Got It Together

I learned today why every room has four corners. Because at various times throughout the day both of my children were simultaneously occupying one of them.

It's amazing how horribly, wickedly, deviously naughty children can be when you have something else to do. 9 days out of 10 I have nothing to do but sit and stare at them while they play quietly with train sets, tea sets, baby dolls and basketballs.

All I wanted to do today was get a coffee, go to the bakery to pick up the sugar cookies I didn't even attempt to make, bring them home and frost them so they at least appear homemade, cut strawberries, wrap the CD of music Josie was giving to her class, and dress Josie in the cupcake dress Grandma got her for her 3rd birthday.

In my mind it didn't seem like too much. I have seen them play quietly a thousand times for much longer than I would need to do all of those things. But I guess today they didn't feel like playing quietly.

At Starbucks they hid under the table of a grad student who was trying to write his thesis.

At the bakery they insisted on having these $4.00 cookies that they took a bite out of immediately, made a sour face and handed them back to me right after the lady swiped my credit card.

My first batch of frosting didn't work. I thought about who I could call to get me some more. Norm was busy. My mom probably couldn't get here in time but I contemplated checking the flight schedule. Instead I put the kids back in the car while they threatened to fall asleep the whole way to the store and back. I screamed nursery rhymes at them and told them if they fell asleep they would never get ice cream again.

While I frosted the cookies they mixed big bowls of their own frosting that they made out of powdered sugar and water they helped themselves to out of the refrigerator dispenser. At first I wondered how they managed to step in chalk as tiny white foot prints were all over the house. And then I realized Owen was mixing his frosting on the floor...and they were taking turns jumping in it.

Josie climbed on to the counter and was eating strawberries faster than I could cut them. Owen was screaming because he couldn't figure out how to climb on to the island yet....

Suddenly, after resisting several urges to cry, pack again to move to LA, and call Josie's school and say she was sick and there would be no school party for her, I realized it was 12:00 and everything was done. With an hour before school, I made them lunch, cleaned up the mess, got Josie in her dress and Owen in his PJs. We even had time to watch a show before getting in the car.

I pulled into Josie's school with a happy daughter in an adorable cupcake dress and a son who was just about to fall asleep. I handed over the cookies, the strawberries, the CD I had wrapped in some Josie's old artwork, and some dishes, "just in case you need them."

Her teacher smiled, "Well you just have it all together," she said. But she was a mom too and I knew that she knew exactly what my morning had been like.