Three a.m.
I wake up spontaneously. Stare at the clock. When I'm on the first draft of an essay, I leap up but today I'm working on an edit, so I roll over and go back to sleep.
Five a.m.
Something nudges me testing the receptiveness of an early morning probe. I roll away. I am not a morning girl. Besides, any minute a teenager will poke his head in asking for gas money.
Five-thirty
Two-year-old Tyler calls from his bedroom. "Mommmmeee. Mommmmeee...”
I get up. Bang on the bathroom door. One of the teenage boys is in there counting zits or applying toilet paper to tiny nicks. I try to see through the half-inch hole made by the broom handle when they tried that Bruce Lee trick. It looks dark in there. "Do you have the light off?" I ask.
"Mom, there are laws against peeping.”
"You're going to think peeping when I remove the door completely, so I can get INTHEREWHENIWANTTO!" I say.
I rescue the toddler from the crib. Never mind he could scale his way out with a bottle in one hand at ten months. When you're two, you have to be lifted up...but only when you ask to be. Never in busy parking lots, on fast escalators, or in clothing stores that have lots of low-hanging racks to swing on.
I start coffee.
Six-fifteen
The three high school boys head out the door. They holler afternoon schedules over their shoulders. I remind them not to say "pi--ed off" even if they are. Their expressions remind me I'm so lame.
Four middle-sized kids crunch through bowls of cereal. I pour the two year old a cup of juice. Put on Lion King. Throw in a load of laundry. Go back to the bathroom. Occupied. In my nicest shrill-evil-mother voice, I demand my daughter vacate.
"I'm washing my hair," she says.
"Mommmeeee... Go-go." No Lion King for the toddler. He wants to watch Inspector Gadget.
"Earth to ADHD warriors. Come in please." For some reason, taking medicine and doing chores is more palatable when children are warriors, monsters or ninjas with nineteen syllable names they can pronounce perfectly despite not being able to utter please at the dinner table.
I dole out Concerta and Wellbutrin to ensure two children will make it through the school day. Sign my daughter's behavior sheet for Special Ed. Brush hair out her beautiful eyes. She shakes it back.
I race to the bathroom. Vacancy! I pee. The two-year-old bangs on the door.
"Mommy... Ayee."
Alice in Wonderland. The one with Whoopee Goldberg as the Cheshire Cat. Two-year-olds have trouble deciding which movie to open their day with and hey, if he wants some delusional, drug-induced fairy tale, far be it from me to stand in his way.
Six-forty
Hubby gives me the one-eyebrow waggle. He thinks it's sexy in a Jack-Nicholson-when-he-was-young-and-virile kinda way.
"Those things gets any bushier, "I say as I kiss him good-bye, "you're gonna need a license for them."
Seven-fifteen
Eat, children, eat! A child's appetite is inversely proportionate to the amount of food a parent thinks they might consume. Buy three large deep dish pizzas...nobody's hungry. Buy one, everyone is starved. My middle-size kids purposely eat slowly so they can slurp the milk from the bowl at the last minute. This despite years of nagging that drinking from bowls will cause their tongue to lap backward like a dog's.
Seven-thirty
I lock one dog in the kennel and two in the back hall. I kick the four middle-sized kids out the door in time to run up the ¾-mile hill they have to walk to catch the bus. They have time if nobody starts an argument that speeds the jaw and slows the hips. It is a little known medical fact that the hipbone is connected to the jawbone. If the jawbone gets going, the hipbone is paralyzed. Some break-dancers accommodate for this by wearing baggy pants that appear to move when they shuffle their feet.
I turn on the computer.
Eight o’clock
I help the two-year-old make toast, so he doesn't dip the knife back in the peanut butter after licking it. Or electrocute himself.
I let the dogs out of their respective holding cells. Feed them. Throw in a load of laundry. Stare at the mound of unfolded laundry from the day before. Pray for a vision of the Virgin Mary on my sofa. I'm pretty sure if the vision is there, the laundry will auto-fold.
The phone rings. A sales clerk wants to sell me a new windshield. I tell him he does not sell the kind of shield I need. He can't find the response to that on his super-duper-cold-call-sales-teleprompter card they gave him. He hangs up on me.
"Mommmmeeeeee. Meow."
He wants to watch Cats. This means I can grab a quick shower. I've got my lather and rinse down to a few seconds less than the Jellicle Cats.
Owner/Editor - Chris Chmielewski