in the woods behind my folks house. Generally speaking you see them wandering around in the mornings & early afternoons.
My parents live in a split level 2 story house and off the kitchen is a screened in deck-they live out there during the spring & summer and some of the autumn before it gets too cold. There is a small portion of deck as you walk up the back stairs that is open they have some flowers and a table in that section but it is not really used. Imagine my surprise when C & I went out to eat breakfast this morning to find a turkey staring in at us from the open section of deck. We startled him as much as he startled us, and that is assuming him I did not check or anything, he jumped up on the railing a flew back down to the yard to his waiting friends.

full day already

so D worked overnight last night which generally means I do not sleep so well.
Found myself up at 4 am
did 2 loads of laundry
made dinner for tonight
cleaned up kitchen and started dishwasher
made pot of coffee and had breakfast
got lunches around for C & myself
watched the rest of a show I had DVR'd
I was about ready to go back to bed but oh no had to get C up and the 2 of us out the door for school and work blah...

helpful harry

ya just knew it wouldn't last...
yesterday morning C actually got himself up with any sort of prompting, light turning on, threats etc....
When I got out of the shower he had made himself breakfast, made me some toast offered to make me coffee if I would show him how.
In the evening we got home with a short window to eat dinner and get ready for his baseball game-yet another make-up game they rained out Saturday-he jumped right in got his dinner warmed up ate & got ready with very little prompting from me.
After the game(they won again that makes a whole 2 in a row) at shower time he changed the channel to MSNBC so we could watch the news.
and I had promises that well he would do the very same thing this morning well alas not so much
we were back to cajoling and threats and even with that I let him sleep in a few extra minutes and drove him to school.
Which I might add might not happen again anytime soon any other K-town residents excited about smart fix 40? yeah smart my a**

I hate morning

I know that should probably be the name of my blog but I'm betting it's already taken.
Normal routine I get up take a shower-can't function without one then Oscar the super pug gets let out to take care of business. Some mornings he does not like this arrangement and starts fussing at me as soon as I close the bedroom door so I let him out first for a good long morning frolic-so glad we have a fenced yard.
This morning he started snorting & scratching so I let him out only to discover that it was absolutely pouring out-oh how I love the smell of wet dog in the morning..
Got C up-he is not a morning person either so we don't mesh well in the a.m. but I got him up & started to get his breakfast he comes out & promptly knocks his juice over then sort of stares at me like what now? I know accidents happen and I know he is only 7 but this particular accident happens to him a lot so after yelling at him I got his toast and told him if he was thirsty he could drink some water over the sink. Arbitrary punishment I know but it was the best I could do at 6 a.m. with no caffeine in my system yet.
Somehow we both got ready I think he brushed his teeth but honestly I'm not sure. He could not find any of his five gazillion jackets with a hood so he grabbed a jacket & knit hat not the best rain gear. I did not manage to find a jacket at all for myself but the rain had tapered off, got him on the bus then I had to run by Wally-World to pick up something for work. As I said the rain had tapered off so I did not grab my umbrella wow bad plan on my part the heavens opened up while I was in the store for all of about 10 minute. I went out the door closest to my car with the hope of dashing to it to minimize soakedness-picked the exact moment a pick 'um up truck was barreling through the parking lot so I stopped not wanting to get run over but he stopped as well so I got drenched anyway. I had kind of dried out a little on the drive in but found that it was pouring so much the umbrella was not all that helpful and I stepped into work soggy-bleech
At this point I have the heat cranked up and have finished my coffee and luckily I brought my lunch today so I don't have to go back out into the floods till this afternoon.
Maybe I should tell D to start that Ark in the backyard

not a morning person

not a night owl either-maybe a mid-afternoon lark? that's another post for another day perhaps.
yesterday I started my day late having set my alarm clock for p.m. instead of a.m. I woke up with a start at 6.20 there was no way C was going to make a 6.50 bus but we rushed around and got him to school by 7.15. You want to get on the drop off line before the school actually opens otherwise you get stuck in long lines just trying to turn into the school parking lot-it is amazing what a huge difference 5 minutes makes in traffic patterns..
This morning all was timed well, I must admit in the cold weather I do drive him down to the bus stop. So we head out the door at 7.45 and as we got to the car we could see the bus drive up-5 minutes early? what is up with that? I guess he knew he was early because he sat and waited while we drove down and the neighbors next door drove down as well. I felt bad for all of the cars that had to sit and wait I know they were sitting there cursing us out but it was the bus driver not us if you were delayed in wilds of Farragut this morning!

caffeine

I took my car this a.m. which meant switching D's stuff back to his car, getting the camp chairs for tonight's baseball game into my car, putting the back seat back up, clearing out front seat for the ride down to the bus stop. Thought we were all set started car , door ajar flashed open so I told C to check his door as I checked mine-all clear then I realized the back hatch was open. OK all set? nope door ajar I had also left the passenger back seat door open. Clearly I need lots & lots of coffee to get my through today