Manic Monday

Mondays are sneaky bastards, aren’t they? They just creep up on you and catch you unawares, all early mornings, finding clean uniforms and having to shower before lunch time.  No matter how hard we try (hardly at all, we’re always too tired) we’re always on the last minute on Monday mornings.  These were the things that contributed to our lateness this morning:

• I had to wash my hair, then dry it, then straighten it…then put it up anyway because it was raining.
• The eight year old got dressed in stages.  He stood naked for a while then started to follow me, putting the world to rights whilst I ran around like a headless chicken.  Then he put on his underwear and wound his brothers up for a few minutes.  Then he put on his polo top and drew a picture. We did well with the jumper and trousers, we managed them in one shift but then he stayed barefoot for a while to make up for it.
• The four-year old sat with a spoon suspended between his bowl of cereal and his mouth for a record-breaking amount of time.  He was like one of those statues who are still for so long that they make you jump when they move because you didn’t know if they were real or not.
• The two-year old walked around with his toothbrush held aloft and successfully managed to get toothpaste on every other surface apart from his teeth…including his brother’s clean school jumper which then had to be vigorously baby wiped.
• J then sat in front of the television ‘reading’ his school book until I pointed out that he might do better if he actually looked at the words and moved him to a quiet(er) part of the house.
• As we were about to don coats I realised that Z had removed his shoes.  I asked him where they were and he pondered the question for a while until he came to the conclusion that he couldn’t remember.  After a frantic (me)/non-existent (him) search we finally found them and he sat unperturbed, watching TV whilst I wrestled them onto non-pliant feet.
• At 8.40 J informed me that his application to join the school council had to be in today.  As I sat on my hands to stop myself from wringing his neck I calmly(ish) helped him with what he wanted to say, then had to resort to shouting out spellings of more difficult words as I ran upstairs to apply make-up, having realised I wasn’t wearing any.
•  I strapped the younger two in the car before going back in the house to retrieve M’s lunch bag because he said he couldn’t find it…even though it was in the same place as it is every morning and was so obvious in its location may as well have been flashing in neon with an enormous arrow pointing to it reading, ‘Your lunch is HERE.’
• J came out of the house, dishevelled as usual and not wearing his coat, with his scrunched up application held aloft (complete with its numerous crossings out) and was about to get in the car before I beeped at him and pointed out that he had left the front door wide open.  He grinned sheepishly…and then tripped over the step, as is his way.
• And as if that wasn’t enough, other people were inconsiderately taking their children to school and didn’t care a jot that we were going to be late, they still insisted on driving in front of me, making me give way at junctions and parking in spaces that I could have used.  Bastards.
• When we finally parked the kids all remained where they were, as though they had completely forgotten the purpose of our journey.  I gently reminded them by screeching, ‘Come on, be quick, we’re late!’ and wrestling them out of the car whilst being observed by better parents that had obviously got up on time and were affectionately kissing their offspring and telling them to have a lovely day.  I like to think I implied the same thing as I shoved them in the general direction of school and then slumped onto the car with a sigh of relief…