I recently took a personal day off from work to stay home with my wife because she was sick and could hardly get out of bed. I always assumed you wake the kids up in the morning, fix their lunches and they take care of the rest. Boy, was I wrong....
Apparently we have these little creatures living in our house that I was unaware of. It's not as easy as fixing the lunch and you're good to go. One of them comes downstairs looking like he got into a fight in the middle of the night and someone gave him a swirly in the toilet. He eats cereal every morning and expects it to be on the table ready for him when he arrives. After he eats his cereal, and might I add, leaves the bowl on the table, he gets his clothes for the day and goes into MY bathroom to take a shower. I asked this young lad one time why he takes a shower in my bathroom since there are two bathrooms with showers upstairs just feet from his room. He replied "my brothers are disgusting". I can't say that I blame him.
We have another one that comes down every morning after his shower and has a BLT cooked and waiting for him on the table. If you mess up his order, he is not as baffled and will eventually eat whatever you have put in front of him, but will tell my wife that I have interrupted the breakfast space continuum at his earliest convenience.
Now this one will forget to put socks on if you don't remind him. One other time when I was in charge of the morning duties, I asked him if he was ready to go and he said "yes sir". I said "how are you going to do anything at school today when your backpack will be here sitting beside the couch"? His reply was "Oh, I guess I better get it". When I dropped them off at school that day I asked each of them if they had everything and they all replied with a yes. About an hour later I got a call at home from this particular son of mine asking me to bring his backpack to him. I said "son, I saw you pick that thing up after I reminded you and I know that you took it with you". His reply was "I did pick it up, but I left it in the back seat of the car when I was getting out at school". I was in disbelief. I just got into my car and took him his backpack.
The third one is a little more resourceful. This one can make his own breakfast and remember to bathe himself every morning, but don't expect him to remember anything else. During wrestling season this year, my wife was taking him something that he forgot at least three times a week. How you leave the house without things like shorts, underwear, socks or wrestling shoes and expect to have a good practice baffles me.
The oldest is the easiest of them all. He get's up a little later than the rest since his school starts later. All you really have to do is fix his lunch, and most of the time he changes it anyway, and you are good. Except having to go behind him and turn off all of lights in the house. His girlfriend picks him up for school everyday and he has even trained her to pack his lunch up for him while he is getting ready.
They hate when I am in charge in the mornings. Usually I start off with putting whatever is the easiest out for breakfast. I say start off with because after they tell on me, I am instructed by my wife to do it the correct way. Their lunches are never what is on the lunch board and they end up putting almost everything back and making their own (The lunch board will be addressed in another update down the road. It will take an entire post of its own). And I apparently don't drop them off at school the correct way. My wife ignores the sign at the front doors that says "move up as far as possible before letting your children out". She thinks this sign says "stop in the middle of the line and drop your boys off at the front doors so they don't have to walk as far". Of course I always follow the rules.
I will never understand how my wife does this every morning, much less get it right to where she doesn't have all four boys whining about the way she does it. She needs a Mother of the Decade award just for what she deals with the first two hours of her day.
These kids are definitely "creatures of habit" and they will not hesitate to tell on you if you mess one part of the process up.
