The one thing you can never say to my kindergartener in the morning is “Hurry up.” Well, that and “We’re late.” Saying either of those things will immediately result in a complete meltdown of a crying fit and then you will never get anywhere. What is required is a delicate dance of getting the child to move as quickly as possible, while never letting on that you are in a hurry of any kind!
“Ruby! Time to get ready for school!” I said this morning. “Why don’t you get dressed?”
“I’m tired! I don’t want to go to school today!”
But I already let you sleep in and now we’re going to be late!
“Well, you have to go to school. Can you get dressed please?”
Okay, that seemed to work. She is getting dressed. Now I have to get the two year old dressed. Must find a shirt that he loves or else I will have to chase him around the room, hold him down, and force the clothing onto his body like I am stuffing a pillow.
Good. Edward is dressed now in his super hero shirt and happily watching Mickey Mouse downstairs. Where is Ruby? Doing her hair. As slowly as possible.
Ruby! We have to leave in about two seconds! Why are you still in the bathroom!?
“Ruby! Edward is watching Mickey Mouse! Do you want to come down?”
“Okay.”
Perfect. Now I just have to insert some sort of nourishment into them and give Ruby her medicine and then quickly get them both into 83,000 pieces of winter outerwear. No problem.
“Okay everybody, Mickey Mouse is over. Let’s get into our snowpants.”
“It’s not over! They’re still doing the hot dog dance!”
I don’t give a flying crap about the hot dog dance! We have about 120 seconds to get completely dressed and out the door or we’re going to be late for school, and we’ve already received a nasty phone call from the school, informing us that we have been tardy too many times this year, so I am not waiting for the freaking hot dog dance!
“Well, can you get your snow pants on while you watch the hot dog dance?”
Good. Now we have most of our gear on. Time to go.
“Daddy! I don’t have my hat or mittens!”
“Well, can you find them?”
“No!”
Well, we need to go. We’re late!
“Well, we need to go. We’re late!”
Uh oh. Did I say that out loud? Fudge. Here come the waterworks. Now she is lying on the ground wailing that she can’t find her mittens, and that Edward is pushing her, and that she is having a terrible day, and she doesn’t want to go to school.
Too bad! Everyone out the door! Now I am a drill sergeant, barking out orders. The time for niceties is over. I have let the cat out of the bag. We are in a hurry. There is no turning back. Get outside, or face my wrath.
The walk to school, one block away, is now an exercise in feet dragging. A game of who-can-go-the-slowest. Everyone is upset. Turtle DNA has kicked in. Thank goodness for our neighbor Bremen, the 5th grader. He is the “cool kid” in the neighborhood, and all the younger kids look up to him and want to be like him and play with him, so when he ran by at top speed on his way to school, there was my golden opportunity.
“Hey look, it’s Bremen! Let’s chase him!”
Yaaaaayyyy! What a great idea. Let’s all chase Bremen to school! So we did. Even Edward wanted to chase Bremen. We got to Ruby’s classroom exactly on time, right as the bell was ringing. Parental success. Now all we had to do was walk out of the building without incident.
Unfortunately, I was not aware that the morning announcements were read by various 5th graders. They were just starting up as we walked past the main office on our way out of the building, and who should be reading the announcements today but everyone’s favorite 5th grader, Bremen.
Do I even need to mention that Edward ran over to him while he was reading announcements and started yelling his name? And also something about a spider.
“BREMEN! BREMEN! SPIDER! SPIDER!” Edward shouted to the entire school. The secretary got to him first and snatched him up and away from the microphone before I could get over there. I apologized profusely, and you could tell that the secretary was trying very hard to be upset, but she couldn’t stop smiling, so I knew that his cute factor had won out over his naughty factor this day.
And Bremen, like a true pro, didn’t even turn around, but just kept reading the announcements like nothing had happened. He was very into it. He may not have even noticed the two year old shouting directly behind him. He was in the zone.
So Edward and I finally got out of the school, no longer in a hurry, and no longer late. So we made it home in no time at all. Obviously.