DAY ONE

I woke with John this morning to see him off and make sure that he had everything. We went about our daily morning routine as if this was any other day, small talk, jokes, giggles, nothing out of the ordinary. Then came the moment he said good-bye, I walked him out to the car and in the darkness of 4:30AM, said good-bye and waved until I could no longer see his tail-lights.

As I walked back into the house, I took a deep breath and exhaled as I told myself that no matter what came my way, there was no way to change it and I would just need to handle the hand that is dealt to me every day and take it one step at a time.

I spent the wee hours of the morning, drinking or should I say savoring a cup of coffee, putting lunches together and arranging the new chore chart that the boys would be introduced to today.

As usual I woke the kids up at 6AM and started our morning routine. This day would be no different to them - evident by the meltdown that took place with Colby. All I could say was why today? Why would we jump out of the gate with this? Could we not just have a great first day, make me believe that this is going to be a walk in the park? Nope, not my kids! Reality all the way baby!

It is typical that 6:30AM is our departure time, by 6:45AM, I was irritable and just told the kids to take their school stuff out to the car and get buckled in. I then got the rest of my things together as I listened in the distance to blood curdling screams and yelling coming from my garage. I thought about running out and putting them in their place, but what the heck, I was pouring myself a third cup of coffee and there was nothing that was going to interrupt this. Not even Child Protective Services that could possibly be called by a neighbor as they listened to the constant bickering coming from my car.

By the time I got out of the house and turned to see my kids, the first thing I saw was a swollen red face of Sarah, my baby. The sad thing is, all I did was roll my eyes, not go running to her aid, but think, what now?

Did you ever wonder how a car door is attached to a child's mouth? Think about three of them at one time. As soon as my car door opened, all three of them started telling me all about how the other hurt them. As I slid into my seat and started the car, I took a deep breath and calmly, yeah right, asked them to be quiet. I looked through my rear view mirror and saw Sarah swollen and red, Max not daring to make eye contact with me and Colby sucking on all four of his fingers in the back seat. Annoyed then, laughing hysterically now, I just sunk deeper into my chair.

It took the entire trip to the daycare, thank goodness it is only about 1 mile away to find out what transpired in the back seat of Mommy's Five Hundred.

Max decided to be a true big brother and allow a loogey to slowly descend from his lips as close as possible to his sister and before he could quickly suck it back into his mouth, Sarah laid her hand on his forehead to push him away. He decided that it would be a great comeback to then slug her in the stomach as retaliation. Then Colby decided to make his presence known by licking his brother.

As I dropped the kids off at daycare, making sure Max was secure in time out, Colby knowing that licking is invading personal space and making sure Sarah was ok, I quietly slipped out of the building and headed to my office.

If the first 45 minutes of my day with my children is a preview of how the next year will transpire, it will be stressful as I am living it and by the time John is back I will have enough material to become a stand up comic.

I just keep telling myself, 'I love my children', 'I love my children', 'How much wine do I have?', 'I love my children'!