Good Morning, Please stop riding our dog.

I am admittedly not the most organized person in the world, but I think I do a fairly good job of seeing the big picture when it comes to getting the family out the door on weekday mornings. I generally know the night before what I am going to wear, what the boys are going to wear (Matt's on his own) and what our schedule for the day will look like. I wake up with plenty of time to get everyone ready, out the door and on the road without feeling the pressure of having 22 fourth graders sitting outside a locked classroom door waiting for their teacher to arrive at a dead run. That is the theory at least, the reality doesn't always go so smoothly.

I have thought long and hard on this subject and I think I have finally been able to root out the singular source for all of our early morning chaos: My kids wake up. Once those two pairs of eyes open, it all goes south in a big way.

Take this morning for example, it was our first day back after a glorious spring break. I really had my organizational game face on last night, packing my lunch and ironing my clothes (and by iron I mean put in the dryer). The problems always start when one or both of my sons wake up earlier than planned and I am not personally completely ready for the day. Hud is an awesome sleeper, but in the early light of dawn, he is easily awakened. Matt, bless his heart, has leaving the house down to a science. He is like a cat burglar, shoes in hand, literally tip- toeing past Hudson's bed room. That kid can hear a dog sneeze 3 blocks away and will shoot up in his crib and yell out, "Hi??" If this happens before 6:45 a.m. I am completely screwed. In the time it takes me to finish blow drying my hair, he can have both bathtubs upstairs running, an entire roll of toilet paper unspooled and at least one new bruise that I can't account for. This morning, he fell off of my bed while attempting to ride our dog...naked. The only solution I have found that works for containment is to turn the dryer setting to cool, hold him in my arms while I dry my hair and endure him holding both my cheeks in his hands while yelling, "Hot?" "Hot?"

Connor has two early morning extremes. On some mornings he is almost impossible to wake up. He gets this from his father. More times than I can count, I have dressed him like a little ragdoll, brushed his teeth and propped him up next to the toilet, all while he is unconcious. I have to say that I prefer narcoleptic Connor to his other morning personality. If he wakes up early, he springs into what I call morning project mode. He will all of a sudden remember 47 things that absolutely have to be done before we can go to school. This morning, after being out of my direct line of sight for approximately 10 minutes, he had made six peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (cut with the dinosaur sandwich cutter) that we now have to eat for dinner and packed his rolling suitcase with two puzzles, a rolling pin and several books on space for Kenny to play with all day in the car while I am at work. Yes, alert CPS, we leave our invisible child locked in the car all day while I go to work. As he has recently turned 17, Connor deemed him too old for Ms. Karen's and my elementary school and he has apparently been laid off from his part time job at the donut shop. Although, as I am typing this, the thought has occured to me that with the addition of the rolling pin to the activity suitcase, Kenny might be planning some kind of escape.

So as you can see from this one example of insanity, it is a stone cold miracle that I arrive at work before lunch.