Quite a Harried Morning!

We’ve had a hard time getting back into the swing of things after the holiday break; as a result Peter has been late to school the last two days.  Today I was determined to get Peter to school by 8:00 a.m. so he could enjoy the full half hour of free-play time before the learning begins.  In hindsight I think taking that dose of Nyquil to help me get my Z’s last night was probably not a great idea.  Never the less we all woke up late and the rush began. 

The morning was hectic with me constantly coaxing the kids to eat-chew-swallow, brush your teeth, stop  doing that, put that toy down, come here…come here…come here…stop taking your shoes off, no Paul you can’t have tape, let’s go go go!   And we were out the door…

[Side note: The request for tape from Paul is not new, it started when I was wrapping gifts for Christmas and I’d give him a piece to play with so he would leave me alone for a bit.  The true love for tape began, though, when I was taping up boxes to ship out…he loved the big packaging tape!]  Back to the story:

With the hurried rush out the door I completely forgot to make my (fully potty trained, mind you) toddler go to the bathroom.  So half way to the bus stop he tells me he has to pee with a very urgent look on his face.  I mutter “sh*t”; which the 1 ½ year old immediately repeats and has been repeating all day today, thank you very much.  (the day was mingled with urgent requests from 1 year old for tape and the word shit….just beautiful.) 

I cross the street to the laundry mat…restroom out of service. 

Walk up about 3 doors to the breakfast-serving hole-in-the-wall restaurant “no public bathrooms”….

I’m frantically dragging the ever-urgent Peter up the street with the very loud tape-requesting 1 year old clutched in my arms looking for a bathroom….I’m considering letting him go in the alley when I remember the7-11 a block up… we make a dash for it.  The cashier must have noticed the I’m-not-having-a-great-morning look on my face because he didn’t say a word when asked where the restrooms were and just pointed to a door around the corner from the rolling hotdogs.  I run back through the door with Peter who’s getting quite vocal about the urgency of the situation and I grab the handle and pull … it’s locked.  I look up to see a sign that says out of order.  Ya think the cashier coulda said something right?  I turn to leave and notice the custodian floor drain with the mop in the corner….I yank down Peter’s pants and tell him to go.  OH, yes I did!  I wave to the cashier and say “thanks” with a sweet smile as we leave and could only think of Adam Sandler in “Big Daddy” when the restaurant owner wouldn't let his 'son' use the bathroom.

We hop on the city bus that seemed to be waiting just for us right outside the 7-11 and jet down to the next bus stop and hop off; we cross the street to Peter’s school and we made it just in time.  Whew.   Evidence of my hurried morning must have been apparent to the teachers there too because I could see some sympathetic looks coming off their faces as I had a good 15 minute chat with them about Paul starting school there next month.  That whole conversation by the way was littered with interruptions from Paul with the words “tape” and “shit”.   

Paul and I hop the bus again to go to the park.  We hang there a bit, hit the Starbucks and hop the bus home.  The entire bus ride home Paul is obsessed with tape... I can’t get him stop asking and he in turn is getting irritated with me and is getting a bit pushy about it.  We finally get home.

An hour later Paul and I are playing on the floor and he starts in again about tape.  I keep saying no and he keeps yanking my hair.  I figure he's doing this out of frustration from being told no but it hurts and I’m getting really mad!  I reach up to pull his hands down; his hands are clinched to a huge chunk of hair in the back of my head.  I finally pry his hands off to find a massive chunk of gray thick packing tape wadded up in my hair!  I yell “SH*T!” again (and so does he immediately after). It dawns on me that the tape, was a piece of big thick gray duct tape I had given Peter to play with at bedtime the night before and must have gotten stuck in my hair during the night when I went in to lay down with a nightmare-stricken Peter.

All morning long I tramped around the city with that damn piece of tape wadded up in my hair!  I guess all those people I encountered really DID know the crazy morning I had!  

New year’s resolution…if I do nothing else before leaving the house, at least brush my hair!