A Typical Friday Morning

I just have to record this mornings’ events, they amaze even me. This is the second attempt to document the morning. Somehow, my first attempt was erased when a finger went astray after typing for 20 minutes. That’s the way the morning has gone anyway.

I woke up late, 7:30a.m., the bus comes at 8:10. Patrick, age 9, was already awake, had made his own breakfast and was dressed. Dylan, age 7, was at least awake. I got Dylan ready for school. This is always a challenge because he goes for pure comfort and I have an issue with letting him wear a color combo of orange, red, black, and blue. Peyton, age two and a half, woke up. The three of us troop downstairs to fix coffee, breakfast, etc. Peyton insists on having a bowl of cereal like Dylan, insists on having it with milk not dry, and insists on sitting in a regular chair rather than his highchair. I relent because I choose my battles.

Two boys eat, while Patrick dawdles around with whatever toy is nearby. Chester, our 75 lb. golden retriever puppy, goes in and out two times during breakfast, generating two paw washes at the hose spigot, and two towelings. He promptly takes his towel and shakes it all over the front hall, scattering all the dirt I just wiped off him. Peyton gives him a jumbo dog treat which he eats in the hall making jumbo crumbs. I’m on my hands and knees wiping up this mess (plus aforementioned dirt) so ants don’t get in for the crumbs like they did yesterday (the dog won’t eat in front of his bowl, he carries his food to other parts of the house to drop by the mouthful then eat).

The big boys leave for the bus stop. Against my admonitions, Peyton races out the door for his long goodbyes. He was barefoot, so when he comes back in he tracks dirt on the floor. Down to hands and knees again to wipe his feet, wipe the floor. At 8:20 a.m., I sit down for the first time since getting out of bed to drink coffee and watch the Today Show. Peyton tries to bump me out of my favorite chair. I am reminded once again why I use a travel mug at home rather than my pretty pottery mugs. Peyton is all over me and so much in my face that I can’t hear Katie and Matt, so I switch to kid TV, Caillou. Sit dazedly staring at Caillou, responding to Peyton’s observations on autopilot, “Mm-hmmm, I do see Caillou sleeping”).

I finally tune in to the show and get up to go check e-mail. Instantly, Peyton rebels against all his favorite shows, turns off TV altogether and comes in to play trains at my feet. He keeps unhooking train track by accident so I have to stop what I’m doing to fix that several times. Finally, he just throws the train track all about. To distract him, I point to the trash truck at our curb, “Look at the big trash truck! Wooowww…”. Just looking through the window is not enough, he must BE outside with the truck and off he goes. As I’m shrieking at him to not let the dog out, the dog gets out. Now Peyton is crying because he’s missed seeing the truck and because the dog got out. Wearily, I get up from the computer. Since I’m still in my pj’s, I go upstairs, put last nights clothes on again and go out to recover the dog.


I grab the leash, the dog treats, and pick up Peyton who is still in his pj’s. I set off to find the dog while carrying a 35 pound baby on my hip (and I wonder why my back hurts all the time). I see the dog, call the dog, shake treat box at the dog, dog runs opposite direction. I trail him for several minutes, trying out various tones of voice to either entice him or shame him to come to me. None work. Finally, he gets involved with a giant black lab, fighting ferociously with him between the fence. I’m able to tackle our dog and leash him. Now, I’m dirty too.

On the way home, I see a garage sale and stop by. “The people’s dog,” my golden retriever puppy, growls and cowers at all who try to engage him. There’s nothing good at the sale anyway, so we trudge home. We all go into the backyard to clean up all the plastic toys and about 20 tennis balls before Bobby returns from Houston tonight (he’s been gone all week). I get distracted by about 8 giant piles of dog poop, so I begin the unenviable task of scooping it up (how I fought to get this dog!).

It begins to rain. Hard. I will not desert my task, so I tell Peyton to go in the kitchen and watch me from the window. He can’t open the door. He’s now crying because he’s frustrated and getting all wet. I go to open the door. I can’t open it either because Peyton has locked it sometime earlier in the morning.. I dash around to the garage door, let Peyton and the dog in. The dog is dirty again so I towel him off, towel the baby off and towel myself off. I fuss at Peyton about not touching locks, not opening the garage door, not letting dog out, etc. and I order him to watch TV (I know I’ve got Mother of the Year sewn up).

I enter the front hall on the way to the computer to finish what I started about an hour ago. I see dog food crumbs on the hall floor. I go the powder room to get tissue to wipe up the crumbs. What do I see but a giant mass of black ants covering something on the floor beside the toilet. Curse, curse, curse. I run to the garage to get the ant spray. By now, I feel like my scalp is about to explode off the top of my head, so I completely coat the entire bathroom with ant spray just to show them who’s boss. Now the house stinks like ant spray and I have to clean the entire bathroom. It’s now 9:30 a.m.

I still have to go to the vets office to pick up more ant food, oops, I mean dog food and I have to take the Suburban in to have the flat tire from yesterday patched. We missed last nights’ baseball practice, but thankfully, I was able to scrounge up a friend’s husband to put the spare on for me. I just hope I can lift that flat into the back of the car! . I should have asked him to put it in the back for me too while he was at it. And they say, “Oh, you don’t work? What DO you do all day? Don’t you get bored?”