Lately I have been feeling like the most unorganized person in the world. My husband keeps telling me to make lists, but I like to be more spontaneous than that. Also, if I started making lists right after he tells me to, it would appear that I think he's right and I can't have him going around thinking he's righter than me. (Yes, I know righter is not a word but it was funnier that way.)
My poor children have been running around wearing too small clothes with dirty, uncombed hair and have outstanding lunch accounts because their mother is unfit. I can't keep up. I question myself daily if going back to work was the smartest decision I've ever made. Who actually decides that instead of trolling the internets all day eating bon-bons in their pajamas while ignoring their offspring is less fun than getting up REALLY early, rushing around like a madwoman screaming about being late while simultaneously making 4 lunches, tying 6 shoes, pulling the least dirty clothes out the over-full hamper and wrangling the children into them, and trying to make oneself look slightly less bleary-eyed and slightly more professional even though your hair is still sopping wet? I mean, really. Then I remember that I decided that. That was me. Dang it. I'm not as smart as I think I am.
I have been enjoying talking to actual people during the day though. That's a bonus. Plus I get to wear actual clothes. Sweet.
Every other week, my son goes to swim lessons at school. His group is the Sharks. Fitting, no? Every month I get the calendar of events so that I can plan in advance his day to bring snacks and his swim days. I look at the calendar closely and circle his snack and swim days. Then I carefully hang that calendar on the fridge with the other 18,000 random pieces of paper that enter my house daily. Then, THEN, I promptly forget to ever look at that calendar again. Picture a blissful Monday morning(not!) when I happen to glance at the fridge whilst gulping my first of 12 cups of coffee and see that it is my son's turn to bring 24 snacks AND drinks. Frick! Do I have 24 of anything in my pantry? Of course not, because whenever I bring snacks home, my children scarf them all down within the first 12 hours because I guess they think that if they don't eat it all immediately I will take it back to the store. That's also the exact reason why I never keep juice boxes in my house. They barely make it in the door before they are gone. Poof! I will find half-empty boxes of fermented juice sprinkled around the house for the next week, but my kids will complain that there is NOTHING for them to drink. Juice junkies--that's what they are.
Anyway, I can't send my kiddo to school with nothing. The kids in his class will surely starve because the daycare that charges me almost my entire paycheck every month does not provide snacks. So, off to Wal-Mart we go. Me, with my wet hair and him with his breakfast smeared across his face at 7:30 in the morning will argue in the snack aisle about which nut-free, grain-free, dairy-free, but fun! crackers to bring until mommy is just about to lose her schmidt. We will finally grab something that he will insist on carrying at a snail's pace all the way across the store to the one and only open register, which is of course, on the opposite side of the store from which I parked. My son will only drop the juice boxes 14 times while I hiss, "hurry up!" because the only other person in the store has a gigantic cart full of stuff and is headed to MY register. When we actually reach the register, the cashier will be new and also just have gotten to work so we will be forced to wait while she is trained on the proper way to break the coin tubes into her drawer (true story). I will pretend to be a patient person while my son gets distracted by all of the dollar toys and candy placed stragically at the counter by someone who has never had children and repeat the word "no" over and over and over until the trainee cashier is ready to ring me up. $20 and 20 minutes later we emerge from Wal-Mart, snacks in hand, only to realize that we forgot his &(^$#^% bathing suit.
Make a list, you say? Maybe, but don't tell my husband.
